Saman Abbaspoor

Coming March 17, 2026!
Just got my advance copy of Emergence — a memoir about growing up in group homes and somehow ending up in neuroscience and AI. It’s personal, it’s scientific, and it’s been a wild thing to write. Grateful and excited to share it soon.

Representational drift without synaptic plasticity Neural computations support stable behavior despite relying on many dynamically changing biological processes. One such process is representational drift (RD), in which neurons' responses change over ...

When neurons change, but behavior doesn’t: Excitability changes driving representational drift

New preprint of work with Christian Machens: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🎨🧑‍🎨 Looking for a tool to visualize subcortical/thalamic data in 2D? Check out this python-based package I put together (subcortex-visualization on PyPI), plus a guide for creating your own custom atlas meshes and vector graphics! All feedback/tips welcome 😊

anniegbryant.github.io/subcortex_vi...

A brain region's importance is based on change in dynamics upon removing it. The brain is dynamic and so is "region importance". So while we can think of multivariate spatiotemporal patterns, it's also possible to focus on regions if one wishes to. Though in my view multi-region is the way to go.

After careful curation of single units from CA1 and connected structures, we identified cell assemblies - repeated patterns of synchronous firing (typically N~100, some approaching 300). Some assemblies were more active in NEW trials, others OLD. But did either or both groups reactivate in sleep?

= massive labor of love, built over yrs of foundational work, made possible with the laudable contributions from international students @sabbaspoor.bsky.social (lead, now w/ @jordan-farrell.bsky.social) and @aymanaljishi.bsky.social, and with BRAIN Initiative NINDS + Whitehall Foundation funding.

Experience reorganizes content-specific memory traces in macaques Memory formation requires neural activity reorganization during experience that persists in sleep. How these processes promote learning while preserving established memories remains unclear. We record...

How does the brain integrate information from new experiences while preserving established memories? Have a look at our latest preprint,
"Experience reorganizes content-specific memory traces in macaques" 🧵
🧪🧠🤖👩‍🔬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's the post-"standard model" age! Our Preview of a fantastic new study from Yi Zhong's lab on the role of the hippocampus in updating remote memories. Fun putting this together with Ali Golbabaei.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kZ4f3BtfH...

Really happy to share our preprint now on @elife.bsky.social on quantifying patterns in a large behavioral dataset from >100 socially-housed marmosets elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre.... We hope this data be useful for identifying atypical patterns of behavior in disease models in our lab and others.

Neuroscience methods - YouTube Nanocourse: Approaches to Study Neural Circuits This course was taught by Anita Autry, Tiago Gonçalves, and Luke Sjulson at Albert Einstein College of Medici...

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube!

Please like and repost to help us get the word out!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition
Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization
🧵

large-scale neural recording of 50,000 neurons, showing many diverse activity patterns, and also what the cells look like at various zooms of the maximum projection image of the recording FOV

We wrote a review on analysis methods for large-scale neural recordings www.science.org/stoken/autho... @marius10p.bsky.social #neuroscience 🧪🧠

Anything we missed? Reply w/ your fav method!

BIC/AIC across a range of states feels inefficient. Tried using clustering (KMeans + silhouette analysis) to pre-estimate and then fine-tune within a range around the given numbers, but it systematically overestimates states on a simulated dataset. Any suggestions (2/2)?

I’m trying to train HMMs on large spiking activity datasets. What are some of the most efficient and robust methods of estimating the number of states in Python? I’m avoiding dimensionality reduction to simplify data for now (1/2).

Can you add me to the list please?

I have not seen a starter pack for the study of brain rhythms. So, here's a start.
go.bsky.app/A6zgHeE

Thank you for sharing this work. Can I use SIMPL for nonspike data like calcium transients? If so, do you recommend changing the Poisson distribution for the neural signal?

What are the brain’s “real” tuning curves?

Our new preprint "SIMPL: Scalable and hassle-free optimisation of neural representations from behaviour” argues that existing techniques for latent variable discovery are lacking.

We suggest a much simpl-er way to do things.
1/21🧵

Here is a list of some institutions/organizations/centers related to Neuro/Bio; Math/Physics/AI
Still very sparse...Reach out to your institute/center social network admin to embrace the growing #scienceSky
ps. it would be great if @bsky.app to actively send invites to sci/tech
go.bsky.app/VGrotvN

Oh, and how silly of me, I didn't share the #NeuroAI starter pack!!!!

What terrible Bluesky manners... 😅

bsky.app/profile/agre...

BRAIN NeuroAI Workshop NIH BRAIN NeuroAI Workshop to inform and coordinate future BRAIN research strategies and priority areas to build on recent scientific advances at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intell...

My talk at the BRAIN Initiative NeuroAI meeting is live! It starts at the 1h14m mark. Lots of great content across the board from, among others, @tonyzador.bsky.social , @bingbrunton.bsky.social and @tyrellturing.bsky.social videocast.nih.gov/watch=55160

Picture of textbook cover with title "Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience"

Announcing a new open access textbook for entry level behavioral neuro. Funded by NSF. Written by a collection of 26 neuro experts. Method demonstration videos and author interviews too. Consider using it in your courses to reduce financial barriers to education.

openstax.org/details/book...

Theta- and gamma-band oscillatory uncoupling in the macaque hippocampus Oscillations that co-occur in hippocampal CA1 during exploration in the rodent are shown to segregate according to exploratory and sleep states in the primate.

In our next Learning Club at CMC lab (Nov 14, Thursday, 2 PM CET), @sabbaspoor.bsky.social will tell us about his recent work (elifesciences.org/articles/86548). If you'd like to attend, send an empty email to virtual-talk-link-request@cmclab.org to get the link!