Ede Rancz

The postsubiculum as a head-direction cortex The organisation of thalamocortical networks follows a conserved structure. Traditionally, these are divided into primary sensory systems that receive…

Really excited to share this Opinion piece we've been working on with fellow head-direction cell geeks @apeyrache.bsky.social @desdemonafricker.bsky.social and (bsky-less?) Andrea Burgalossi! While head-direction cells pop up in many cortical regions, we think that one of them is quite unique (1/8)

Link to previous preprint thread with more details on the results:
bsky.app/profile/alex...

Overall, our findings highlight dendrites as a potential substrate for the cognitive rigidity that characterizes autism spectrum disorders.

5/6

Observed at an SfN poster session?

Interested in doing a PhD on how #psychedelics (or other psychoactive substances) impact psychological or social processes @durhampsych.bsky.social ?

Have a look at the NINE DTP scheme, now open. DM me if interested.

Are you interested in visuo-motor mismatch and serotonin? Come see @norambr.bsky.social featuring mice spinning in VR at R16!

#SfN2025 #vestibulo-VR #serotonin #predictive_processing

The Brain, In Theory Why engineering and computational analogies are poorly suited to the study of biological cognition

My book "The Brain, in Theory" on the publisher's website (out in April 2026):
press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Maybe not the same river, but the same shit yes, time and time again. We collectively, and we as individuals. Hopelessly maladapted through millennia of evolution to the current setup. Except the 1% socio/psychopaths of us, who are having a field day.

Armed and ready at C5 - @hughtakemoto.bsky.social on serotonin effects on pyramidal cells across V1 and V2. #SfN2025 #serotonin #visualcortex #theta_resonance

Wednesday PM poster R16 by @norambr.bsky.social

Combined vestibular and visuo-motor mismatch modulates neuronal activity and serotonin levels in mouse visual cortex

Tuesday AM poster C5 by bskyless Hugh Takemoto

Serotonergic modulation of excitability in visual cortical pyramidal neurons across layers and areas

Our lab digs into how serotonin tunes prediction errors and eye movements — with custom tools and curious mice.We got 2 posters at #SfN2025, Tue AM (C5) and Wed PM (R16).
Recruiting PhD students & postdocs in sunny Marseille.
Come chat about neuromodulators, tinkering, or free will and intuition.

Great projects, great environment.

Independent NeuroScience Services INSS was registered as a company on 14th November 2016, which means it's our 9th birthday today! As a birthday present we've treated ourselves to an SfN exhibitor booth for the first time ever. Come and say hello at Booth #3327

Hear BrainGlobe core developer speak about the project in this keynote lecture.

16:00 EST

It’s genius. And should be miniaturisable (is that even a word)? Did you email them? (We use impedance measurement to stop when through the bone, but it’s a bit hot and miss)

Can you guess grant deadlines and SfN dates from this graph?

For the first time ever, INSS will have a booth at SfN this year. Please come and say hello at Booth #3327
Would be lovely to see some familiar faces!

Heaven sent, no more ordering at least 10 from Ali, waiting for 2 weeks and paying from my pocket, the figuring out it was the wrong one!

How did I not know about this super-useful site for customized 3D-printable thread adapters? HT to @leon-kremers.bsky.social : brainright.com/adapt-o-matic/

Fun facts: the FAQ is in French only and the deadline is "Appel au fil de l'eau".
But machine translation makes life really easy, even if you don't speak French (which I don't really).

Call for proposals details

Choose France for Science!
Moved my lab to France 4 years ago — one of my best decisions.

Good life ✅
Strong talent pool ✅
Decent funding ✅
Byzantine bureaucracy ✅ (not much worse than UK/US, often better than Southern/Eastern EU)

Check out the call & reach out if interested
tinyurl.com/5n6u49uv

But ignorance has real consequences: it underpins how we judge others, justify punishment, and assign moral blame. If we recognized that actions emerge from causes rather than character, our penal systems would shift from retribution to prevention, and politics from outrage to structural change.

Our belief in free will isn’t harmless—it shapes punishment, politics, and power.
If we stopped blaming individuals for what physics made inevitable, justice would shift from retribution to prevention, and politics from moral outrage to structural change.

Compatibilists like Dennett say free will is just “acting according to your reasons.” But that’s the same determinism with better PR. Quantum randomness doesn’t help either. Noise isn’t freedom or agency.

Experiments by Libet (1983) and Haggard (2008) show decades ago that neural activity predicting a decision precedes conscious awareness of choosing—suggesting that conscious will is a witness, not a cause.

If we could rewind time to that exact moment, with every neuron and photon the same, I would always think of the shooting star. There’s no world where I wouldn’t.
That’s hard determinism: every thought unfolds from prior physical causes. (Harris 2012; Strawson 1986)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Wi...

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@juskteez?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Juskteez Vu</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/shooting-star-under-blue-sky-TIrXot28Znc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>

To my friends I struggle to convince about the lack of our free will.
I saw a seagull in the night sky, lit by city lights. For a moment, I thought it was a shooting star. That thought felt spontaneous—but it wasn’t.

Novel color via stimulation of individual photoreceptors at population scale Image display by cell-by-cell retina stimulation, enabling colors impossible to see under natural viewing.

This is the most brilliant idea - pun intended.
A colour perceived for the first time ever.
Next on to never perceived odours!

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

Proud to share that Anna Cappellini has opened her psychology practice in Marseille!
Compassionate, professional care in English, French, or Italian, online or in person: psy-annacappellini.com

(Marseille friends, spread the word!)

Buribushi Fellowship

Independent researcher fellowships (non-tenure track) at OIST, with a focus on broadly defined theory www.oist.jp/research/bur...