Drew B Headley

𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵
Beyond Kuhn and Feyerbend.
Still in chapter 2 but this looks great.

We need to bring back the MegaBass switch

Application QR code

Applying to graduate school for neuroscience this year? Consider coming to our department, the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers Newark. We are a research focused group with each student fully funded for 5 years. Details here: sasn.rutgers.edu/cmbn-graduat...

Another excellent position at UT Dallas, this time in the Biological Science Dept: jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/30702 Our Neuroscience and Biological Sciences faculty are closely intertwined and collaborative creating a great place to launch your independent lab!

ATTN: Two faculty positions are available in my department (neuroscience) at the University of Minnesota. This is a general search with no topic focus. November 20th application deadline.

Apply here: hr.umn.edu/jobs/Find-Job
Assistant Prof job code: 364920
Associate/Full Prof job code: 364921

I am sick and tired of drifting gratings

Customizable artificial simulator for developing, planning, and training personnel on neurophysiology and surgical procedures in non-human primates Neuroscience researchers often surgically implant hardware into model organisms to measure and manipulate neural activity. Designing and optimizing th…

🚨Another paper alert! 🚨
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Do you perform neural implant procedures? Develop new neural implants? Train people to do neural implants? This paper describes our lab’s approach to make custom ~whole-head simulators that can help in those tasks.

We’ve recently updated our collaborative open-access book, “Neural Networks in Cognitive Science”, adding a few new authors, chapters, and lots of content.

downloads.jeffyoshimi.net/NeuralNetwor...

My fantastic department at CU Boulder is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor! This is a broad search spanning nearly all areas of biology. Applications are due Nov 13, 2025. Feel free to reach out to me with questions, and please share widely.
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Out today at Neuron, our experiments show that frontal cortical representation of economic variables is jointly determined by spatial organization and downstream
connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

I wish we'd still make real-life models of our preferred cellular structures www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biom...

Models like this are great for building a physical intuition.

With our mobile Neuropixel rig we can record anywhere in the building. Even the hallway!

Come be my newest colleague! Scripps neuro is an energetic and supportive department, and uniquely benefits from proximity to our intimidatingly awesome chem and drug discovery programs. Happy to chat about my experiences here so far!

Hot take…asking whether mechanisms relevant for flies remembering odors aligns with those underlying working memory in primates is silly.

Mushroom bodies and lateral prefrontal cortex aren’t even close to an example of convergent evolution.

bsky.app/profile/blue...

Great body of work led by @ppiantad.bsky.social

First use of PdCO in the wild to perform closed-loop pre-choice modulation 🤩

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi! Does anyone here have experience doing neuropixels recordings from young mice (before p28)? What methods do you use? Headbar + record the same day?

Lab’s latest is out in Imaging Neuroscience, led by Kirsten Peterson: “Regularized partial correlation provides reliable functional connectivity estimates while correcting for widespread confounding”, where we demonstrate a major improvement to standard fMRI functional connectivity (correlation) 1/n

Motor cortex flexibly deploys a high-dimensional repertoire of subskills Skilled movement often requires flexibly combining multiple subskills, each requiring dedicated control strategies and underlying computations. How the motor system achieves such versatility remains u...

Of potential interest to those keen on motor control and/or multi-task networks. Congrats to Elom and Eric.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Rate and noise in human amygdala drive increased exploration in aversive learning - Nature Human exploration is driven by two distinct neural mechanisms, a valence-independent rate signal and a valence-dependent global noise signal.

This is an exquisite demonstration of using intracranial recordings in humans to validate our findings that amygdala neurons encode the value of exploring in NHPs.

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

How can your AI be superhuman if it can't even beat a mouse?Lots of updates for this 2025 NeurIPS competition. Get your submission in! robustforaging.github.io

Nov. 1 is the deadline. Please share widely. @garymarcus.bsky.social @dcower.bsky.social @tyrellturing.bsky.social @rowantmc.bsky.social

It will be on the dark side.

Infrequent strong connections constrain connectomic predictions of neuronal function Extensive measurements of visual selectivity in the fly optic lobe enable a broad assessment of connectome-based functional predictions. Strong connections possess an outsized share of the connectome’...

Very relevant for the downstream applicability of connectomics research:

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

#neuroscience 🧪

Orbitofrontal cortex computes gaze-dependent comparisons between attributes rather than integrated values When choosing between options with multiple attributes, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to integrate across those attributes, aiding in value comparisons. This study shows in monkeys that OF...

Happy to have some good science news - our new study with @aqperkins.bsky.social is out in @plosbiology.org!

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

What do representations tell us about a system? Image of a mouse with a scope showing a vector of activity patterns, and a neural network with a vector of unit activity patterns Common analyses of neural representations: Encoding models (relating activity to task features) drawing of an arrow from a trace saying [on_____on____] to a neuron and spike train. Comparing models via neural predictivity: comparing two neural networks by their R^2 to mouse brain activity. RSA: assessing brain-brain or model-brain correspondence using representational dissimilarity matrices

In neuroscience, we often try to understand systems by analyzing their representations — using tools like regression or RSA. But are these analyses biased towards discovering a subset of what a system represents? If you're interested in this question, check out our new commentary! Thread:

The butterfly-like/four circular labeling in the mediodorsal (top two) and submedius (bottom two) thalamic nuclei when retrograde tracers are infused in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats

Bonus: midline labeling are from retrograde tracers placed in the nucleus accumbens (nAc)

Examples of epifluorescence vs. confocal images of the BLA and axons leaving the BLA - note the lack of labeling in central amygdala (CeA)

Methods in the Philosophy of Science The last twenty years have seen multiple methodological revolutions in the philosophy of science: There has been increased diversity concerning the questions...

Methods in the Philosophy of Science: A User's Guide is now a real, live book. My chapter offers an appraisal of philosophy of science in its engagement with applied mathematics. With immense gratitude for the vision and execution of @phieveigl.bsky.social and @adrian-currie.bsky.social sky.social.