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Emerson F. Harkin @efharkin_

Computational neuroscience post-doc trying to figure out serotonin | he/him

Joined October 2017
  • Tweets 370
  • Following 250
  • Followers 198
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Emerson F. Harkin@efharkin_
21 Sep 2023
What do you get when you combine RL and predictive coding? The in vivo activity patterns of serotonin neurons. Excited to share a new theory and analysis to back it up! doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.19.5… With @NeuroNaud and @JCBeique in collab with @grossmancooper & @JeremiahYCohen. 🧵

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Nature Portfolio
@NaturePortfolio
13 Aug 2025
A study in @NatureComms identifies a neural circuit in mice that transmits cool sensation from the skin to the brain, revealing a dedicated pathway for detecting innocuous cool temperatures. go.nature.com/4mnPMY4
Fig. 1: Identification of cool-sensitive Calb1Trhr neurons in the SDH.

ALT Fig. 1: Identification of cool-sensitive Calb1Trhr neurons in the SDH.
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Guido Meijer@guido_meijer
5 Aug 2025
🚨Pre-print alert🚨 We stimulated serotonin while doing large-scale Neuropixel recordings across the mouse brain. We found widespread modulation of neural activity, but no effect on the choices of the mouse🐭 How is this possible? Strap in! (1/9) 👇🧵 doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.01.6…

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After living in Germany for a year, this article made me laugh out loud. The director of my research institute here once told me that in a slow year, he physically signs ~1200 documents. cbc.ca/radio/sunday/electron…

Digital contracts are the norm today. Is there still power in a written signature? | CBC Radio

These days, it's far more common for most of us to sign our names on a touch screen, or to simply click a box on an online form, than to sign your name with a pen on paper.

cbc.ca
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
monosov_lab@MonosovLab
5 May 2025
At JHU, our team will work on the circuit / algorithmic basis of intelligence & cognition, with attention to their malfunction in disease. We are looking for new team members with experience in circuit neuroscience, biology, or machine intelligence. Please DM if u are interested.
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Ahmed El Hady
@zamakany
27 Apr 2025
If you are around in Berlin May 13th , come attend my talk at The Bernstein Center for computational neuroscience lecture hall May 13th at 4 pm . All details here : sfb1315.de/events/integratio… Thank you @liviadehoz and @SFB1315 for the invitation .
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Dopamine in the tail of the striatum facilitates avoidance in threat–reward conflicts nature.com/articles/s41593-0…

Dopamine in the tail of the striatum facilitates avoidance in threat–reward conflicts

Nature Neuroscience - During foraging with threat–reward conflicts in mice, dopamine modulates two competing neuron types in the striatum for flexible threat coping, from initial threat...

nature.com
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Richard Naud@NeuroNaud
2 Apr 2025
I'm always impressed when I read an article about work I was involved in that summarizes better than what I feel capable of : brainpost.co/weekly-brainpos…

Cracking the Serotonin Code: How Your Brain Predicts Future Rewards — BrainPost | Easy-to-read...

Post by Rachel Sharp The takeaway Serotonin neurons signal a prospective code for value – a prediction of near-future rewards that explains why these neurons respond to both rewards and punishments....

brainpost.co
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Richard Naud@NeuroNaud
28 Mar 2025
What are serotonin neurons trying to tell the brain? Our work on the question has been so much fun (@JCBeique , @JermiahYCohen, @grossmancooper ). Check out @efharkin_ 's exciting paper biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

Serotonin predictively encodes value

The in vivo responses of dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) serotonin neurons to emotionally-salient stimuli are a puzzle. Existing theories centred on reward, surprise, or uncertainty individually account...

biorxiv.org
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What makes serotonin neurons tick? Stop by #COSYNE2025 poster 1-116 on Thursday to hear about how an energy-efficient code for value explains the in vivo responses of serotonin neurons to rewards and punishments. 1/2
Teaser for COSYNE poster titled "A prospective code for value in the serotonin system".

ALT Teaser for COSYNE poster titled "A prospective code for value in the serotonin system".

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Already read the pre-print? doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.19.5… Come hear about our new re-analysis of a free reward consumption experiment from the Minmin Luo lab, and how heterogeneous discounting might fit in! 2/2
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Richard Naud@NeuroNaud
18 Feb 2025
Exciting new development for burstprop algorithms
Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering@IOPneuromorphic
17 Feb 2025
Part of iopscience.iop.org/collectio…, this paper from Michael Stuck, @XingyunWang4 & @neuronaud (@uOttawaCMM, @uOttawaBMRI) extends burst-dependent learning (Burstprop) to address more complex tasks with hundreds of neurons: iopscience.iop.org/article/1…
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Rui Ponte Costa@somnirons
2 Jan 2025
Our paper on how the cerebellum learns to drive cortical dynamics for rapid task learning, switching and consolidation is now out in @NatureComms nature.com/articles/s41467-0…

Cerebellar-driven cortical dynamics can enable task acquisition, switching and consolidation

Nature Communications - How the brain maintains a stable world model while swiftly adapting to environmental changes remains unclear. Here, the authors propose that the cerebellum drives cortical...

nature.com
Rui Ponte Costa@somnirons
15 Nov 2022
🚨New preprint (led by @JoePemberton9): Cerebellar-driven cortical dynamics enable task acquisition, switching and consolidation biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor… (1/6)
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Justin O'Hare@JustinKOHare
4 Dec 2024
The Dendrites GRC/S is a consistently fantastic meeting - highly recommend!
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Timothy O'Leary@Timothy0Leary
17 Dec 2024
Apropos of never ending discussions about whether ANNs are "good" models of the nervous system, here is a slide I present to masters students showing a network that is found in motor control circuits *across phyla* (that's pretty ubiquitous!) I ask them to guess what it does...
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Laura Driscoll@lndriscoll
26 Nov 2024
If you want to do a postdoc w me (or generally do theory at Allen/UW) apply for this!   It’s a pretty independent postdoc position for people with a quantitative background, and pays well (104K)!    Due date is Dec 16th. Here’s the link to apply. tinyurl.com/coolgoodjob

Shanahan Foundation Fellowship | Allen Institute

Investing in the scientists who will shape the future of biology. The Shanahan Foundation Fellowship supports outstanding early-career researchers at the Allen Institute.

alleninstitute.org
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New blog post about asymmetric learning rates in reward learning. What do they do and why? Slower learning for negative RPEs causes slower learning when the environment gets worse (duh!) but also causes an optimism bias when rewards are random. 🤔 efharkin.com/blog/2024-07-as…
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
monosov_lab@MonosovLab
17 Jul 2024
Dear Colleagues! Our foraging conference is now open! Amazing lineup, and fantastic location (Lyon France). Please Join us!!! Registration is OPEN sites.google.com/view/foragi…

Foraging conference

REGISTRATIONS ARE CLOSED Poster abstract submissions are CLOSED. We expect 162 participants and 80 posters

sites.google.com
monosov_lab@MonosovLab
25 Apr 2024
Imporant News! Dr. Procyk and I put together a conference on mechanisms of Foraging, Information seeking & Exploration. Location: Lyon France; December 2024 The lineup is beyond my expectations of truly amazing scientific minds Reg opens soon sites.google.com/view/foragi…
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Christopher Rozell@crozSciTech
17 Jul 2024
Please RT. Really excited to have this released! A new code package that lets you simulate your SNN models as if it was an in vivo experiment, complete with opto stim, ephys, imaging, and closed loop control. Prototype experiments or rigorously test your models against data.
Kyle Johnsen@KyleAJohnsen
17 Jul 2024
Want to use closed-loop or all-optical methods to improve your systems neuro experiments but are lost in the sea of new methods and parameters? Check out our new preprint/Python package! w/ @crozSciTech @BaselessPursuit @vulcnethologist 🧵1/12 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
monosov_lab@MonosovLab
16 Jun 2024
New work on value related functions of the Raphe. Congrats @yang_yang_feng and Ethan Bromberg-Martin! @yang_yang_feng now continues his medical training and comp psych efforts. future of psychiatry is integration across disciplines and team work. cell.com/cell-reports/fullte…

Dorsal raphe neurons integrate the values of reward amount, delay, and uncertainty in multi-attri...

Feng et al. record DRN neurons while monkeys make multi-attribute decisions involving trade-offs between expected amount, delay, and uncertainty of reward. Many DRN neurons signal the values of...

cell.com
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Emerson F. Harkin retweeted
Kording Lab 🦖@KordingLab
31 May 2024
Good science requires play!
Ben Recht@beenwrekt
31 May 2024
The delicate balance between rules and play in research and two ideas for tilting us in a more playful direction. argmin.net/p/brain-games
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