Logan Grosenick, PhD

A schematic of our method. On the left are shown Bayesian inference (visualized using Bayes’ rule and a portrait of the Reverend Bayes) and neural networks (visualized as a weight matrix). Then, an arrow labeled “meta-learning” combines Bayesian inference and neural networks into a “prior-trained neural network”, described as a neural network that has the priors of a Bayesian model – visualized as the same portrait of Reverend Bayes but made out of numbers. Finally, an arrow labeled “learning” goes from the prior-trained neural network to two examples of what it can learn: formal languages (visualized with a finite-state automaton) and aspects of English syntax (visualized with a parse tree for the sentence “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”).

🤖🧠 Paper out in Nature Communications! 🧠🤖

Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths?

Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!

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

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YouTube video by Weinan Sun Learning produces an orthogonalized state machine in the hippocampus

1/12 How do animals build an internal map? In our new paper, we tracked thousands of mouse CA1 neurons over days/weeks as they learned a VR navigation task. @nspruston.bsky.social & co-1st author @johanwinn.bsky.social
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw_4...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a woman sitting on a couch with the words " wanna know a fun fact " on her face ALT: a woman sitting on a couch with the words " wanna know a fun fact " on her face

Now that the first Advisory Council meeting will be announced in the Federal Register tomorrow (National Institute for Complementary and Integrative Health) tomorrow, I want to clarify something that has been happening for at least the past 30 days.

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Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c...

Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... - really pleased that this paper with Henry Potter is now published in the European Journal of Neuroscience 😊

Re the Tononi paper: Both Tononi’s IIT (phi) and Friston’s FEP start from fundamental, axiomatic, and debatable assumptions. These assumptions are generally made without any humility. This logic allows them to make exceptionally broad claims. Which contributes to my unease about them.

Decoding the rhythmic representation and communication of visual contents Rhythmic neural activity is considered essential for adaptively modulating responses in the visual system. In this opinion article we posit that visual brain rhythms also serve a key function in the r...

Decoding the rhythmic representation and communication of visual contents
www.cell.com/trends/neuro...
#neuroscience

ZAPBench ZAPBench evaluates how well different models can predict the activity of over 70,000 neurons in a novel larval zebrafish dataset.

⚡️ Excited to introduce ZAPBench, our #ICLR2025 spotlight: The Zebrafish Activity Prediction Benchmark measures progress in predicting neural activity within an entire vertebrate brain (70k+ neurons!)

Explore interactive visualizations, datasets, code + paper: google-research.github.io/zapbench

🧠🧪

Can we use brain scans to identify biologically distinct "autisms"? And If so, how?

In our latest cross-species study 🐭👨 with @iitalk.bsky.social we dive into these questions!

Find out more here 👇👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thread below 🧵 1/n

One of the NIMH PIs whose name is the termination list: Sooyhun Lee, whose lab just published this beautiful @nature.com paper (that has received too little press because comms at NIH are down). Read! Cite!

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

A subcortical switchboard for perseverative, exploratory and disengaged states - Nature Behavioural experiments in mice demonstrate that GABAergic (γ-aminobutyric acid-expressing), glutamatergic and serotonergic neurons in the median raphe nucleus have distinct and complementary function...

Should you stick to your goal, try something else, or give up? Your median raphe nucleus in the brainstem knows and will decide for you 😉. First foray of my lab into foraging, behavioural strategies and exploration. Amazing work from the one and only Mehran Ahmadlou: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An Open-Source 3D Printable Platform for Testing Head-Fixed Cognitive Flexibility in Rodents <p>Join this interactive session as Tim Spellman discusses his paper, “An Open-Source 3D-Printable Platform for Testing Head-Fixed Cognitive Flexibility in Rodents”, with eNeuro Reviewing Editor Mark ...

The Society for Neuroscience selected the paper on this tool for an upcoming webinar on FlexRig and open-source tools in general. The webinar will be on March 25 from 11:45 am – 1 pm ET. Here is the registration page for this webinar: neuronline.sfn.org/scientific-r....

Nice story on fabulous new work from @dingliu.bsky.social in my lab, just out today!...

New work accepted to #AISTATS2025 ✨

We developed a new explainable AI method to better understand time-series data.

We can map back inputs (neurons) to their latent space. Basically merging #CEBRA with measuring the individual neurons contribution over time

arxiv.org/abs/2502.12977

Evo 2 Can Design Entire Genomes https://www.asimov.press/p/evo-2 🧬🖥️🧪

Classification of psychedelics and psychoactive drugs based on brain-wide imaging of cellular c-Fos expression - Nature Communications A challenge in psychiatric drug discovery is to predict the therapeutic potential of a novel compound. Here, the authors show that brain-wide imaging of immediate early gene expression can be used to ...

Can whole-brain imaging of cellular c-Fos signals be used to classify #psychedelics? 🧠🔬💊

Our study by @aboharbf.bsky.social and @pashadavoudian.bsky.social, developing an imaging and machine learning pipeline to test a panel of psychoactive drugs.

Paper here 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cells in the hippocampus encode not only information about a fellow bat’s position, but also its identity and distinct social features.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/social-behav...

Atypical hippocampal excitatory neurons express and govern object memory - Nature Communications Pyramidal cells are classically thought to comprise the excitatory output of the subiculum. Here, the authors show the existence of “ovoid cells”, excitatory subiculum neurons with specialized gene ex...

delighted to share our work revealing a new type of excitatory hippocampal neuron we call the "ovoid cell", which has really exquisite properties relative to adjacent pyramidal cells! superb work of first-author @adriennekinman.bsky.social and many others in the lab

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

Sleep microstructure organizes memory replay - Nature The temporal microstructure of the brain can multiplex distinct cognitive processes during sleep to support continuous learning.

Two cool papers on the HPC out today in @nature.com:

1. Replay during non-REM sleep switches between prioritizing recent versus remote memories:

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

2. All optical obs. of synaptic plasticity rules during place field formation:

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

🧠📈 🧪

Study design features increase replicability in brain-wide association studies - Nature Optimizing study design is critical for increasing standardized effect sizes and replicability, and the features that increase replicability in cross-sectional and longitudinal brain-wide association ...

Congratulations @kaidikang.bsky.social et al on their paper in Nature.

Also proud of the team at #MIDB in the support! @tervoclemmensb.bsky.social @bart-larsen.bsky.social and more!

If you are interested in optimizing study designs, take a look, it's a great read!

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

Together with some friends we built an optical Brain Machine Interface to see if cortical activity (PPC) can control behaviour in real time, without animals having to learn to use it. Here's what happened:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A tale of two algorithms: Structured slots explain prefrontal sequence memory and are unified with hippocampal cognitive maps The algorithm of the prefrontal working memory system on sequence memory tasks is not well understood, whereas it is well understood for the hippocampal episodic memory system. This work shows a mathematical duality between working and episodic sequence memory. This leads to a computational understanding of sequence working memory—as structured activity slots. This theory algorithmically explains recurrent neural network (RNN) and prefrontal representations during sequence memory tasks.

Stellar new work lead by the inimitable James Whittington in Neuron that develops a new theory unifying episodic and working memory and explains diverse hippocampal and prefrontal data: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... w/Will Dorrell, @behrenstimb.bsky.social Mohamedy El Gaby

Vibrational fiber photometry: label-free and reporter-free minimally invasive Raman spectroscopy deep in the mouse brain - Nature Methods Vibrational fiber photometry enables Raman spectroscopy in the mouse brain with low impact, owing to the use of tapered fibers.

Exciting news from the lab! In collaboration with our #EU-Nanobrigth partners, we’ve developed and tested a new probe for vibrational fiber photometry, enabling minimally invasive Raman spectroscopy deep into the 🧠. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @naturemethods.bsky.social

Where do the dopamine hits does from? A new reward center in the brain is discovered (yes, single cell, spatial omics at work again)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thanks to everyone's feedback, we have updated our calculator to optimize sample size N & scan time T for fMRI studies: leonoqr.github.io/ORSP_Calcula...

The first new feature is that users can explore how different N & T leads to different accuracy, e.g., N=1000 & T=30min => 81% max accuracy. 🧵

It’s better.

Out now in Nature Human Behaviour: Our 68-country #survey on public attitudes to #science 📣
It shows: People still #trust scientists and support an active role of scientists in society and policy-making. #OpenAccess available here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natureportfolio.bsky.social
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Many autism-linked proteins influence hair-like cilia on human brain cells The finding may help explain autism’s association with multiple co-occurring conditions that involve cilia defects.

Appreciate this generous write up on our recent preprint!

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/hai...

Ten simple rules for good model-sharing practices https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012702

Frontiers | Three distinct gamma oscillatory networks within cortical columns in macaque monkeys’ area V1 IntroductionA fundamental property of the neocortex is its columnar organization in many species. Generally, neurons of the same column share stimulus prefer...

Three distinct gamma oscillatory networks within cortical columns in macaque monkeys’ area V1
www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu...
#neuroscience

Linking neural population formatting to function Animals capable of complex behaviors tend to have more distinct brain areas than simpler organisms, and artificial networks that perform many tasks tend to self-organize into modules (1-3). This sugge...

New results for a new year! “Linking neural population formatting to function” describes our modern take on an old question: how can we understand the contribution of a brain area to behavior?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻‍🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
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