New paper! Deep-learning-assisted simulation of a cortical circuit: integrating anatomy, physiology and function biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor… It comes with a new major model release from @AllenInstitute. Find models and code here: github.com/AllenInstitute/bi… 🧵 1/13

I think alot of the replies here have selection bias from people who have had a pretty smooth road, or already have the maturity to handle it. For many, a PhD is an arduous journey with a steep learning curve and maturation journey; alot of bad habits have to be reliquished; alot of noise has to be filtered; a purity of purpose has to be learned. Moreover, doing a PhD "for the purpose of being one of the superstars who make a breakthrough" is probably a really unhealthy goal because of the 20000 papers submitted to each of the large conferences each year, a tiny tiny fraction can be called that, if that. Research is inherently open ended and by its very nature, past success is not necessarily predictive of future success, especially in the "breakthrough" category. During a PhD one often watches friends of the same age get a faster start in life, accumulate wealth at a faster pace, etc etc which in maslow's hierarchy of needs, means putting alot of human needs on hold, resulting in the tremendously high depression rates among students. The ONLY reason, the sole reason, I think one should contemplate seeking a PhD, is love of the nature and natural curiosity above all else 🌹. I think that all other reasons that one might think to go in with (fame? immortality? wealth? stardom?) will rapidly fade as the difficulty of feeling Nature's pulse sets in. All these other reasons probably have quicker and better paths to success, anyway, like going on tiktok or elevator pitching a VC.

an absolute shame. @harvard cutting PhD admissions "The Organismic and Evolutionary Biology department will shrink its class size by roughly 75 percent to three new Ph.D. students [...] Molecular and Cellular Biology will reduce its figure to four new students, and Chemistry and Chemical Biology will go down to four or five admits" thecrimson.com/article/2025/…

Excited to share our new preprint from my graduate work, a collaboration between the @brownlaboratory and @Sriram_S433 and others in the Kolodkin lab! Our study investigated how patterned excitatory connectivity is generated in the development of the cerebral cortex (1/6)

How does the brain work? Scientists are closer to the answer with the largest wiring diagram and functional map of a mammalian brain to date. 🧵

Pitt to pause PhD admissions, following Vanderbilt and USC, because of uncertainty of NIH funding to academic universities. Who will teach and train US scientists for pharma and biotech? Should we import them from countries that do? wesa.fm/health-science-tech/…

Preprint is finally out! Mapping whole brain oligo-myelin patterns across individual mice, sex, strain, aging, and injury (biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…) Check out some cool videos as well! vimeo.com/1003497448?ts=0&sh… And play around with the beautiful raw data! tinyurl.com/5n87z2xs

Scott Imbrie, who has two implants in the motor regions of his cerebral cortex, gives a tribute to Sliman Bensmaia at #SimCo24.

So excited for the #CCN2024 GAC on Tuesday! Is V1 a Cognitive Map? Link to proposal: sites.google.com/ccneuro.org… 🧵of talks below!

1/3 Colleagues & I at @IntlBrainLab repeated a behav/ephys experiment 121 times in 10 labs to test reproducibility. Vulnerabilities emerged. Probe targeting was sometimes off (despite standardized instruments) & common single-neuron analyses were variable. thetransmitter.org/electroph…

My four Nicod lectures (from December 2023) are now online here: Lecture I: Modularity of Mind and Brain and the Case of the FFA savoirs.ens.fr/expose.php?id… Lecture II: What Other Mental Functions get Their Own Private Patch of Real Estate in the Brain ? savoirs.ens.fr/expose.php?id… ...

There's a bug in Kilosort 🚨 The @IntlBrainLab found spike holes: every 2s no spikes are detected for 7 ms. Although it's a small fraction of data (0.3%), it's good to be aware of this issue. Also consider rerunning spike sorting after it's been resolved. github.com/MouseLand/Kilosor…

Love the new owners already

What is the nature of sensory prediction error signals in neocortex and the circuit-mechanisms underlying them? Genuinely thrilled to see this epic effort from Shohei Furutachi in my and @TFlogel's lab out on @biorxivpreprint: biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor…

“It’s game time! Treating injuries in elite athletes” is out now. Ahead of #SuperBowlLVII , we spoke to experienced @HopkinsOrtho orthopedic surgeon and @HopkinsSports head team physician Dr. Andrew Cosgarea on treating sports injuries in star athletes. anchor.fm/scimore

I am looking for a research technician for my lab starting March 2023!

After building on years of work from MILA, DeepMind, ourselves, and others, our AIs are now expert-human-level in no-press Diplomacy and Hanabi! Unlike Go and Dota, Diplomacy/Hanabi involve *cooperation*, which breaks naive RL. arxiv.org/abs/2210.05492 arxiv.org/abs/2210.05125 🧵👇

Tomorrow we drop our latest episode to kick off the new academic year! We speak to environmental activist @DanteSwinton about air #pollution and trash incinerators in Baltimore, while @LieberInstitute Dr. Hao Yang Tan talks about the impact of pollution on our #mentalhealth.

Happy birthday to our esteemed neuroscientist Brenda Milner! 🎁She is celebrating 104 years old today. To learn more about her distinguished life and career, visit: mcgill.ca/neuro/about/brenda…

‘Bridging the big (data) gap: levels of control in small- and large-scale cognitive neuroscience research’ cell.com/trends/neuroscience… @TrendsNeuro ‘Opinion’ by @RoniTibon @Linda_Geerligs & Karen Campbell @karampbell