Getting ready for the big debate here in NJ-12! Sunday at 7:00pm, streaming on the New Jersey Globe, Facebook Live, Twitter/X, and YouTube: newjerseyglobe.com/congress/dem...
Roozbeh Kiani
@roozbehkiani.bsky.social
Neuroscientist studying how the brain makes decisions, solves problems, and navigates complex reasoning. Curious about the mysteries of the mind and always ready to connect over science, ideas, and discovery.
Academic friends, It's beyond heartbreaking to watch what's unfolding in Iran & the region. A few of us drafted an open letter calling for protection of civilians & of educational, research, medical & cultural institutions. Please read & sign if you agree: sites.google.com/view/protect... #IranWar
Protect Academic Life in Iran
We, the undersigned academics and researchers from around the world, express our profound concern over recent military strikes on Iran, the retaliatory responses, and the reported impact on civilian l...
sites.google.com
The US/Iran war and escalating rhetoric are already disrupting civilian life and academic infrastructure across the region. We drafted a letter in defense of academic life, and to mobilize concrete support for affected students, scholars, and collaborations. Please check Sepi’s message and sign.
Protect Academic Life in Iran
We, the undersigned academics and researchers from around the world, express our profound concern over recent military strikes on Iran, the retaliatory responses, and the reported impact on civilian l...
sites.google.com
When universities and research institutions become military targets, academics cannot remain silent. I co-initiated an open letter calling for global academic solidarity and support for affected students and scholars. Please share. to read and sign: sites.google.com/view/protect...
Applications are open for the Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop which will take place July 21-24, 2026 at the Center for Computational Neuroscience, @flatironinstitute.org Travel, lodging, and meals will be covered for accepted participants. Application deadline: April 15, 2026
Virtual rally, tomorrow. Tell your friends, come on out!
Calling all neuroscientists: please come to a virtual Rally For Neuroscience! Saturday 11am ET/8am Pacific. I'm hosting it not just as a candidate but as a scientist. Learn how it's happening & how we can defend ourselves! Sign up: note this is a *free* event! secure.actblue.com/donate/samzo...
Applications are now open for our Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop which will take place July 21 - 24, 2026 at the Center for Computational Neuroscience @flatironinstitute.org Learn more and apply by April 15 at www.simonsfoundation.org/event/jrwork...
Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop
Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop on Simons Foundation
simonsfoundation.org
New preprint: our lab’s first Alzheimer’s paper! “Loss of neuronal population organization links pathology to behavior in a model of Alzheimer's disease” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪🧵1/
To accommodate applicants and PIs attending Cosyne, we’ve extended the MCN application deadline to Sunday, Mar 22. Please repost.
Join us in Woods Hole for Methods in Computational Neuroscience (MCN) at MBL (July 24–Aug 21). Four weeks of computational + systems neuroscience, hands-on training, and close interaction with an exceptional faculty.
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...
Hopeless in Tehran
Essays on neuroscience
rezashadmehr.blogspot.com
Join us in Woods Hole for Methods in Computational Neuroscience (MCN) at MBL (July 24–Aug 21). Four weeks of computational + systems neuroscience, hands-on training, and close interaction with an exceptional faculty.
The deadline for applying to the Methods in Computational Neuroscience summer course at MBL in Woods Hole is approaching (March 16)! An exciting course with an amazing lineup of lecturers in a beautiful location www.mbl.edu/education/ad...
Can electrical microstimulation be used to steer cortical population activity on- and off-manifold? Our new preprint says yes — using data-driven control in macaque PFC. Joint work with @gbarzon.bsky.social, Anandita De, Isaac Moran, Conner Carnahan, and Luca Mazzucato.
1/ New preprint out! “Control of cortical population activity with patterned microstimulation.” We show that brief training with multi-electrode stimulation pulses is enough to steer prefrontal population activity along desired trajectories in awake macaques. tinyurl.com/3d6kv26w
Can't make it to #NJ12? Wherever you are, donate to my campaign!!. Wherever you are in the country, if you want to fight gerrymandering, defend science, and rebuild democracy, I'm on your side! Donate: secure.actblue.com/donate/sam4nj
In the first systematic, multi-node recordings of spiking activity across the human basal ganglia–thalamic circuit, @dennislondon.bsky.social explains how this pathway integrates cognitive variables with ongoing action. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
The basal ganglia output is often framed as a motor gate: corticostriatal circuits select an action, then GPi/SNr-thalamus helps release it. In humans, we find this same pathway carries cognitive variables embedded in movement signals—and even produces learning-relevant signals after feedback. 1/10
We are very excited to announce that our new preprint with Saleh Esteki, @stefanofusi.bsky.social, and @roozbehkiani.bsky.social is now available on biorxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... We investigated how reward context is learned, represented, and updated to bias decisions. Thread 🧵👇! 1/13
biorxiv.org
At #NeurIPS2025! 🎉 Excited to present Conditionally Linear Dynamical Systems (CLDS). We leverage the dependence of neural dynamics on task covariates to yield an interpretable, flexible model of dynamics. Come meet and check it out! 📍: Poster #2209, Hall C,D,E on Thu Dec 4, 11 am–2 pm, PST. 🧵/6
So far this year at #NIH, I had to - cancel a visiting speaker I was hosting - cancel a distinguished lecture I was giving at a midwest university - cancel another seminar visit to talk about our work - cancel my trip to the Society for Neuroscience meeting - now cancel my trip to NeurIPS 1/
Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵
Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs
The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...
science.org
Looking for a PhD program where you can study vision from different perspectives (computer vision, visual neuroscience, visual perception, image processing)? Consider applying to NYU! visionscience.com/pipermail/vi...
[visionlist] Doctoral studies in Visual Sciences at NYU
visionscience.com
Consider submitting your recent work on stimulus synthesis and selection to our special issue at JOV!
Submissions now accepted for a special issue of the Journal of Vision: Choose your stimuli wisely: Advances in stimulus synthesis and selection Submission deadline: Dec 12, 2025 Futher details: jov.arvojournals.org/ss/synthetic...
My message to Trump’s NIH Director? No one in America wants us to do LESS cancer research. No one is asking Trump to make it harder to cure Alzheimer's disease. Yet Trump is cutting all of this NOW and demanding an $18 BILLION cut to NIH next year. Not on my watch.
Elusive Cures is my first book. I was surprised by how much was required to make it happen (beyond writing it). If you're curious, here's the who and how behind it ... 🧵 (My amazing publisher: @princetonupress.bsky.social)
I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking
How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.
unbreaking.org
David Hocker’s paper about compositional pretraining for RNNs that efficiently produces animal-like behaviors! Modeling cognitive tasks in RNNs requires thinking about latent abilities that animals bring to an experiment. Funded by NIH/CRCNS. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Compositional pretraining improves computational efficiency and matches animal behaviour on complex tasks - Nature Machine Intelligence
Hocker et al. demonstrate a method for training recurrent neural networks, which they call ‘kindergarten curriculum learning’, involving pretraining on simple cognitive tasks to improve learning effic...
nature.com
Congratulations to Adrienne Fairhall, Prof. of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Adjunct Prof. of Applied Mathematics, and Adjunct Prof. of Physics, who has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences! 🍾 🎉
30 days to the launch of Elusive Cures! I learned so much writing it, and I want to share it. For the next 30 days, I'll post brain & mind research breakthroughs on odd days, and highlight unmet needs on even ones. #ElusiveCures30 First breakthrough: /1 press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
Elusive Cures
A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses
press.princeton.edu
Engraving on the exterior of the United States Department of Justice headquarters.
All NIH study sections canceled indefinitely. This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities.
Again, recommending this soup kitchen in Gaza that is doing *so much*. Donations are even tax deductible in USA. Please consider helping gofund.me/608947b8
Donate to Hot meals 4 Starved Palestinian Kids in north Gaza, organized by Hani Almadhoun
Do you know what it’s like to watch your family starve? I do. My… Hani Almadhoun needs your support for Hot meals 4 Starved Palestinian Kids in north Gaza
gofund.me
Werner Herzog muses on mysteries of the brain in "Theater of Thought." Auteur director's latest documentary runs the gamut from BCIs and how we construct reality to whether fish can dream. arstechnica.com/culture/2024...
Werner Herzog muses on mysteries of the brain in Theater of Thought
Auteur director’s latest documentary runs the gamut from BCIs and how we construct reality to whether fish can dream.
arstechnica.com