📢Maths in the Brain Workshop 2026 in Melbourne.
We will bring together researchers across Australia with a shared interest in understanding the brain from a quantitative perspective.
This year's keynote is delivered by Professor James Cole, University College London.
1/4🧵
Mathematical proof assistants like Coq and Lean were made possible by a correspondence that established the equivalence between proofs and computation. Read the explainer from our archive:
🧵 How do psychedelics shape brain activity?
Our new paper presents the largest neuroimaging study of psilocybin to date—revealing how context structures psychedelic brain states.
Title: Psychedelics Align Brain Activity with Context
Paper: lnkd.in/gt-kMR6d
A thread 🧵👇 1/n
ATTENTION (PLEASE SHARE)
If anyone has or knows of any positions that might be appropriate for the NIH staff members who were terminated, please post the information in this thread.
There are lots of talented and accomplished people who may be looking for new opportunities.
Meanwhile, Australia still leaves in limbo many incoming students (holding PhD offers and funding!) for months on end, esp. from Iran. Waiting a year, two, with no updates — unnecessary and cruel.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/phd-vis... via John Ross (Times Higher Ed). @davidpocock.bsky.social
So exciting to see MacaqueNet out into the world! 🤩
Learn about our global community & database centralizing standardized affiliative & agonistic data from 61 populations across 14 macaque species: doi/10.1111/1365...
Explore >600 networks & request data: macaquenet.github.io/database/
1/ Excited to share our latest preprint! 🚀 We introduce Spectral Normative Modeling (SNM)—a novel approach leveraging graph spectral methods to advance brain charting towards personalized precision medicine.
🔗 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Nice best paper talk on methods for fitting time series data to stochastic models by Brock Sherlock at UNSW. Paper 👉 doi.org/10.1007/s115.... @smbmathbiology.bsky.social at #Anziam2025 MBSIG workshop.
Also! The symposium on higher-order interactions, chaired by @manishsaggar.bsky.social and @lordgrilo.bsky.social, was accepted.
Absolute must-attend if you're at OHBM 2025, with talks from: @popeme.bsky.social, @andreasantoro.bsky.social, and @novelli-leo.bsky.social!
@ohbmofficial.bsky.social
Some thoughts on the confusion and anxiety created by the current freeze on communications, hiring, grant reviews, travel, etc at NIH (gift link):
Pre-print 🧠🧪
Is mechanism modeling dead in the AI era?
ML models trained to predict neural activity fail to generalize to unseen opto perturbations. But mechanism modeling can solve that.
We say "perturbation testing" is the right way to evaluate mechanisms in data-constrained models
1/8
Panel at #NeurIPS2024, as part of #NeuroAI workshop, with Karl Friston and Yoshua Bengio, moderated by myself.
Recordings available after the event: tinyurl.com/39a9xy8x
Workshop: tinyurl.com/5aysw5v3
Moein Khajehnejad @foroughhas.bsky.social @noorsajidt.bsky.social @tonyzador.bsky.social
🚨New updates for NotebookLM, including:
- A new, optimized interface
- The ability to engage with AI hosts during an Audio Overview🤩🤯
- NotebookLM Plus, for universities & businesses
Check it out → goo.gle/4guNYt4
It will be a fun end of the year!
Just published🔈
"Structurally informed models of directed brain connectivity"
Read: rdcu.be/d3dC4
We review how structural connectivity constrains directed connectivity models 🧠
Lead by @matthewdgreaves.bsky.social w/ @novelli-leo.bsky.social, @sinamansourl.bsky.social and Andrew Zalesky
DAY 6: Advent of Comp Neuro 🎄🤖🧠🧪
This nifty theory predicts how intrinsic timescales depend on network structure, neuron properties and input. A nontrivial task!
“Microscopic theory of intrinsic timescales in spiking neural networks”
tinyurl.com/43esfrrk
By @avm.bsky.social and @albada.bsky.social
Good news everyone! A new version of graph-tool is just out! @graph-tool.skewed.de
graph-tool.skewed.de
Graph-tool is a comprehensive and efficient Python library to work with networks, including structural, dynamical, and statistical algorithms, as well as visualization. 1/N
#networkscience
Since I've been here for a while… here are some useful features on Bluesky that you might not have discovered yet! 🧵
Academic writing — get utilized to it.
Bing Brunton showed a beautiful presentation on reverse engineering bodies + minds: virtual animals in virtual environments controlling virtual bodies. An exciting research program that she also presented for the NeuroAI NMA course: youtu.be/EN89LVVnLbs?... 4/
Examples of fractals resulting from neural network training in a variety of experimental configurations
Have you ever done a dense grid search over neural network hyperparameters? Like a *really dense* grid search? It looks like this (!!). Blueish colors correspond to hyperparameters for which training converges, redish to those for which training diverges.
Even better, a video: vimeo.com/903855670
6. Random features you didn't know about.
If your post includes a link, you can wait for the preview to show up, and remove the url, and the link stays there!
This also saves characters from the character limit.
Episode 5 of our podcast is out! We discuss how complicated it is to assess intelligence, whether in humans, animals, or machines.
With two fantastic guests: Comparative Psychologist Erica Cartmill and Computer Scientist Ellie Pavlick.
Check it out!
complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/nat...
Do you teach neuroscience? Here’s a list I’ve compiled of mostly free online neuroscience textbooks, simulations and datasets you can use for your course! If I’m missing something, let me know so I can add it! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Our Centre's seminar series - public talks and conversations, hosted by my friend and colleague Craig Hassed
Starter packs are genius, but I was surprised there wasn't a list of them for people to find.
So I built it:
blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...
The website monitors the packs being shared and adds the ones it finds to the database.
Missed your stater pack? Message me and I'll get it added.
Great PhD opportunity here
I'm just learning about Starter Packs. Here's a great place to find them! blueskydirectory.com
We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how:
docs.bsky.app/docs/advance...
#AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics
