Our new work on how belief states could be implemented by attractor-like dynamics in the brain -- an effort started in Starkweather et al. (2017) in collaboration with Sam Gershman, and Jay Hennig, now joined by Scott Linderman! Thank you to all collaborators!

Sandra Romero Pinto@sromeropinto.bsky.social · 2w ago

Happy to have this finally out! TL;DR: The evolution of beliefs over time can be formulated as a dynamical system, and OFC neural activity appears to implement this system with its own dynamics. These emerge without explicit supervision—when animals learn to predict value in simple Pavlovian tasks

One of my science dreams came true today in the lab 🤩

📖 New review out today in @natrevneuro.nature.com: Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition 🧠🧪 Full-text link to the paper is here: rdcu.be/9YK3mF7dYhFa

What a beautiful set of discoveries here

Jeremiah Cohen@jeremiahycohen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Happy to share the version of record of our locus coeruleus paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Prior thread on some of our discoveries in this study: bsky.app/profile/jere...

This is a joint junior faculty search across several life sciences Departments at Harvard, including my Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Please apply!

Venki Murthy@neurovenki.bsky.social · 3w ago

Faculty Job Alert 📣! The Life Sciences Departments in Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences seek to recruit a tenure-track professor whose research is at the interface of AI and life sciences, from methodological developments to AI-enabled discovery. Please spread the word!

On the cover of Science Signaling today, the final version of our initial investigation of functional differences between VTA glutamate-dopamine, nonglutamate-dopamine, and glutamate-only neurons www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Distinct properties of glutamate-dopamine, nonglutamate-dopamine, and glutamate-only ventral tegmental area neurons

Glutamate cotransmission predicts the behavioral functions and characteristics of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA.

science.org

If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Climbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellum

Neurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...

biorxiv.org

How does sleep consolidate muscle memories? New research from @mstephensonjones.bsky.social lab & @gatsbyucl.bsky.social in @natneuro.nature.com reveals that motor-skill memories are replayed in the striatum during sleep, independently of the hippocampus. www.sainsburywellcome.org/blog/muscle-...

Muscle memories: how does sleep produce consolidation? | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Sleep not only makes us feel better, but it’s vital for helping us form memories and learn new skills. For many years, neuroscientists have studied how the brain consolidates episodic memories during ...

sainsburywellcome.org

Our new paper on how mice become experts in a visual spatial attention task - after just 18 days of training! 🐭👁️🧠🔦 Lots of new findings made possible by standardized behavioral procedures and a fantastic team of 👩‍🔬👨‍🔬. Open access, all data + code posted. Check it out 👇

Cell Reports Methods@cp-cellrepmethods.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A standardized and reproducible behavioral framework to elicit multiple aspects of visual spatial attention in mice

on the 2nd day pm time at #fens2026 you think of skipping the posters & enjoying Barcelona. BUT the temptation of seeing our posters will keep you in the poster hall 😆 All new & all on frontal cortex in learning by Sandra Tan, Marko Tvrdic, Yuliia Shevchuk & @huriyeatg.bsky.social et al, No94,95,96

Awesome results from @fluketc.bsky.social @dudman.bsky.social and team, both for dopamine field and for all that train animals in tasks www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reward magnitude determines reinforcement learning efficiency

Standard animal learning studies minimize individual reward magnitudes to maximize the repetitions of reinforced behaviors. We investigated how reward magnitude influences initial learning across five...

science.org

big fomo for @dopaminesociety.bsky.social next week but excited that @jessicamoretti.bsky.social and @matthiasfritsche.bsky.social from the lab attending to present what we have been up to

Excited to share our new paper published in Nature Communications! rdcu.be/fh6ty We show that deep layers of the superior colliculus identify the salience of conditioned visual stimuli and drive dopamine responses during classical conditioning.

Very interesting stuff here

Eduardo Maristany de las Casas@maristanye.bsky.social · 5mo ago

1/10 When the going gets tough, the dendrites get going. Here is a summary on our new paper just published in @science.org on flexible learning in frontal motor cortex. With @mattlark.bsky.social 🔬. #neuroskyence #neuroscience 🔗 doi.org/10.1126/scie...

We have new a new doctor in the lab 🍾🍾🎉Congratulations @neurorussell.bsky.social for successful viva today at Oxford @oxforddpag.bsky.social

Amazing study and the coolest results (from my point of view!) is that LC norepinephrine neurons projecting to the frontal cortex encode reward prediction error

Jeremiah Cohen@jeremiahycohen.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

I am livid that after less than a day, Vance et al are back empty-handed. "Marathon" talks?? They didn't even sleep on it and try again! Many thousands of lives, the world economy and world hunger, and more, hang in the balance, and they stopped trying after less than a day?? What a rotten failure.

We’re recruiting! Exciting opportunities in our lab supported by a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award. • Postdoctoral researchers • Research assistant/PhD students Join us to study how neural circuits drive decision-making. Deadline 26/04 Learn more and Apply here: rezavallab.org

Carolina Rezaval@crezaval.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Deeply honoured to have been awarded a Wellcome Trust Discovery Award to study how competition is encoded in the brain. This builds on the discoveries of outstanding past/present lab members. Grateful to mentors/collaborators/colleagues for their support. We are recruiting postdocs/PhD students.

100+ year old Pasteur Institute in Tehran was a premier infectious disease research institute and vaccine manufacturer It is a reason Iranian kids like me born in 60s had access to measles vaccines soon after they were developed in the west

Athena Akrami@athenaakrami.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Pasteur Institute of Iran, founded in 1920 now destroyed by Israel-US bombing😞 It played a pivotal role in developing vaccines & public health services, for over a century, now gone😞 A few days ago a pharmaceutical plant was bombed, accused of making anesthetic fentanyl #War #PasteurInstituteIran

bombs falling to plant democracy! , but instead fertilising despair and taking lives… writing right after hearing that a few days ago bombs landed some 50 m from my father’s office ….

Reza Shadmehr@rezashadmehr.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Today I received a note from a grad student who lives in Tehran. Her note gives you firsthand experience of what it’s like to live in a city that is being bombed, and what it’s like to be young and feel despair about your future. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/03/hope...

Actually the view from my office just got more interesting, as the official celebrations of the 200th anniversary now include a pirate projection saying "Free Palestine". Regardless of opinions, may UCL enjoy 200 more years of freedom of speech.

RA job alert. We are looking for a fearless experimentalist to join our experiments on cortical neuromodulators during visually guided learning, lead by @michael-lynn.bsky.social . Opportunity to learn 2p imaging, design and conduct experiments. RT plz. Apply here: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

There is a new Postdoctoral Research Associate position available in my group, to work on computational analysis of human neuroimaging workflows to develop robust, interpretable and scalable biomarkers of cognitive brain health. Closing date 10th Feb 2026. www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Description

Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

imperial.ac.uk

Out today in Neurophotonics, we show that cross-talk between the imaging laser and opsin in all-optical experiments can affect response dynamics beyond what has been accounted for. Imaging conditions subthreshold for evoking spikes can accelerate opsin desensitization: doi.org/10.1117/1.NP...

We're running a 5th edition of the always-exciting UCL Summer School on Consciousness and Metacognition this year, 8th-10th July 2026 in London. Accommodation and travel expenses are covered. For more information and how to apply, check out metacoglab.org/summer-schoo...

This one from @kepecslab.bsky.social and Song Hu lab is awesome: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint. We show that in addition to reward prediction errors (RPEs), dorsal striatal dopamine signals encode sensory prediction errors (SPEs), the difference between sensory prior & observed stimulus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Dorsal striatal dopamine integrates sensory and reward prediction errors to guide perceptual decisions

Perceptual decisions are shaped by expectations about sensory stimuli and rewards, learned through sensory and reward prediction errors. Dopamine is known to convey reward prediction errors that shape...

biorxiv.org

We tend to think of neurons as either excitatory or inhibitory, but some neurons chemically inhibit their downstream targets while electrically exciting their neighbors. What is gained by having an inhibitory neuron excite its neighbor? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Please repost widely. @vanderhaeghenp2.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc with expertise in sensory physiology and in vivo circuit imaging/manipulation. The project centers on human-specific brain development and SYNGAP1-related disorders. Call closing soon—apply ASAP jobs.vib.be/j/119852/pos...

Postdoctoral Fellow / PhD Student in Systems Neuroscience - VIB

The Laboratory of Cortical Information Processing | Vision to Action at NERF (www.nerf.be) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow or PhD Student to work on a new research project funded by the...

jobs.vib.be