Tim Gollisch

Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨

We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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A recommended summer read: "The mechanization of the mind" If you are working in systems or computational neuroscience, or AI, I would strongly recommend to read “The mechanization of the mind” by Jean-Pierre Dupuy.

If you are looking for a book to read and are interested in computational/systems neuroscience or AI, I have a suggestion: trialsanderrors.substack.com/p/a-recommen...

We are excited that our work on inherently interpretable #deeplearning models for #AI for #medicine has been published in @plos.org #digitalhealth! You want to know how to combine the power of deep learning with accessible interpretation? This is for you! ⬇️ journals.plos.org/digitalhealt...

🚨 We’re hiring! 🚨
Together with Marcus Jeschke and Emilie Mace we are looking for a PhD student to join us for developing AI tools for optogenetic sensory restauration.
Apply now: sinzlab.org/positions/20...
#PhDposition #AI #Neuroprosthetics #ML #NeuroAI #Hiring

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
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Here it is finally: Our mathematical methods book for life scientists! Aimed at advanced undergrads and beginning grad students, plus all those who want a deeper look at the math behind quantitative biology. @portugueslab.bsky.social.
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Our paper on how the neuromodulator nitric oxide modulates a subset of mouse retinal ganglion cells is finally published in @elife.bsky.social doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Great work by @dgonschorek.bsky.social together with the lab of @oliviermarre.bsky.social and @matigoldin.bsky.social, ...

Temporal pattern recognition in retinal ganglion cells is mediated by dynamical inhibitory synapses - Nature Communications The retina is known to strongly respond to omitted stimuli in periodic patterns. Here the authors propose that depressing inhibitory synapses shape the timing of such a response and are key to perform...

How can the brain make predictions, and signal prediction errors ? Together with Simone Ebert, Thomas Buffet, Bruno Cessac et al, we studied this question in the retina in this paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Flyer for a visual neuroscience course with colorful images of scientific data and model species.

I am thrilled to announce that Rich Kramer and I are co-directing a BRAND NEW hands-on visual neuroscience course at the MBL. August 1-16, 2025. Details in this flyer. Trainees please apply. And everyone, please spread the word!

We have a new PhD position available; please spread the word and repost.
The project will combine retina recordings, computational modeling, and optogenetics to help further develop vision restoration therapy.
See here for more information:
retina.uni-goettingen.de/join-the-lab/

Transcriptomic changes in retinal ganglion cell types associated with the disruption of cholinergic retinal waves In the early stages of retinal development, a form of correlated activity known as retinal waves causes periodic depolarizations of immature retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Retinal waves are crucial fo...

New preprint! A wonderful collaboration of our @FellerMarla lab with Matthew Po, and @shekharlab. Here, we dive into the impact of spontaneous activity on the transcriptome of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the sole output neurons of the retina. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Early vision Neuroscience community, Vol 1

We are talking eyes, retinas, and some of the more ancestral bits of visual brains. No species restrictions. List is close to full, will start building Vol 2 before too long

Addition requests, please see link in the below thread

go.bsky.app/BotZr1g

Thanks; good question! I would imagine that looking into coding principles that take more of the cell-type-specific computational properties or (potential) functional tasks into account should be interesting. Without excluding other possibilities.

Thanks so much to Dimos Karamanlis @dimokaramanlis.qoto.org.ap.brid.gy for spearheading this, and thanks for a great team effort to get the primate retina recordings established and carried out!

Schematic grating stimulus and subunit-model components for a sample cell.

Subunit models (here with a new modeling framework, applying flickering gratings for parameter fitting) can capture much of the spatial-contrast sensitivity and response correlations. 7/

Correlations of ON versus OFF parasol and ON versus OFF midget cells.

The nonlinear, spatial-contrast-sensitive mechanisms are even strong enough to induce positive activity correlations between ON and OFF parasol cells in marmosets, but not midget cells (and ON and OFF transient alpha cells, but not sustained alpha cells in mice). 6/

Plots of partial correlations for linear and nonlinear fixations for ON and OFF parasol cells.

Correlated activity is seen particularly during fixations with high-contrast spatial structure; spatial nonlinearities of receptive fields are largely responsible for triggering the correlated activity. 5/

Plots of redundancy versus retinal distance for ON parasol and transient OFF-alpha cells.

The correlated activity leads to redundancy in stimulus encoding, e.g., for parasol cells in marmosets or transient Off-alpha cells in mice, challenging the efficient coding hypothesis. 4/

For some ganglion cell types (e.g., OFF midgets in marmoset retina), activity of cell pairs is strongly decorrelated compared to stimulus correlations (as predicted by efficient coding); other types display hardly any decorrelation at all (e.g., ON parasols). 3/

Sample gaze trace from a marmoset and raster plot of spiking responses from a recorded ON parasol cell.

We recorded spiking responses from populations of retinal ganglion cells in marmoset and mouse retina in response to photographs shifted according to species-specific gaze trajectories. We identified ganglion cell types, and assessed their activity correlations and coding redundancy. 2/

Nonlinear receptive fields evoke redundant retinal coding of natural scenes - Nature Species-specific gaze shifts with natural stimuli drive correlated spiking in retinal ganglion cells.

How natural stimuli lead to highly correlated ganglion cell activity in primate (marmoset) and mouse retina. Now out in @natureportfolio.bsky.social. And, I guess, great opportunity for a first post on this site. #FirstSkeet Very brief summary in this thread. 1/

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