| Website | http://roxanazeraati.org/ |
| Scholar | https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=gTp8sX8AAAAJ&hl=en |
| Github | https://github.com/roxana-zeraati |
Today is the "Women and Girls in science" day, so let me recommend some colleagues I usually enjoy reading. Here in Mastodon, you have
- For computational neuroscience @roxana_zeraati is a must-follow.
- @mcotsar has always nice Archeology content.
- If you want to improve your dataviz skills, just read @nrennie
- General neuroscience and philosophy, @NicoleCRust
- Ethics and misuses of AI, @ana_valdi
And, instead of reposting this thing, (1) go repost them and (2) make your own list!
#MathsWeek2023 book recommendations for everyone to read and enjoy the range in maths, from cats and NASA, to literature, to the madness of logic and back to NASA again:
•Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics by Gregory J. Gbur
•Once Upon a Prime by Sarah Hart
•Logicomix by Doxiadis and Papadimitirou
•Reaching for the Moon by Katherine Johnson
New preprint! "Tracking neurons across days with high-density probes", by @EnnyvBeest, Celian Bimbard and team.
Chronic #Neuropixels probes can record from the same neurons for days, but require new approaches for tracking neurons.
Enny and Celian developed UnitMatch, which operates after spike sorting and relies only on the neurons' average spike waveform.
They then validated the results with functional responses – which were remarkably stable!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.12.562040v1 (1/2)
"However, computing with attractors generally limits the use of complex dynamical networks. Once the attractor (or its vicinity) is reached, the “dynamical” nature of the brain becomes irrelevant."
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2011.00024/full
In the last few decades several concepts of dynamical systems theory (DST) have guided psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists to rethink about sensory motor behavior and embodied cognition. A critical step in the progress of DST application to the brain (supported by modern methods of brain imaging and multi-electrode recording techniques) has been the transfer of its initial success in motor behavior to mental function, i.e., perception, emotion, and cognition. Open questions from research in genetics, ecology, brain sciences, etc., have changed DST itself and lead to the discovery of a new dynamical phenomenon, i.e., reproducible and robust transients that are at the same time sensitive to informational signals. The goal of this review is to describe a new mathematical framework – heteroclinic sequential dynamics – to understand self-organized activity in the brain that can explain certain aspects of robust itinerant behavior. Specifically, we discuss a hierarchy of coarse-grain models of mental dynamics in the form of kinetic equations of modes. These modes compete for resources at three levels: (i) within the same modality, (ii) among different modalities from the same family (like perception), and (iii) among modalities from different families (like emotion and cognition). The analysis of the conditions for robustness, i.e., the structural stability of transient (sequential) dynamics, give us the possibility to explain phenomena like the finite capac...
Humans can make abstract choices independent of motor actions, but in lab tasks, choices are typically reported with an associated action. This study shows that the human brain encodes perceptual choices independently of the specific motor actions used to implement them, even if such abstraction is not required by the task context.
New paper!
In vivo ephaptic coupling allows memory network formation
https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhad251
Neurons are like members of a huge orchestra. They need to coordinate to play a song. Ephaptic coupling spreads influences at the speed of light.
The ability to define and target cell types right now is absolutely incredible -- neuroscientists are answering questions that were totally intractable a decade ago.
I spoke with several leaders in this effort in my latest for Simons Global Brain!
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2022/11/22/crossing-the-divide-defining-neurons-by-both-genes-and-function/
Big thanks to @ehud for pointing me to this book on Scientific Imagination (eg metaphors and the realism of models). It's exactly what I was looking for.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-scientific-imagination-9780190212308
The imagination, our capacity to entertain thoughts and ideas in the mind's eye, is indispensable in science as elsewhere in human life. Indeed, common scientific practices such as modeling and idealization rely on the imagination to construct simplified, stylized scenarios essential for scientific understanding.
Addictive substances may impair cognitive flexibility. Here the authors show that in rodents, increased activity of striatal direct-pathway medium spiny neurons (dMSNs) in response to cocaine inhibits cholinergic interneurons (CINs), reducing cognitive flexibility.
Victor Buendía
John Butler
Matteo Carandini
Yohan John 🤖🧠
Earl K. Miller
Shervin Safavi
Ashley Juavinett
Nicole Rust
Alicia Izquierdo, Ph.D.