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Casey Schneider-Mizell

@csdashm.com

Assistant Investigator at Allen Institute for Brain Science. Formerly Janelia, Universität Zürich, and U Mich Physics. Building bottom-up insight into the brain from synaptic resolution connectomics and making computational tools to help you do that too.

149 Posts630 Follower622 Folgt
Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · last wk.

Rand Paul--who doesn't believe in evolution--holding a hearing of Dr. Fauci--a retired, life-long public servant-- while we are *actively* in the midst of SEVERAL disease outbreaks due to unnecessary public health cuts and corporate lobbying shows exactly how unserious Republicans are.

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · last wk.

Not coincidentally in a period where VC and billionaires are poaching researchers to do connectomics in private, for (in my view) tenuous connections to building AI products.

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · last wk.

Building a "moonshot infrastructure" to map connections in mammalian brains features among the recommendations from the White House report on U.S. scientific priorities released earlier this week. Neuroscientists weigh in. By @sarahthau.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/policy/neuro...

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 3w ago

I am impressed that I can describe a half-remembered neuroscience paper to Claude, getting a few details wrong and with no authors mentioned, and so far it is 2/2 at both finding the right paper and correcting my recollection.

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · last mo.

I'm enjoying the heck out of the World Cup this year, in no small part because every game is happening during my waking hours. But a surprise bonus is how nice it is that every stadium has been stripped of its stupid corporate sponsor name for a few weeks.

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · last mo.

The glass fish as model organism seems really cool, but the exclusivity is bizarre to me for so many reasons and a downer to see the promised model of overlapping 15 year topics with take an ironically non-transparent left turn.

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · last mo.

HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus will close two of its programs dedicated to rodent work, @thetransmitter.bsky.social has learned. #neuroskyence By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ex...

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 2mo ago

My hot take is that not only should we have additional congressional districts, but there should also be psuedodistricts based on things other than geography. Age ranges, gender, income ranges. Each person should have several representatives who each represent different facets of people.

Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Buttigieg: We sit in a in a country that's got the wrong number of people on the Supreme Court, possibly the wrong number of representatives in the House of Representatives. And by the way, when you consider the disenfranchisement of the people of DC, we have the wrong number of states in the US

John Tuthill@tuthill.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Heartbreaking to hear Sean Eddy (@cryptogenomicon.bsky.social) talk about how arbitrary cuts to his lab's NIH funding have decimated his lab Sean's lab has built computational tools that enable so much important biology research also quotes by @jeremymberg.bsky.social www.npr.org/2026/05/11/n...

Some researchers say restored federal funding is too little, too late

The Trump administration restored some of the billions of dollars previously frozen or withheld from research institutions and agencies. Some researchers say it's too late to save their work.

npr.org

Ann Leckie@annleckie.com · 4mo ago

Seeing discussion elsewhere about whether The Rich should be able to access public services for free even tho they're rich, and like, why are we so focused on whether people "deserve" things?

Michael D. Green, PhD@michaeldgreen.phd · 5mo ago

Below is the response to my question. The funny part of his response is that my research needed a control arm. My study actually did have a control arm (about 80% of the sample never reported discrimination). So the answer itself makes me even more confused.

Michael Green 50:10 My name is Michael Green. I recently finished my PhD in Population Health Sciences at Duke University, and I'm a recipient of an F99/K00, award from the National Institute on Aging. That program is designed to support early career scientists with their PhD and into a postdoc. I'm a black man in his late 20s who come from a family where a lot of people stopped going to their doctor for preventative care because they felt like they weren't being listened to. By the time they came back, it was often too late. My grant focused on studying how patient reported discrimination in healthcare settings is associated with cardiovascular and cognitive health outcomes. It was peer reviewed score competitively and awarded in August of 2024. In July 2025 NIH told me my grant needed to be renegotiated to remove what they called DEl activities. They gave me a week to rewrite 70 pages of work. I asked for specifics on what was flagged, and I received none. So I moved the word black from my grant and references to evidence on why black adults report feeling mistreated in healthcare settings. I didn't change my scientific approach at all, just the language. I didn't have a learning moment from the process, because I still don't know what a DEl activity is. The context of my grant, no one told me. It's now late February. I'm unemployed. I have no health insurance. I haven't received a paycheck since I graduated in December 2025, and out of the 69 recipients of this award at NIA, I'm the only one who has ever had to change the title of their grant beyond punctuation and spelling. Brinda Adhikari 51:42 Okay, so Jay, what would you say to Michael Green in that situation? Jay Bhattacharya 51:47 I'd say that he didn't take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn't take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn't know this grant specifically, but, like, I'll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a gra…Jay Bhattacharya 51:47 I'd say that he didn't take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn't take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn't know this grant specifically, but, like, I'll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a grant where it has as a premise, something that, in principle, couldn't have a control group. And so does bad science. So I, you know, I do again- Brinda Adhikari 52:09 So what would have made us better? Jay Bhattacharya 52:11 Just okay for let me just finish Brinda. So I think if, if I say that, I provisionally, because, again, I've not read his grant so, but based on that 90 second snippet, he had the opportunity to be more specific about his hypotheses, make them actually scientific, give them give make arguments for control groups. We gave him that opportunity, and he didn't take it. That's what I'd say. Brinda Adhikari 52:35 Let me ask you, you know, is it worthwhile? Because I know that one of the things you have talked a lot about is improving health outcomes. Do you believe that there is scientific merit to studying the role that discrimination plays in health outcomes? Jay Bhattacharya 52:56 What do you mean by discrimination? Brinda Adhikari 52:58 That if a- that when a patient goes to a doctor, and the doctor has, you know, is, is treating black patients differently than other patients, that that can lead to poor health outcomes, and that's worthwhile to study. Jay Bhattacharya 53:11 So Brinda, so you, you said earlier that there that minorities may have different health, you know, biology or other things, doctors ought to take that into account, right? Tom W. Johnson -- WSITY 53:23 Yeah, wait, Brinda Adhikari 53:24 Wait, wait, I guess what I'm saying is, Are are you denying that- Jay Bhattacharya 53:29 I'm not denying, don't put words in my mouth Brinda Brinda Adhikari 53:31 I'm asking. I'm just asking a question. Are you denying that black Americans face dis…Jay Bhattacharya 53:29 I'm not denying, don't put words in my mouth Brinda Brinda Adhikari 53:31| I'm asking. I'm just asking a question. Are you denying that black Americans face discrimination at higher rates when they're in a medical system. Jay Bhattacharya 53:41 What do you mean by discrimination? Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:44 So for example, that, let's say, you know, they they, somebody goes in and they have pain. Jay Bhattacharya 53:49 Mark, are you saying that doctors are racist? Is the hypothesis that doctors are racist? Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:52 I'm not saying that doctors are racist. I'm saying that- Jay Bhattacharya 53:54 We're saying is the hypothesis that you're putting forward the doctors are racist? Be specific about the hypothisis. Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:59 Yeah let's be specific. His hypothesis, if you the study-Jay Bhattacharya 54:02 I mean, we don't know his hypothesis- Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:04 Well, just in general, the hypothesis is, we just want to understand what factors are associated with poor health outcomes. For example, is that a legitimate hypothesis? Jay Bhattacharya 54:16 That's vague, but yeah, I want to know why people have bad health outcomes. We should definitely that's something we interested in studying, but Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:22 that's a research question. Jay Bhattacharya 54:23 That's a that's a vague research question. I want something specific. Okay, here's some specific, conceptual right? Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:29 Here's something specific. Okay, you go to the doctor, and we've heard this that, you know, black women aren't really given the same attention as, you know, say, non black women in terms of pain scores. Or, you know, sometimesBild
Michael D. Green, PhD@michaeldgreen.phd · 5mo ago

I had to renegotiate my F99/K00 award twice in 6 months, and on both occasions I asked what specifically “DEI activities” means. I didn’t get clear answers, so I was hopeful the person that directive came from could specify (the NIH Director). I asked the on @whyshoulditrustyou.bsky.social podcast

Colin Carlson@colincarlson.bsky.social · 5mo ago

In what world is it even helpful to treat this guy like he's not a vicious, churning, petty, malignant, Internet-rotted psychopath

Michael Green 50:10 My name is Michael Green. I recently finished my PhD in Population Health Sciences at Duke University, and I’m a recipient of an F99/K00, award from the National Institute on Aging. That program is designed to support early career scientists with their PhD and into a postdoc. I’m a black man in his late 20s who come from a family where a lot of people stopped going to their doctor for preventative care because they felt like they weren’t being listened to. By the time they came back, it was often too late. My grant focused on studying how patient reported discrimination in healthcare settings is associated with cardiovascular and cognitive health outcomes. It was peer reviewed score competitively and awarded in August of 2024. In July 2025 NIH told me my grant needed to be renegotiated to remove what they called DEI activities. They gave me a week to rewrite 70 pages of work. I asked for specifics on what was flagged, and I received none. So I moved the word black from my grant and references to evidence on why black adults report feeling mistreated in healthcare settings. I didn’t change my scientific approach at all, just the language. I didn’t have a learning moment from the process, because I still don’t know what a DEI activity is. The context of my grant, no one told me. It’s now late February. I’m unemployed. I have no health insurance. I haven’t received a paycheck since I graduated in December 2025, and out of the 69 recipients of this award at NIA, I’m the only one who has ever had to change the title of their grant beyond punctuation and spelling.Brinda Adhikari 51:42 Okay, so Jay, what would you say to Michael Green in that situation? Jay Bhattacharya 51:47 I’d say that he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn’t take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn’t know this grant specifically, but, like, I’ll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a grant where it has as a premise, something that, in principle, couldn’t have a control group. And so does bad science. So I, you know, I do again- Brinda Adhikari 52:09 So what would have made us better? Jay Bhattacharya 52:11 Just okay for let me just finish Brinda. So I think if, if I say that, I provisionally, because, again, I’ve not read his grant so, but based on that 90 second snippet, he had the opportunity to be more specific about his hypotheses, make them actually scientific, give them give make arguments for control groups. We gave him that opportunity, and he didn’t take it. That’s what I’d say.
Michael D. Green, PhD@michaeldgreen.phd · 5mo ago

I had to renegotiate my F99/K00 award twice in 6 months, and on both occasions I asked what specifically “DEI activities” means. I didn’t get clear answers, so I was hopeful the person that directive came from could specify (the NIH Director). I asked the on @whyshoulditrustyou.bsky.social podcast

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 5mo ago

This seems important when thinking about all of the people (especially academics) who stayed in Epstein's orbit. Not that all would agree in the details per se, but that they were not repulsed by deeply held misogyny, expressed in so many different ways

Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · 5mo ago

Epstein responds in the affirmative, insisting "no really smart women---none." Schank, in turn, admits that his "very best Phd student was female," but laments that she "decided to quit being a professor," adding "that is the point; no matter how smart, she wanted to be liked or some such crap."

To: Jeevacation[jeevacation@gmail.com] From: roger schank Sent: Mon 1/4/2010 12:53:33 PM Subject: Re: there is a simpler explanation about women and intelligence wrong; one; my very best PhD student was female; smartest woman I ever knew; she has decided to quit being a professor and is now an accupuncturist; that is the point; no matter how smart, she wanted to be liked or some such crap; also she failed to be brilliant when I made her leave Yale; she needed a man in order to be smart; they all do roger schank http://www.rogerschank.com/ On Jan 4, 2010, at 7:27 AM, Jeevacation wrote: > It's the tail of distribution , no really smart women ---none > Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 4, 2010, at 7:15 AM, roger schank • t > wrote: » intelligence comes about in part from real focus (goal-directed >> behavior); (this is why you have the absent minded professor » caricature) >> it is a rare woman who is not first and foremost focussed on what >> others are thinking and feeling about her >> >> hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why >> another woman hates you or why you dont own a kelly bag
Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 6mo ago

From @bdpedigo.bsky.social: a super efficient, highly reliable, and very generalizable method for mesh structure classification, applied here to spine detection across basically every synapse onto a cell in the MICRoNS dataset.

Mesh analysis pipeline showing feature extraction and spine classification.
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A quantitative census of millions of postsynaptic structures in a large electron microscopy volume of mouse visual cortex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.19.706834v1

Mark Histed@markhisted.org · 6mo ago

There are lessons from WaPo’s destruction for science too. Public funding (via NIH, NSF &c) built in the US a science superpower in large part b/c of democratic values: agencies are accountable to the public through Congress, not controlled by whims of a billionaire. Autocratic control…

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

I personally do not think some rich man should be able to buy an institution like this like a toy and then break it when he doesn’t want to play with it anymore. bsky.app/profile/benm...

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 6mo ago

I would love to organize a conference bringing together neuroscientists, video game developers, and VFX artists. Visualization, spatial methods, understanding of body mechanics, they all have different perspectives on some similar problems.

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 6mo ago

The last year has been a real lesson in what Orwell meant. So much energy goes into obfuscating and downplaying basic facts, since to say them clearly makes the stupidity and cruelty black and white. The second ICE murder seems to have finally broken through that a little bit.

Divya Sitaraman@dsitaraman.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Please apply. Amazing opportunity to dive into connectomics datasets for research, educational initiatives, outreach and whatever else your heart desires. Feb 2nd deadline.

allen institute@alleninstitute.org · 7mo ago

Teach neuroscience to undergraduates? Learn how to incorporate our connectomics data into your courses! 🧠 "Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience" 🗓️ July 23-24 🛫 Travel funds available ⏳ Apply by Feb. 2: https://bit.ly/3LAfOdy #neuroskyence

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 7mo ago

Back in 2010, I moved to Zürich with two suitcases. I knew no one there, but was tremendously lucky in that the other postdoc in my group at the time was this fellow named Mark. Within the first day or two, he invited me out to watch a World Cup game at one of the many outdoor bars there.

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 8mo ago

Connectomics has a great presence here, with several instructors from our team! Apply if you want hands on training and feedback on working with cortical connectomics (and whatever else we might have available by then...)!

allen institute@alleninstitute.org · 8mo ago

Applications are open for our Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain in the San Juan Islands! 🧠💻 Perfect for PhD students and postdocs interested in developing their computational neuroscience skillsets. More info: https://alleninstitute.org/events/summer-workshop-on-the-dynamic-brain-2026/

Casey Schneider-Mizell@csdashm.com · 10mo ago

The thing I love about No Kings as a theme and as practice is it cuts to the heart of it: this admin is a nonstop flood of the most unamerican bullshit and to wave the American flag is to protest.

Davi Bock@dddavi.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I love this piece! It shows the many ways a connectome can be put to use, AND the many complementary modalities that are needed, beyond the connectome, to answer real questions. And it makes me feel good about having helped to generate the thing. :)

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 10mo ago

To celebrate the first anniversary of the release of FlyWire, we asked nine neuroscientists to share how they are using connectome data in their research and what they hope is in store for the future of fly connectomics. By @franciscorr25.bsky.social #neuroskyence bit.ly/3Wx5nt3