Nicholas Tolley

Mission: record hippocampal place cells in zero gravity
Crew: 3 rats with electrode arrays
Vehicle: Space Shuttle Columbia
Status: data now publicly available on DANDI, 28 years later

The ratstronauts' mission is finally complete. 🐀🚀 h/t NASA

about.dandiarchive.org/blog/2026/02...

underappreciated concept 🙂

for more dipoles: neighboring dipoles have different orientations & can have different stimulus preferences. so even though topographies look similar, subtle differences remain. maybe that's why it is possible to decode information from relatively few sensors?

The angle of the dipole obviously matters. If active dipoles in two conditions are slightly misaligned, a difference can be observed. However, this difference is not driven by differences in amplitudes, but only by differences in orientations. Here, I simulated such a scenario.
#brainmovies

Excited to share our new findings: distinct neural dynamics in prefrontal and premotor cortex during flexible decision making, preprinted on biorxiv.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

OpenWMData A collection of publicly available working memory datasets

Do you have an open working memory dataset and want it to be findable and reused? You can now add it to the Open WM Data Hub: williamngiam.github.io/OpenWMData! The collection of datasets tagged with useful metadata is steadily growing thanks to a small team of volunteers!

Unit tests in research code feel like something that's slowing you down until they wind up saving you six months of suffering

PhD Research Fellow in computational neuroscience/brain physics (290338) | University of Oslo Job title: PhD Research Fellow in computational neuroscience/brain physics (290338), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Tuesday, December 9, 2025

PhD position in computational neuroscience/brain physics to work with us on biophysical modeling of electric and magnetic brain signals at University of Oslo as part of the Marie Curie EU project @neuronanotechdn.bsky.social. Application deadline: December 9th.
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

📍Excited to share that our paper was selected as a Spotlight at #NeurIPS2025!

arxiv.org/pdf/2410.03972

It started from a question I kept running into:

When do RNNs trained on the same task converge/diverge in their solutions?
🧵⬇️

The Jones comp neuro lab is at #SfN25! Come check out our talks and posters to learn about our latest & greatest Science with HNN! All poster presentation times & locations can be found at jonescompneurolab.github.io/textbook/res...

Excited to release our new work: Petri Dish Neural Cellular Automata!

pub.sakana.ai/pdnca

We investigate how multi-agent NCAs can develop into artificial life 🦠 exhibiting complex, emergent behaviors like cyclic dynamics, territorial defense, and spontaneous cooperation.

No tricks, just brains in 3D 🧠🧟‍♂️

This cleared human brain slice (~10×7×0.3 cm) was imaged at 0.17 µm/pixel on the 3Di HOTLS lightsheet microscope. Sharp, transparent, undead-level perfection (Alpenglow Biosciences).
#3Dtissueimaging #LightSheet #Halloween

Today at #PracticalMEEG2025 Nick @willenjoy.bsky.social and I will be conducting a tutorial on how to simulate EEG/MEG data with our toolbox meegsim. If you happen to be around, come to our virtual booth; we will tell scary stories.👻

Revised version of our #NeurIPS2025 paper with full code base in Julia & Python now online, see arxiv.org/abs/2505.13192

Distinct alpha networks modulate different aspects of perceptual decision-making Fluctuations in alpha-band neural oscillations influence whether we perceive faint stimuli, but how these oscillations relate to different perceptual processes is not clear. This study shows that alph...

Check out our latest work led by @joeyzhou.bsky.social on alpha oscillatory networks in PLOS Biology!
➡️ journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Do ongoing alpha activity fluctuations influence perceptual sensitivity or criterion?

🚨Postdoc job offer🚨
Are you interested in beta bursts? Want to help drive methods for laminar inference with MEG? Now hiring a postdoc: run head-cast MEG experiments, help build our laMEG toolbox, and collaborate across Lyon–Marseille–Strasbourg. emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
Please repost! 🧠📈

Is the the neuroimaging community (broadly conceived) submitting to 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲 again?????

Not to be publication police but the shift had seemed major 1-2 years ago.
Looking at the editorial board it seems to have serious scientists once more.
Curious about thoughts of the community.

The astrocytic ensemble acts as a multiday trace to stabilize memory - Nature Emotional experience evokes signalling in astrocytes, which form an ensemble that is reinforced by secondary astrocytic state changes resulting from repeated experience, leading to memory stabilizatio...

𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻??
Astrocytes in the regulation of fear memories!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroskyence
h/t @claeneuro.bsky.social

AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…

Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/

Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the distinct motivational influences of reward and punishment on cognitive control Human motivation is fundamentally shaped by one's expectations of the reward they could earn for good performance or the punishment they would avoid for poor performance. However, the extent to which ...

Thrilled to share our new preprint highlighting distinct neurocomputational mechanisms underlying how reward and punishment determine adaptive cognitive control - a massive fMRI study and collaborative team effort with the @shenhavlab.bsky.social 🧠

Link here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Map of spiking activity underlying change detection in the mouse visual system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.17.683190v1

Definitely looking forward to helping run this workshop!

A Systematic Review of Aperiodic Neural Activity in Clinical Investigations This systematic literature review examines aperiodic neural activity in clinical disorders, summarizing current findings and discussion topics. One-hundred seventy-seven reports from across 38 distin...

📜🎉 I'm happy to share that my review of clinical research investigating aperiodic neural activity is now published!

It examines 177 reports of aperiodic activity in clinical disorders summarizing findings, discussion topics, & making some recommendations!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A glimpse at what #NeuroAI brain models might enable: a topographic vision model predicts stimulation patterns that steer complex object recognition behavior in primates. This could be a key 'software' component for visual prosthetic hardware 🧠🤖🧪

Rapidly Reconfigurable Dynamic Computing in Neural Networks with Fixed Synaptic Connectivity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.05.680523v1

Multi-stable oscillations in cortical networks with two classes of inhibition https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680414v1

Ultra-high-density Neuropixels probes improve detection and identification in neuronal recordings To understand the neural basis of behavior, it is essential to sensitively and accurately measure neural activity at single-neuron and single-spike re…

Neuropixels Ultra!

By @steinmetzneuro.bsky.social, who led a big collaboration

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Really great article! I spent a lot of my PhD helping turn the HNN model into an open source python package

We can boast that it’s super quick to install, definitely worth playing around with the GUI or python code if you’re interested in simulating EEG signals with biophysical neurons 🧠 🌊

If you’re a @cogneuronews.bsky.social member, check out and vote on the great lineup of symposia for 2026, and plz consider our symposium “Non-invasive meso-scale dynamics of perception and cognition”, organized by @adykstra.bsky.social including James Bonauito and @lonikefaes.bsky.social!

Thanks for organizing this awesome workshop @rdgao.bsky.social!