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Joao Barbosa

@jbarbosa.org

INSERM group leader @ Neuromodulation Institute and NeuroSpin (Paris) in computational neuroscience. How and why are computations enabling cognition distributed across the brain? Expect neuroscience and ML content. jbarbosa.org parisneuro.fr

1438 Posts3894 Follower958 Folgt
Jens-Bastian Eppler@j-b-eppler.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is not what I usually work on, but sometimes you get bored... 😜 But what actually IS boredom? My collaborator Johannes just put out this beautiful new preprint tackling exactly that question, from behaviour all the way to neural population codes. doi.org/10.64898/202... 1/5 🧠🧪

Boredom and the representation of information content in the neocortex

Boredom – a pervasive mental state – promotes the pursuit of novel information by assigning negative value to monotonous conditions. Yet, how the brain extracts and represents the information content of ongoing sensory experience remains poorly understood. Here, we combine behavioral assays, neurophysiological recordings and computational modeling across humans and mice to investigate how sensory information shapes boredom-related behavior. In a cross-species choice task, both humans and mice robustly avoid monotonous sources of sensory stimulation. We formalize perceived monotony using empirical entropy as a measure of information content and show that monotony avoidance scales directly with low entropy and in humans correlates with boredom experience. Human electroencephalography and mesoscopic calcium imaging in mice reveal that the recruitment of neocortical activity tracks stimulus entropy. Two-photon calcium imaging in the auditory cortex of mice further uncovers a stimulus-invariant population code for entropy, supported by neurons tuned to information content. A recurrent network model reproduced this code through an interplay of afferent depression and recurrent facilitation. Together, we demonstrate how the information content of sensory experience is represented in cortical population activity, providing a basis for boredom-related avoidance behavior. Thus, our findings link synaptic and neuronal dynamics to boredom, acting as a safeguard mechanism to ensure high information input to the brain. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. This work was supported by research grant Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft CRC1080-C05 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft SPP 2041 Project #347573108 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/Agence nationale de la recherche Project #431393205 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DIP M-BM-^SNeurobiology of ForgettingM-BM-^T (S.R.), Rhine-Main University Alliance RMU (S.R.), JST Moonshot R & D #JPMJMS2292-A1-02 (O.T.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft #512007073 SFB/TRR379 TP B02 (O.T.), BMFTR German Center for Mental Health (DZPG, grant 01EE2505C & VISIONS TRESPE 01EE2507Q) (O.T), and a fellowship of the Focus Translational Neuroscience Mainz (J.S., L.W.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

doi.org

FMI science@fmiscience.bsky.social · 6d ago

Today in @natneuro.nature.com, researchers led by @felsenberg.bsky.social report that memories can persist as silent traces, recoverable with the right reminder. But misleading cues can distort recall and create false memories—showing how remembering can rewrite the past. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

Forgotten memories can leave silent traces in the brain

A forgotten memory is not always a vanished one. FMI neuroscientists investigating the fruit fly brain found that some memories become inaccessible while leaving a silent trace behind. The right remin...

fmi.ch

John Pearson@jmxpearson.bsky.social · last wk.

**Four** positions in AI/ML for biology at @dukemedschool.bsky.social, including in Neurobiology. @scottsoderling.bsky.social and David Page are leading a tremendous initiative in Discovery AI. Wonderful colleagues, wonderful place.

AI/ML for Biology - 4 tenure-track assistant professor positions - Durham, North Carolina job with Duke University - Biochemistry & Cell Biology | 12862109

Discovery AI Initiative and Departments of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Integrative Immunobiology, Neurobiology, and Pharmacology & Cancer Biology

nature.com

Darius Valevicius@dariusliutas.bsky.social · 3w ago

I can't find the source, but I remember a quote from a paper from the 70s or some such that went something like "the purpose of conferences is for morale, and to feel like something is happening when nothing is happening".

hakwan lau@hakwan.bsky.social · 3w ago

is this controversial? -- people don't go to conferences to learn things. they do but that's not the primary purpose. nor is the primary purpose 'networking'. they go there, for *moral support*. becoz science is not a victory march. to endure it, we need conferences.

Joao Barbosa@jbarbosa.org · 3w ago

Great paper! could someone please point me to a paper or two that has seriously pushed for ideas that would be in contradiction with this decoder? I know @benhayden.bsky.social, @pessoabrain.bsky.social et al have done that on bluesky but an actual research paper? Feels like a total straw man

Shahab Bakhtiari@shahabbakht.bsky.social · 3w ago

Important paper: "The response profiles of neurons in different brain regions differ enough that a decoder can determine the region to which a particular neuron belongs." Sounds like the perfect antidote to the "everything is everywhere" view.

Dan Goodman@neural-reckoning.org · 3w ago

So asking "is the brain a computer" is not helpful. Symbolic computation is sometimes a useful way of thinking about a brain feature, and sometimes not. And that's it. We really can stop talking about it now. I'm going to regret this. I know it.

Harsha Gurnani@harshag.bsky.social · 4w ago

Super excited about joining the interdisciplinary research environment at CDS! Plus more fun thinking about how to guide students through concepts, approaches, and scientific philosophies in working with complex data... and sticking around NYU/NYC for longer :)

NYU Center for Data Science@nyudatascience.bsky.social · 4w ago

How does the brain adapt to new situations on the fly, when AI still can't? Incoming CDS Faculty Fellow Harsha Gurnani (@harshag.bsky.social) studies the dynamics behind that flexibility: how brains reuse old skills instead of rebuilding from scratch. nyudatascience.medium.com/meet-the-fel...

Nikolas Karalis@nikolaskaralis.bsky.social · 4w ago

It's happening! Come today (Thursday morning) to posters 611 - 617 to learn how your favorite neuromodulator (or all of them) combine to shape behavior, neural activity, and computation!

Nikolas Karalis@nikolaskaralis.bsky.social · last mo.

Getting ready for #FENS2026 at Barcelona? Our lab will be there with 7 posters and a symposium. fens2026.neuronaldynamics.eu Come by our posters 611 - 617 on Thursday morning to learn the latest about neuromodulators and how they organize neural activity and computation. @fens.org

Blake Richards@tyrellturing.bsky.social · 4w ago

2/2) I think a lot of the reactions to this study have been either needlessly dismissive or overly excited. This study does not address any Qs about subjective experience in LLMs! Even if we buy the conclusions, it just says there is a smaller subspace in the latents that models can report on.

Roxana Zeraati@roxana-zeraati.bsky.social · 4w ago

Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.

Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience

This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...

nature.com

Kirsten Adam@kirsten-adam.bsky.social · last mo.

As of today, I'm officially an Assistant Professor at the University of California Davis! I'm so excited to be joining the Department of Psychology and the Center for Mind and Brain, and I'm looking forward to getting settled into the new lab and embarking on a lot of fun new research this year

A short blonde woman stands next to a concrete sign that says UC Davis. The background of the photos shows a view of a lawn, tree, and building on the UC Davis campus.