I've been revisiting my 2021 book How to Argue With a Racist, in light of the Cofnas situation - i didn't name him or the scientifically illiterati with who he breaks bread. But I thought these sections from the end might be of interest.
Mohamady El-Gaby
@melgaby.bsky.social
Neuroscientist curious about the mechanisms behind the mind: https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/research/mind-mechanisms
This is pretty funny tbh. The US gov wades in with its big bully boots to protect the 'academic freedom' of this scientifically illiterate weird little racist, who actively opposes the academic freedom of others, for a 1 yr postdoc on a subject he shows no track record for. Well done all concerned.
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 3d agoNathan Cofnas and the US Ambassador to Belgium say that the University of Ghent have now lifted his suspension, thanking the US government for supporting him (with threats of retaliation). The Ambassador says that Cofnas will be able to complete his one year appointment to March 2027.
⚠️PREPRINT ALERT⚠️ How can we better understand distributed brain activity across temporal and spatial scales? In this collaborative project, we combined ultra-flexible electrodes with two-photon imaging to illuminate brain-wide neural dynamics. Link: doi.org/10.21203/rs.... 1/8
@arthurpr4t.bsky.social has a new preprint with important results on a famous psychophysical law (Weber's law). It isn't, in fact, a law, because it can be broken. A more fundamental principle (efficient coding) shows when and why Weber's law holds true. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Efficient coding makes and breaks Weber's law
Weber's law is a rare quantitative regularity in psychology, yet its origins remain debated. Here we provide causal evidence that it arises from the more fundamental principle of efficient coding. Thi...
biorxiv.org
Out of curiosity I did this search for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and let’s be clear, The Telegraph went way harder on Arday than it did on people actively committing war crimes.
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 2w agoThis is the coverage of Arday **just in the Telegraph** in the UK. This is only the first four pages of results, just in one outlet.
This is what british racism looks like in 2026. Everyone makes mistakes but ethnic minority mistakes are met with lynch mobs. Beyond disproportionate. RIP Jason Arday.
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 2w agoThis is the coverage of Arday **just in the Telegraph** in the UK. This is only the first four pages of results, just in one outlet.
Great to see Ellie Spens’ model out! Interplay btwn episodic (hippo) & semantic (neocort’l) systems, in encoding, consolidatn, recall & problem solving with sequential info, as compressive retrieval-augmented generation. Inc gist-based distortion in stories & inference www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Hippocampo-neocortical interaction as compressive retrieval-augmented generation - Nature Communications
Here the authors model interactions between episodic and semantic memory as ‘retrieval-augmented generation’, explaining consolidation of structure from sequential experience, the reconstruction and d...
nature.com
Now in Science: How does the brain’s navigation system allocate its limited representational resources during behavior? We found that grid cells sweep toward locations of interest, providing a potential mechanism for allocating spatial attention in the cognitive map.🧵 science.org/doi/10.1126/...
This was a fun chat about getting to mechanisms in cognition…
Kevin Mitchell@wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 3w agoI had the pleasure of interviewing @behrenstimb.bsky.social for @thetransmitter.bsky.social, all about the goals and approaches and successes of computational neuroscience! www.thetransmitter.org/computationa...
***New preprint from the lab*** showing “Generative replay across hippocampal-neocortical circuits”. In sleep we show spiking sequences in V1 (sensory neocortex!) that represent information that has not been directly experienced www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @bndu.ox.ac.uk @ndcnoxford.bsky.social
Generative replay across hippocampal-neocortical circuits
To make flexible decisions, the brain needs to make inferences between events that were not directly experienced together. In sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events, during periods of rest and sleep, spiking ...
biorxiv.org
Our paper is out in @natmachintell.nature.com! We trained multiple RNNs to perform free recall. The best-performing ones learned a strategy akin to the memory palace technique. See thread below for more info. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
A neural network model of free recall learns multiple memory strategies - Nature Machine Intelligence
Li et al. show that recurrent neural networks optimized for free recall discover diverse, human-like memory strategies beyond classical temporal context models, with top models using an index-based me...
nature.com
Very sad to hear of Susumu’s passing. His scientific creativity and intuition were inspiring. As director of @RIKEN_CBS, he hired a remarkable group of young scientists, including me, and set us free to pursue bold ideas. news.mit.edu/2026/mit-pro...
MIT Professor Susumu Tonegawa, renowned molecular biologist and Nobel laureate, dies at 86
Susumu Tonegawa, a renowned MIT professor of biology and neuroscience and a Nobel laureate, has died at the age of 86. His discovery of how the immune system generates many different antibodies earned...
news.mit.edu
Out today on @nature.com! Connecting neural specialization, population geometry, and their functional implications across the cortical hierarchy. So grateful for this beautiful and fun collaboration with @shuqiw.bsky.social, S Muscinelli, L Paninski, and @stefanofusi.bsky.social!
Rarely categorical, highly separable representations along the cortical hierarchy - Nature
Cortical circuits prioritize diversity over categorical structure, supporting a computational regime geared towards high-dimensional, highly separable neural representations.
nature.com
If you are at #FENS2026, we have a symposium on human circuits - from single cells and synapses to intact circuit function! It's not easy to investigate how our own brain works, but we will present recent work showing that it is possible at many scales. Wednesday afternoon at 15:40 - Hall E.
It wouldn’t be FENS if there wasn’t some sort of clash - definitely check out awesome work by @aryabhomick.bsky.social in Friday morning’s poster session tracking learning dynamics of abstract task structure in the PFC as well as evidence for complex hierarchical learning in rodents!
Mohamady El-Gaby@melgaby.bsky.social · 2mo agoIf you’re still around on Friday morning I’ll be giving a talk about the latest work and ideas from our lab - alongside lots of great theory and experimental talks in the “Latent representations for smart decisions” symposium. 5/5
We’re at FENS 2026! We’re broadly interested in world and goal models in the PFC and temporal lobe. Come chat to @adamloydharris.bsky.social Mingyu Zhu and Noor AlBarazi as they present some new findings on Wednesday afternoon. #FENS2026 …🧵 1/5
Our work on goal-directed theta sweeps is out! We found two different types of theta sweeps in the rat hippocampus. During random foraging, left-right alternating sweeps dominated (Vollan, 25). However, during memory-guided navigation sweeps pointing to hidden goal locations emerged with learning.
#FENS2026 poster alert: "Combining flexible electrode recordings with two-photon imaging to investigate brain-wide network coupling" Come to our poster PS01-07AM-375 on Tuesday morning to chat with Linus Meienberg and me, how we use ultra-flexible electrodes together with optical recordings.
25 years ago, we implicated rare variants of the FOXP2 gene in a severe speech disorder. I’ve spent much time stressing that FOXP2, while interesting, is not the mythical “gene for language”. Weirdly, on occasion I also need to explain why it’s not “proof of aliens”. Full disclosure in this 🧵. 1/n 🧪
Ever wondered how the hippocampal cognitive map is read-out? @changmin-yu.bsky.social @zilong-ji.bsky.social with Jake & John, show that, during navigation, theta sweeps indicate remembered goal-directions (cf. current/next movements or perceptual targets) 1/2 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...
SWC & @gatsbyucl.bsky.social are inviting expressions of interest from early career researchers seeking to establish an independent research group in mechanistic theories of neural computation or learning via external fellowship. Please share with your networks and colleagues! Apply by 16 July.
Fellowship Sponsorship | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour & Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, are looking to sponsor early career researchers in theoretical or c...
sainsburywellcome.org
Really excited about this work with the awesome Will de Cothi & @shipleysj.bsky.social, out in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. We propose acetylcholine is an analogue of dopamine — tracking not reward prediction errors but state-transition prediction errors. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-026-01058-w
Mona Khalil, Lebanon’s most well-known sea turtle conservationist, died of her wounds today after being injured by an Israeli strike I feel sick
Megaphone News@megaphone.news · 3mo agoMona Khalil spent over 20 years protecting sea turtles on Mansouri Beach. After she was injured in an Israeli attack, activists continued her initiative at Rmeileh Beach, where they protected the first loggerhead nest of 73 eggs on Thursday. youtu.be/fbBKzK4JNRc
Why does dopamine ramp up during approach to predictable rewards? In this preprint with Luke Priestley, we explore the idea that dopamine ramps occur when reward predictions inferred using a world-model are used to train striatal cached values.
Dopamine ramps as a normative consequence of dual-process control
Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to implement a temporal difference (TD) reward prediction error (RPE) that updates cached values stored in striatum. This has been challenged by evidence that dop...
biorxiv.org
This paper is so cool that it’s finally convinced @thomasakam.bsky.social to join Bluesky
@peterdoohan.bsky.social · 3mo agoHow do brains plan actions towards goals? To get at this question we studied mice navigating complex mazes as goals changed on every trial 🧵 Work with @thomasakam.bsky.social @behrenstimb.bsky.social @kristorpjensen.bsky.social now on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Closing in two days!
Prof Rick Adams@drrickadams.bsky.social · 3mo ago📢PhD job alert! A exciting PhD project that involves using MEG and biophysical modelling to try to predict effects of a glutamatergic treatment for psychosis... plus you can develop your own side project. Join our great team! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
