Our latest profile is here! Dr. Lea Duncker (@leaduncker.bsky.social) uses statistical and theoretical approaches to study the neural basis of flexible behavior. Follow the link below to learn more! #StoriesOfWiN #WomenInNeuroscience www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

Dr. Lea Duncker — Stories of WiN

uses statistical and theoretical approaches to study the neural basis of flexible behavior

storiesofwin.org

What does synapse position buy a neuron? We trained a dendritic network to place its own synapses on a covariance task. It clustered correlated inputs onto shared branches, and shuffling that placement destroyed performance while every weight stayed intact. Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2607.24503 🧵-->

Synaptic clustering emerges from learning and supports covariance discrimination

Functional synapse clusters (FSCs) are synapses with correlated presynaptic activity that are colocalized on the same neuronal dendritic branch. FSCs have been observed after learning in cortical and ...

arxiv.org

📣New paper! How does the sleeping brain help us to integrate new experiences while managing memories from the past? For his PhD work, @sabbaspoor.bsky.social recorded hippocampal ensembles in freely moving monkeys and found something unexpected. 🧵1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🧠📈👩‍🔬#OpenAccess

Experience reorganizes content-specific memory traces in macaques - Nature Neuroscience

In macaques, old memories, relative to new ones, are supported by more stable and interconnected cell assemblies. New-biased and old-biased assemblies reactivate during overnight sleep and can sometim...

nature.com

I've loved watching this project develop over the last few years and I'm so excited to see @jacob-a-parker.bsky.social share it with the world! Highly recommended to anyone thinking about human behavior or interested in decision making/inference. #compneurosky #neuroskyence

Jake Parker@jacob-a-parker.bsky.social · last wk.

(New results!) Human inference behavior varies widely across individuals and tasks. Using the information bottleneck framework, we show that two distinct axes capture a substantial amount of individual variability across two classic inference tasks. Thread below 1/

Excited to share our review in @cp-neuron.bsky.social with @lauriebayet.bsky.social and @mickbonner.bsky.social! We describe how implementing principles from child development can advance the mechanistic plausibility and capacities of AI models We packed A LOT into this review, here's a quick 🧵

Neuron@cp-neuron.bsky.social · 2w ago

Out today! Our (w/ @annaschapiro.bsky.social) review of the alignment between the C-HORSE model and the hippocampal structure learning literature. We find strong congruence with the model's key principles and propose several avenues for future investigation!

Evidence for complementary learning systems within the hippocampus

Abstract. Decades of research have established the hippocampus as central to episodic memory, but growing evidence suggests that it also contributes to str

royalsocietypublishing.org

Now out at PNAS - congratulations to Ramanujan Srinath and the team! Ram's ability and willingness to connect all these data, models, and ideas has changed my thinking/interpretation of many findings. I suspect I will keep learning from this study for a long time. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The structure of correlated variability reflects task-relevant information in sensory neurons | PNAS

Shared trial-to-trial variability across sensory neurons is reliably reduced when perceptual performance improves, yet this variability is low dime...

pnas.org

Marlene Cohen@marlenecohen.bsky.social · 12mo ago

One of the joys of being a scientist is the ability to think about a problem for a long time. Our new preprint solves a mystery that has been bugging me since I was a graduate student (which was, ahem, a while ago). 🧪🧠🧵1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Do people solve hard problems by first building a mental model, then searching for the best solution? With @gershbrain.bsky.social, our new manuscript suggests a different route: people often start by retrieving cached solutions, and scaffold representations around them. osf.io/preprints/ps...

To me, this is bigger than Alzheimer's disease. Neuronal population activity sits between biology and behavior. If we understand that level well enough, systems neuroscience can do more than explain behavior. It can diagnose, track progression, and maybe even identify treatment targets. 9/

I have always believed that ideas from basic systems neuroscience could eventually help people. But for years that felt more like hope than reality. But look! This is one of the most personally satisfying papers my lab has produced because we’re getting there. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪🧵 1/

New reviewed preprint from @elife.bsky.social! Led by Han Zhang, we tested monkeys on 10+ object concept classification tasks and compared their behavior to humans and deep networks. Monkeys learned diverse categorization rules fast... elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

A huge congrats to @simonbohn.bsky.social for leading the charge on this substantial update to our paper exploring how visual cortex and medial temporal lobe contribute to the transformation from seeing to remembering. 🧠🟦 🧠💻

Nicole Rust@nicolecrust.bsky.social · last mo.

Our major conceptual and technical update on findings that describe a new medial temporal lobe (MTL) computation, now posted. Kudos to Simon Bohn for listening to community feedback, thinking hard, and solidifying what these clear differences between brain regions imply. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Our new preprint is out!! The human brain runs on ~20 watts. Computers and modern AI systems require vastly higher energy. This gap raises a fundamental question: how does the brain compute so efficiently? In our new study, we take a critical step toward measuring and understanding this directly 1/3

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · last mo.

Learning Shapes the Energy Cost of Neural Tasks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735889v1

A must read for anyone interested in hippocampal ripples from an amazing team! 🧠🟦

Liz Siefert@lizsiefert.bsky.social · last mo.

New preprint! We show low arousal states promote hippocampal ripple genesis in sleep and wake. This bridges rodent work, where ripples predominate during sleep, with human studies reporting ripples during active behavior, identifying low arousal as a common mechanism www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our new paper is out this week in Nature Neuroscience! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We built a BCI that works with the brain's natural geometry — and we found that people could learn to play a video game with their brains in <1 hr of training. This efficiency is groundbreaking & here's why:

Human learning of noninvasive brain–computer interfaces via manifold geometry - Nature Neuroscience

Busch et al. use nonlinear neural manifolds to help humans gain rapid control over a noninvasive brain–computer interface, allowing them to learn how to play a video game with real-time fMRI neurofeed...

nature.com

Congratulations to fantastic postdoc Ramanujan Srinath and former star tech Martyna Czarnik on their new paper on the neural basis of flexible generalization in Nature Communications today! 🥳 Stable readout of visual representations mediates flexible generalization www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It is bittersweet to share the last post I will write for @pennneuroknow.bsky.social. It has been a privilege to work with our writers over the past several years and to explore topics from dinosaur brains to dementia. If you don't already, follow their page for updates on new posts!

Penn NeuroKnow 🧠@pennneuroknow.bsky.social · last mo.

Dementia is associated with physical changes in the brain yet not everyone with these changes experiences symptoms. Find out how some scientists believe an active mind can prevent dementia symptoms in this week's post by @catrinahacker.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/y8v2u2dc #PsychSciSky #SciComm 🧠🟦 🧪

New work on the effects of psychedelics on hierarchical cortical propagations out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Counter to our expectations, psychedelics attenuated bottom-up propagations into the Default Mode Network across substances and species. Thread below:

Do animals perceive time differently from humans? Science chats with @singhal.bsky.social—a researcher whose team is using “timescapes” to understand how nonhumans experience the world. https://scim.ag/4xFs4wM

Do animals perceive time differently from humans?

Science chats with a researcher whose team is using “timescapes” to understand how nonhumans experience the world

science.org

Neuroscientist here, who has talked about the US losing science ground to other countries: The biggest problem for generating future cures for brain diseases is the ongoing utter destruction of US basic neuroscience. It’s not about regulation.

Semafor@semafor.com · 2mo ago

China’s beating the US in neuroscience: “There is a very real possibility that without significant regulatory reform, if you’re a wealthy American, in 10 years, the only place you’ll be able to get your state-of-the-art cancer care is in Shanghai,” said Max Hodak, former president of Neuralink.

Excited to share our new review in Trends in Neuroscience with Gouki Okazawa @gouki-okazawa.bsky.social : "The 'neat' and 'messy' in task-dependent neural geometry and computation" where we reviewed what we know about the 'task-manager' in the brain. A thread 👇

#NGG is proud to present our next Thesis Defense given by @catrinahacker.bsky.social of the @nicolecrust.bsky.social Lab! Please join us in person or virtually (DM us for the link) on 6/2. Best of luck, Catrina! #PhAlmostDone 🥳

New review with Cheng Xue at U Chicago @cxue.bsky.social in Trends Neurosci@cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social! We discuss the neural geometry of task-dependent computation: disentangled encoding, RNN modeling, switch cost, etc. www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

The ‘neat’ and ‘messy’ in task-dependent neural geometry and computation

To solve diverse real-world tasks, the brain must flexibly switch between task rules and adjust computations. Recent advances in analyzing neural data and modeling neural networks have revealed their ...

cell.com

The research that led to this miracle drug started more than five decades (!) ago. Basic science research has massive payoffs but they are often very long-term. As a society, we invest in basic research for our kids and grandkids.

Tamara Caspary@tamaragenes.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“The drug that kept me alive for my children was built on a foundation of public investment. Taxpayers funded the research and the clinical trials. This country made a long bet on science, and I’m alive because it paid off.” www.ms.now/opinion/canc...

It’s very fun to analyze other people’s data for your favorite model and theory, but data reuse actually takes a huge amount of effort. We tested if current agentic AI can help with data reuse. Conclusion: it definitely can, but requires careful human supervision. #AIforScience #compneuro #neuroAI

Kristin Branson @kristinmbranson.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New preprint with @lingqiz.bsky.social: Neurodata Without Boredom: Benchmarking Agentic AI for Data Reuse arxiv.org/abs/2605.12808 1/10

New preprint with @lingqiz.bsky.social: Neurodata Without Boredom: Benchmarking Agentic AI for Data Reuse arxiv.org/abs/2605.12808 1/10

Interesting! doi.org/10.1242/dmm.... "Debates about animal research & alternatives are often framed as a contest between old and new approaches. This framing is both misleading and counterproductive. In practice, modern biomedical research is increasingly characterised by methodological pluralism"

Why in vivo models of disease remain indispensable

Summary: The call to arms for alternatives to model organisms of disease will fail without ongoing integration with – and validation against – complex animal models and support from the animal modelli...

doi.org

New paper from the lab! "Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus - Nature

In the hippocampus, complex processing of sensory stimuli occurs even in the unconscious state.

nature.com

My paper with @mikearcaro.bsky.social exploring the organization of the visual system in newborn infants is now out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social !

Neuron@cp-neuron.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Today on a special Earth Day episode of the pod, three environmental experts share stories about times when environmental action succeeded in saving the planet—and explain why this can be done again

Are you feeling hopeless about the environment? Listen to this

This Earth Day three environmental experts share stories about times when environmental action succeeded in saving the planet—and explain why this can be done again

scientificamerican.com