Reza Shadmehr

Open-Rank Faculty Position in Sensorimotor Control and Rehabilitation Neuroscience APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

Tenure-track faculty position in motor neuroscience at Penn State.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

I don't have much of a view from my office window, but this morning, the wind was brushing the vapor trails left by the rushing jets, leaving behind the froth of a cresting wave. If this was a superhero movie, there would be a surfer riding the waves in the sky.

Since start of 2025, as compared to the same period in 2024, Johns Hopkins has received 40% fewer federal awards, a decline of ~50% in research funding, a reduction of $500 million.
University wide, international graduate student enrollment is down by 8% since last year.

The cerebellum receives a surprisingly rich amount of information regarding stimulus value via its climbing fibers. What role does this pathway play in learning to make better decisions? Haining Zhong will explain.

Haining Zhong imaged climbing fibers during auditory discrimination, finding that they encode cue identities and perceptual choices. The responses were reshaped by reversal learning. The predictive nature of these signals suggests a role for climbing fibers in decision-making.

Zoom link: email me.

The talks are open to all (please contact me).
The recorded talks are available here:
www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

To understand cortico-cerebellar connectivity in humans, the usual approach is to exploit the correlations of functional brain imaging signals during rest.
In this talk, Jorn Diedrichsen will present results suggesting that a better approach is to measure co-activation during specific tasks.

Middle Eastern Systems Neuroscience Symposium Join the Middle Eastern Systems Neuroscience Symposium on November 14, 2025, at UCSD Faculty Club, San Diego, in conjunction with the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting. This event fosters scienti...

At the Society for Neuroscience Conference this year, a scientific meeting to bring closer the neuroscientists who have cultural ties to the middle east. Please join us.

www.middleeastneuro.com

Encoding of error and learning to correct that error by the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum - Nature Neuroscience Herzfeld et al. examine how the cerebellum learns to correct movements. They find a timing code that links a Purkinje cell’s preference for error to its downstream projection on motor effectors that p...

Learning from error is central to the cerebellum. When an error occurs, the P-cells are informed via their climbing fiber input, which slightly suppresses the simple spikes on the next attempt. The resulting change in behavior is defined by the P-cell's potent vector.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In my drive this morning I thought how lucky I am to have a road and a working car in a city that is not being bombed.
During lunch with my students I looked at their beautiful young faces and wished for them a better world.

The talks are open to all. The recordings are available: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

Shlomi Haar will present longitudinal studies of Parkinson's disease, focusing on anatomical and connectivity changes in the brain. Before diagnosis, there is a surprising increase in cerebellar white matter volume, followed by degeneration post-diagnosis.

Gazing from afar activates place cells in chickadees The results help explain how the hippocampus can recall information about a place without an animal physically revisiting it.

For black-capped chickadees, looking out at a location activates the same place cells as actually being there, a study from Columbia University shows.

By @martajhill.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/hippocampus/...

Spontaneous recovery of memories has been one of the most interesting phenomenon I've ever seen. When we learn A, then -A, the -A experience installs a memory that competes and overshadows A, but with passage of time, A recovers and come to fore. What's the neural basis of this? I'd love to know.

The recorded talks are available: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

Rui Costa introduces a computational framework in which cerebellar networks learn to guide cerebral cortex dynamics with task-outcome predictions.

The recorded talks are available: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

The cerebellum builds internal models of self motion, making it possible for us to read both the signs on the road, and our phones, while we walk. Jean Laurens will describe this computation.

Seminars are open to all.

I'm happy to send it to you. Simply contact me via email.

Math and biology meet in the cerebellum There can be surprising differences between what neurons do and what neurons cause

Math and biology meet in the cerebellum. Perspective by Mark Churchland and Nate Sawtell.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A vector calculus for neural computation in the cerebellum Null space theory predicts that neurons generate spikes not only to produce behavior but also to prevent the undesirable effect of other neurons on behavior. In this work, we show that this competitiv...

Neuronal computation in the cerebellum via a vector calculus.

Work of Mohammad Amin Fakharian, Alden Shoup, Paul Hage, and Hisham Elseweifi

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

The recorded talks are available here: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

In people who suffer from essential tremor, excessive cerebellar oscillations give rise to involuntary, rhythmic movements. Ming-Kai Pan will present evidence from both mice and humans demonstrating that the cerebellum contributes to real-time motor control by encoding motor frequencies.

Shadmehr Lab Seminars and tutorials on the neural control of behavior by the cerebellum.

The recorded talks are available here: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

To unlearn is hard, but necessary for recovery, because without it, some memories can bring us depression and anxiety. This process is called extinction learning.

Enzo Nio and Dagmar Timmann explain the role of the cerebellum in learning to forget.

Seminars are open to all (contact me).

This little bluebird was born 2 weeks ago.
Today he ventured to the opening of his birdhouse, felt the sun and the wind for the first time, stood there gripping the edge, deliberating for about 15 minutes, and then finally, leaped forward, opened his wings, and left home.

The talks are open to all (contact me).
The recorded talks are available here: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

Artificial neural networks use backprop, which attributes errors starting at the output layer, then works backwards. Cerebellum is also a multilayer network, but learning does not rely on backprop.
How does the cerebellum guide learning in all of its layers? David Ehrlich explains.

A group of neurons in the thalamus receive converging inputs from the basal ganglia and the cerebellum.
Richard Roth explains the role of these neurons in motor control and motor learning.

You can join live (email me), or watch the recordings: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

The recorded talks are available here: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...