Daniel Borek

Episode #34 in #TheoreticalNeurosciencePodcast: On balanced neural networks – with Nicolas Brunel

theoreticalneuroscience.no/thn34

Cortical neurons seem to receive about the same amount of excitation and inhibition. One of the founders of this key idea in 1990s explains.

We propose applications to physiological networks, climate, and finance

Combo of two papers on partial information rate decomposition now out!

journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

Mini thread below 👇

We built the openESM database:
▶️60 openly available experience sampling datasets (16K+ participants, 740K+ obs.) in one place
▶️Harmonized (meta-)data, fully open-source software
▶️Filter & search all data, simply download via R/Python

Find out more:
🌐 openesmdata.org
📝 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

#EconSky
AI-assisted Programming May Decrease the Productivity of Experienced Developers by Increasing Maintenance Burden https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.10165

"… find that productivity indeed increases.

… the increase in productivity is driven by less-experienced (peripheral) developers.

… 1/3

AI chatbots are sycophants — researchers say it’s harming science Nature asked researchers who use artificial intelligence how its propensity for people-pleasing affects their work — and what they are doing to mitigate it.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) models are 50% more sycophantic than humans, an analysis published this month has found." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Large-scale cortical functional networks are organized in structured cycles - Nature Neuroscience The human brain cycles through a repertoire of brain networks on a 1-second timescale during rest and tasks. This cycling appears to allow periodic engagement of essential cognitive functions, with th...

Large-scale cortical functional networks are organized in structured cycles

🧠🟦 🧠🤖

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How to develop good research questions - Nature Human Behaviour Designing good research questions goes well beyond the standard definitions of clarity, focus and tractability, and even beyond ‘novelty’ in the strictest sense. This Comment describes the iterative c...

How to develop good research questions

#CogSci #Neuroskyence

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Absolutely lovely and very much needed for experimental #EEG 🤩

At this point, I might as well --
Here's an infographic showing different ways to include age as a predictor. The top shows two extremes, just as a plain old numerical predictor (imposes linear trajectory) vs. categorical predictor (imposes nothing whatsoever). And then three solutions in between!

TIL Adding a comment in #Rcode or #rmarkdown header in #R script that includes at least four trailing dashes (-), equal signs (=), or hashes (#) automatically creates a foldable code section visible in the outline In #RStudio.

# My Title ----
## Another Section =====
### A Third Section #####

🚨 Big milestone for Rdatasets 🚨

The web archive now hosts 3400+ free and documented CSV datasets. Fantastic for teaching and testing!

And {Rdatasets} is a new #RStats 📦 for easy download and search

Web archive: vincentarelbundock.github.io/Rdatasets

R 📦: vincentarelbundock.github.io/Rdatasetspkg

Top 15 ggplot2 extensions, by downloads during the last month.

Some surprises here, at least for me.

#rstats

Code: gist.github.com/carl...

Rick Rubin | The Way of Code: The Timeless Art of Vibe Coding Rick Rubin brings ancient wisdom to the modern age in The Way of Code, a meditation on the art and science of vibe coding. With Claude by Anthropic, the Grammy-award winning producer and author of The...

a "real" vibe coding :)

www.thewayofcode.com#1

Barber Says You’ll Soon Need Haircut

I don't know how I could have misses the launch of this initiative by @carlbergstrom.com & @jevinwest.bsky.social but it's absolutely a must for anyone confused about what LLMs are and can do, as well as for anyone not skeptical enough about this technology:

thebullshitmachines.com

A theme is emerging: attempts to reduce brain functions & dysfunctions to a few things (like an ion channel) aren’t working.

A similar story exists for anesthesia - knockout all the putative things and anesthesia still works. “Lists of things” is not the way.

The alternative? /1

What is the origin of tipping points? In dynamical systems, from cancer to ecology, this fundamental phenomenon shows the importance of bifurcations and critical thresholds. Check this and other lectures on the @upf.edu Complex Systems Lab YouTube Channel youtube.com/channel/UCEt...

Damn, joke's on me, I reversed mechanisms and behaviors 😂😂😂

What does Jesus have to do with linear regression?
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/03/11/w...

various computational neuroscience / MEEG / LFP short courses and summer schools

📆 updated for 2025: list of summer schools & short courses in the realm of (computational) neuroscience or data analysis of EEG / MEG / LFP:
google sheet 🔗 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

What is the role of chance (history) and deterministic laws (physics) in shaping life? Check out this inspiring paper by Temple Smith and former @sfiscience.bsky.social
faculty member Harold Morowitz on history, physics, and life origins. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Oh Simon task included 😍*knuckle cracking sound*

One of social psychology’s great lessons is that prejudice decreases with friendly social contact between people of equal status, while minimal contact sustains prejudice. In today’s world, anti-immigrant sentiment in both Germany and the U.S. runs strongest in states with the fewest immigrants. West Virginians, whose state has the lowest proportion of undocumented immigrants, have been most likely to disagree that “the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society.”

I also like his phrasing here, re "great lesson" we've learned from #IntergroupContact

Niels Van Santen wrote a guide to the use of information theoretical measures in psychology/psychometrics. Any feedback is most welcome!

wood engraving of a cat crouched on the branch of a tree, seen in profile

Wiktoria Julia Goryńska was born in Vienna in 1902 but worked successfully in Warsaw where, by 1939, she had produced more than 100 wood engravings. Her cats were especially popular. ‘Cat on Branch’, 1927 (National Gallery of Canada). (www.gallery.ca/collection/a...) 2/4

Also true when your collaborator is your future self. 🙂

New book "Explanation in Biology" with Cambridge University Press is out & open access!

Covers (1) causal explanation & (2) non-causal/mathematical explanation in life sciences--bio, neuro, etc 🌿🧬🧠

Introduction to philosophical work on scientific explanation!

www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Want to understand the brain? Watch Paul!
#neuroscience
#neuroskyence