Excited to share that our paper has now been published in PLOS Computational Biology! journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

The curriculum effect in visual learning: The role of readout dimensionality

Author summary Learning new skills is fundamental to humans and animals. However, a key challenge in learning is generalization: applying learned skills to new situations not encountered during traini...

journals.plos.org

Charlotte Volk@charlottevolk.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚨 New preprint alert! 🧠🤖 We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up. 🧠📈 A 🧵: tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3

1/7 Proud to share our paper, accepted as an oral at ICML '26! We highlight how Big Tech’s influence on AI R&D drives damaging outcomes, and what we as researchers can do about it. We also discuss underlying economic causes. See link for paper, and below for a brief summary arxiv.org/abs/2512.03077

1/7 Excited to share my last PhD article, just accepted to ICML 2026! In it, we (me, Alexandre Payeur, Guillaume Lajoie) used dynamical systems theory to study "local" learning in linear recurrent neural networks. See link for the paper, and thread for a brief summary. arxiv.org/abs/2606.00243

Dynamics and Representation Structure of Local Approximations to Gradient-Based Learning in Linear Recurrent Neural Networks

Biological and neuromorphic recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are subject to spatial and temporal locality constraints on the information that can plausibly be used during learning. A common strategy t...

arxiv.org

Applications are now open for our Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop which will take place July 21 - 24, 2026 at the Center for Computational Neuroscience @flatironinstitute.org Learn more and apply by April 15 at www.simonsfoundation.org/event/jrwork...

Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop

Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop on Simons Foundation

simonsfoundation.org

Here's a lovely #blueprint on a new study from our lab led by @royeyono.bsky.social. tl;dr: it implies that there may be interneurons whose role is to normalize credit assignment signals during learning. #neuroscience 🧪

Roy Eyono@royeyono.bsky.social · 5mo ago

How do neural circuits in the brain implement normalization? 🧠 In our new paper, we show that just normalizing sensory input isn't enough. Crucially, we must also normalize the error signals! 🧵👇 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2603.17676

Nature research paper: Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus go.nature.com/49mB13V

Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus - Nature

Calcium imaging of mouse hippocampal neurons while mice learn a reward-based task over several weeks provides insight into the evolution of the hippocampal reward representation during extended periods of experience.

go.nature.com

Our paper on the "Oneirogen hypothesis" is now up in its revised form on eLife! This is the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a dream-like state, which we show via modelling could explain a variety of perceptual and learning effects from such drugs. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... 🧠📈 🧪

1/7 How should feedback signals influence a network during learning? Should they first adjust synaptic weights, which then indirectly change neural activity (as in backprop.)? Or should they first adjust neural activity to guide synaptic updates (e.g., target prop.)? openreview.net/forum?id=xVI...

1/X Excited to present this preprint on multi-tasking, with @david-g-clark.bsky.social and Ashok Litwin-Kumar! Timely too, as “low-D manifold” has been trending again. (If you read thru the end, we escape Flatland and return to the glorious high-D world we deserve.) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A theory of multi-task computation and task selection

Neural activity during the performance of a stereotyped behavioral task is often described as low-dimensional, occupying only a limited region in the space of all firing-rate patterns. This region has...

biorxiv.org

Excited to share that our work ‘Simultaneous detection and estimation in olfactory sensing’ with @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social, @neurovenki.bsky.social , @cpehlevan.bsky.social, @jzv.bsky.social and @paulmasset.bsky.social has been launched! 1/7

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Simultaneous detection and estimation in olfactory sensing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.686013v1

I have open positions for graduate students in my lab. If you’re interested in joining, please apply through the Mila form. I’m particularly interested in (thread below): 1/3 🧠🤖 #MLSky

Mila - Institut québécois d'IA@mila-quebec.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Mila's annual supervision request process is now open to receive MSc and PhD applications for Fall 2026 admission! For more information, visit mila.quebec/en/prospecti...

When neurons change, but behavior doesn’t: Excitability changes driving representational drift New preprint of work with Christian Machens: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Representational drift without synaptic plasticity

Neural computations support stable behavior despite relying on many dynamically changing biological processes. One such process is representational drift (RD), in which neurons' responses change over ...

biorxiv.org

Top-down feedback is ubiquitous in the brain and computationally distinct, but rarely modeled in deep neural networks. What happens when a DNN has biologically-inspired top-down feedback? 🧠📈 Our new paper explores this: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Just a couple days until Cosyne - stop by [3-083] this Saturday and say hi! @nandahkrishna.bsky.social

Hi BlueSky fam, for my first post and to celebrate our recent paper being physically published I thought I’d do a summary thread! This has been my most favourite (and toughest) work to date. Please help share around!! www.cell.com/cell/abstrac... (Reach out if you can’t access)

How do interneurons reshape neural responses? I'm excited to present work with @eerosim.bsky.social at #NeurIPS2024 that proposes a nonlinear recurrent circuit model motivated by efficient coding theory. Poster: 4:30p on Fri, Dec 13 Paper: openreview.net/forum?id=ojL...

Why does #compneuro need new learning methods? ANN models are usually trained with Gradient Descent (GD), which violates biological realities like Dale’s law and log-normal weights. Here we describe a superior learning algorithm for comp neuro: Exponentiated Gradients (EG)! 1/12 #neuroscience 🧪

Jonathan Cornford@repromancer.bsky.social · 2y ago

Brain-like learning with exponentiated gradients www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1. Hi all: I’m here to advertise our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1..., with Fabrice Normandin, @tyrellturing.bsky.social, and @glajoie.bsky.social!

The oneirogen hypothesis: modeling the hallucinatory effects of classical psychedelics in terms of replay-dependent plasticity mechanisms

Classical psychedelics induce complex visual hallucinations in humans, generating percepts that are coherent at a low level, but which have surreal, dream-like qualities at a high level. While there a...

biorxiv.org