Scientists have long debated whether neurons are jacks of all trades or tend to specialize in one thing. Now @stefanofusi.bsky.social, @lorenzoposani.com & Liam Paninski present new evidence in @nature.com shedding light on how the brain performs complex tasks. tinyurl.com/yj3ew8en

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

Our paper "Rarely categorical, highly separable representations along the cortical hierarchy" is now out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41... In this paper, we studied whether the brain is well-organized and interpretable, both globally and locally. (See thread below.)

📂 We're sharing code of a classic from the lab! A biologically inspired RL model from Frémaux, Sprekeler @sprekeler.bsky.social & Gerstner (2013, PLOS CB): a continuous-time actor–critic using spiking neurons that learn to navigate a water maze

Specialized neurons are the exception, not the rule, in cortex. The brain is complex, go figure! www.thetransmitter.org/neural-codin... #neuroscience

Most neurons in mouse cortex defy functional categories

The majority of cells in the cerebral cortex are unspecialized, according to an unpublished analysis—and scientists need to take care in naming neurons, the researchers warn.

thetransmitter.org

We always see that 1) neural responses are very diverse 2) the shattering dimensionality is as high as it can be. Now also in an extensive analysis of the IBL dataset. Wonderful collaboration with @lorenzoposani.com, Shuqi Wang, Samuel Muscinelli, Liam Paninski. Many new analyses in this new version

Lorenzo Posani@lorenzoposani.com · 2y ago

Long-overdue thread on our latest work using the IBL data to reveal the shared organizational principles of the neural code in the cortex. A systematic analysis of categoricality 🧱 and dimensionality 📐 of the neural code across 40+ cortical regions. doi.org/10.1101/202... 👇 1/n

Talk on "High-dimensional neuronal activity from low-dimensional latent dynamics" at NeurIPS 2025 with @haydari.bsky.social now accessible online 🎥: neurips.cc/virtual/2025... Please reach out if you have any comments or ideas for follow-up work!

Our new preprint 👀

Matteo Carandini@carandinilab.net · last yr.

The firing of neural populations is high-dim even if their subthreshold activity is low-dim! This work by @bio-emergent.bsky.social and @haydari.bsky.social shows how, with a solvable model, a data analysis technique, and data from mouse visual cortex: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...