Simple input–output dependencies explain neuronal activity www.nature.com/articles/s41... #physics

Simple input–output dependencies explain neuronal activity - Nature Physics

In neurons, the mapping from inputs to output involves complex biophysical processes. Despite this complexity, it is now shown that simple artificial models explain a large fraction of the variability...

nature.com

Congratulations to 1-@shreyasaxena.bsky.social @chriswlynn.bsky.social, @kuanawanda.bsky.social 2-@d-zen.bsky.social, Julien Berro, @sathishkrishna.bsky.social, & 3-@dlevenstein.bsky.social, @tristan-geiller.bsky.social for their Kavli Innovative Teams Awards [4/4] medicine.yale.edu/kavli/news-a...

Applications are now open for WTI's Graduate Certificate in Brains, Minds, and Machines! Open to first-year Yale PhD students. Learn more: wti.yale.edu/initiatives/graduate-certificate 📅 Deadline: April 16, 2026 🚀 Cohort begins Fall 2026 #KnowTogether

Sign up to volunteer at the DBIO table at APS! It's a great way to meet other biophysicists (and also get a free t-shirt)

APS Division of Biological Physics@aps-dbio.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Looking for a way to support DBIO (and meet other biophysicists) at the APS Global Physics Summit? Sign up to volunteer at the DBIO membership table. All volunteers get a DBIO t-shirt 👕 Sign up here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Looking for a way to support DBIO (and meet other biophysicists) at the APS Global Physics Summit? Sign up to volunteer at the DBIO membership table. All volunteers get a DBIO t-shirt 👕 Sign up here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Volunteer DBIO tablers needed (PLEASE INCLUDE EMAIL AND APS ID)

docs.google.com

Correlations in the human brain tell us which regions are functionally "connected". But how many of these correlations do we really need to predict brain activity? Answer: "very few", thus making the human brain highly compressible 🧵👇 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Quantifying the compressibility of the human brain | PNAS

In the human brain, the allowed patterns of activity are constrained by the correlations between brain regions. Yet it remains unclear which correl...

pnas.org

APS DBIO invites you to submit a striking image representing diverse research in biological physics. The winning images will be advertised at the 2026 Global Physics Summit, and the winners will receive free DBIO t-shirts! Submit here by January 16: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Got to meet one of my heroes today. John Hopfield broke down barriers for generations of physicists: “Physics at its best is a point of view for understanding the totality of man and the Universe.”

First paper from the lab! 🤠 Understanding the statistical physics of the brain is hard (in part) because statistical physics is hard. We find a class of max ent models that can be solved EXACTLY in very large neural systems Led by the awesome David Carcamo www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Statistical physics of large-scale neural activity with loops | PNAS

As experiments advance to record from tens of thousands of neurons, statistical physics provides a framework for understanding how collective activ...

pnas.org

WTI's Inspiring Speaker Series continues this week with Timothy Lillicrap, “Model-based reinforcement language for reasoning in games and beyond” 10.9.25 | 10 – 11:15a 100 College St, Workshop 1116 🔗 wti.yale.edu/event/2025-10/inspiring-speaker-tim-lillicrap All Yale community members are welcome.

Adding loops into a genome is a complicated and costly business for a cell. New findings suggest that it may be the reason that ancient life became complex. @philipcball.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/loops-of-dna...

Loops of DNA Equipped Ancient Life To Become Complex | Quanta Magazine

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been an early evolutionary development.

quantamagazine.org

I thought we would never work on gamma oscillations again, but I was wrong 🤷‍♀️ So happy to see this work out in @nature.com! This was a truly epic project spearheaded by @q-perrenoud.bsky.social. Gamma isn't always an oscillation, but it's critical for sensory encoding and perceptual performance 🧠

Quentin Perrenoud@q-perrenoud.bsky.social · last yr.

(1/8) My latest study is out in @nature.com ! Kudos to coauthors especially @jess-cardin.bsky.social and to @kavliatyale.bsky.social and @wutsaiyale.bsky.social for support. We find that gamma power in mouse visual cortex is caused by brief events of visual processing www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(1/8) My latest study is out in @nature.com ! Kudos to coauthors especially @jess-cardin.bsky.social and to @kavliatyale.bsky.social and @wutsaiyale.bsky.social for support. We find that gamma power in mouse visual cortex is caused by brief events of visual processing www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Flexible perceptual encoding by discrete gamma events - Nature

Using a new analytical method for tracking gamma band events in mouse visual cortex, flexible encoding of visual information according to behavioural context is shown.

nature.com

Final week to apply for the 2026 SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships If you're an early-career scholar and passionate about collaborative, transdisciplinary research beyond traditional departments, this is the postdoc fellowship for you. Deadline: Oct 1, 2025 Apply: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

Biological physics bridges the complex phenomena of life with minimal quantitative models from physics. How should we teach biophysics? Join us for an online panel on "Teaching and Learning Biological Physics" (Sep 17, 5:30pm ET). Registration:

Have a striking image of your biophysics research? 🐭🐒🐛🪰🦠Submit it to the DBIO Image Contest! The winning images will be advertised on shirts and other media at the 2026 Global Physics Summit. Submit here:

Interested in organizing a session at the 2026 APS Global Physics Summit? It's pain free and a great way to get involved in organizing! We're taking nominations for invited DBIO Symposia through August 24:

Organize a DBIO Invited Symposium at the 2026 Global Physics Summit

We are seeking nominations for 'Invited Symposium' to enhance the DBIO program for the upcoming Global Physics Summit. An invited symposium consists of five 36-minute invited talks related to a topic ...

docs.google.com

It was an honor to write this, but also great fun. A chance to look back at the classics, and think about the path forward. #Physics is a beautiful human endeavor. journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...

Emergence of Brains

This review traces how ideas from statistical physics evolved into foundational models of neural computation, shaping modern AI and culminating in the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics.

journals.aps.org

Republicans want states to cut food aid errors. Their bill could do the opposite: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/u...

Republicans Want States to Cut Food Aid Errors. Their Bill Could Do the Opposite.

nytimes.com

Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature

Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...

doi.org

Interested in coarse-graining, irreversibility, or neural activity in the hippocampus? If so, check out our new preprint exploring how maximizing the irreversibility preserved from microscopic dynamics leads to interpretable coarse-grained descriptions of biological systems!

Christopher W. Lynn@chriswlynn.bsky.social · last yr.

Biology consumes energy at the microscale to power functions across all scales: From proteins and cells to entire populations of animals. Led by @qiweiyu.bsky.social‬ and @mleighton.bsky.social‬, we study how coarse-graining can help to bridge this gap 👇🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2506.01909

Living systems operate nonequilibrium processes across many scales in space and time. Is there a model-free way to bridge the descriptions at different levels of coarse-graining? Here we find that preserving the evidence of time-reversal symmetry breaking works remarkably well!

Christopher W. Lynn@chriswlynn.bsky.social · last yr.

Biology consumes energy at the microscale to power functions across all scales: From proteins and cells to entire populations of animals. Led by @qiweiyu.bsky.social‬ and @mleighton.bsky.social‬, we study how coarse-graining can help to bridge this gap 👇🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2506.01909

Biology consumes energy at the microscale to power functions across all scales: From proteins and cells to entire populations of animals. Led by @qiweiyu.bsky.social‬ and @mleighton.bsky.social‬, we study how coarse-graining can help to bridge this gap 👇🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2506.01909

Science is built on public trust, federal funding, and academic freedom. All of these are currently being eroded, but what can we do? Join us for an online panel on "Being a Voice for Science" (June 11, 2-3pm ET). Info and registration: engage.aps.org/dbio/resourc...

Apply or nominate for DBIO awards by June 2! Awards include: APS Fellowship Max Delbrück Prize in Biological Physics Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics

When constructing models of the world, we aim for good compressions: models that are as accurate as possible with as few details as possible. But which details should we include in a model? An answer lies in the "minimax entropy" principle 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2505.01607

What is the connection between information theory and statistical physics? And how can this connection help us understand the brain? Final installment with the Simplifying Complexity podcast ( @bhcomplexity.bsky.social) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

What can physics tell us about the brain? - Part 2

Podcast Episode · Simplifying Complexity · 05/12/2025 · 31m

podcasts.apple.com

Statistical physics and information theory may seem daunting, but with a little insight they can become intuitive and are actually deeply related. A fun chat on the Simplifying Complexity podcast (@bhcomplexity.bsky.social) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

What can physics tell us about the brain? - Part 1

Podcast Episode · Simplifying Complexity · 04/28/2025 · 35m

podcasts.apple.com

Hear Christopher Lynn from Yale on the latest episode of #SimplifyingComplexity. How can we use the ideas of complexity and network science to better understand the brain? Apple: buff.ly/3VTjG9I Spotify: buff.ly/3WaR9MA 🧪⚛️ #complex #complexity #ComplexSystems #ComplexityScience

Our understanding of neural computation -- both in the brain and artificial networks -- is founded on an assumption: That neurons fire in response to a linear sum of inputs We systematically test this assumption 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2504.08637