Mahdiyar Shahbazi

Interested in doing a Ph.D. to work on building models of the brain/behavior? Consider applying to graduate schools at CU Anschutz:
1. Neuroscience www.cuanschutz.edu/graduate-pro...
2. Bioengineering engineering.ucdenver.edu/bioengineeri...

You could work with several comp neuro PIs, including me.

27.09.2025 20:30 — 👍 52    🔁 30    💬 1    📌 4

This is such a beautiful paper with a crisp message.

06.09.2025 14:00 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Compositional neural dynamics during reaching The complex mechanics of the arm make the neural control of reaching inherently posture dependent. Because previous reaching studies confound reach direction with final posture, it remains unknown how...

Excited to share my latest work with @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social & @andpru.bsky.social!
We asked: How does the motor cortex account for arm posture when generating movement?
Paper 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/10

06.09.2025 13:12 — 👍 85    🔁 24    💬 3    📌 4

Now out in JNP: journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....

08.04.2025 01:18 — 👍 35    🔁 9    💬 1    📌 2

We’re excited about this project! We present a model of motor savings without the need for context.

02.04.2025 13:37 — 👍 13    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 0

Our work provides a mechanistic model of motor memory formation that: Demonstrates savings from intrinsic dynamics, supports a causal role for persistent neural traces, and bridges recent neurophysiological findings.

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

We perturb the RNN’s preparatory activity along and against the neural shift direction. Perturbing with the shift enhances savings, while perturbing against it reduces or eliminates savings. This suggests a causal link between the trace and savings.

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Our model predicts in silico the same neural trace of prior learning seen in vivo in monkey motor cortex (Sun, O’Shea et al., Nature 2022): A shift in preparatory activity that persists after washout, without affecting movement.

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Savings refers to faster relearning after prior exposure to a motor task. We show that an RNN trained to control a realistic model of the arm predicts savings in motor learning without any explicit cues. This suggests a neural population-level account of how savings can emerge implicitly.

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

In this work, we use a computational model to test the idea that savings in motor learning can emerge from neural population dynamics—even without explicit cues or cognitive strategies.

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

A Context-Free Model of Savings in Motor Learning Learning to adapt voluntary movements to an external perturbation, whether mechanical or visual, is faster during a second encounter than during the first. The mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, k...

Excited to share my latest work with @oliviercodol.bsky.social, supervised by @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social and @paulgribble.bsky.social, where we introduce a context-free model of savings in motor learning:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

02.04.2025 13:30 — 👍 12    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 1