Aaron L Wong

Mentoring is the most important thing most of us can do. Here is a 🧵about what I've learned as a PI running an academic research lab. I hope some of the advice is helpful to those who are just starting their labs and to folks hitting the academic job market in search of an independent position 🧪 1/n

What do representations tell us about a system? Image of a mouse with a scope showing a vector of activity patterns, and a neural network with a vector of unit activity patterns Common analyses of neural representations: Encoding models (relating activity to task features) drawing of an arrow from a trace saying [on_____on____] to a neuron and spike train. Comparing models via neural predictivity: comparing two neural networks by their R^2 to mouse brain activity. RSA: assessing brain-brain or model-brain correspondence using representational dissimilarity matrices

In neuroscience, we often try to understand systems by analyzing their representations — using tools like regression or RSA. But are these analyses biased towards discovering a subset of what a system represents? If you're interested in this question, check out our new commentary! Thread:

Precision Neurotechnologies Backed by £69m, this programme aims to unlock new methods to interface with the human brain at the cellular level, with unprecedented precision.

🚨 Upcoming postdoc openings 🚨

We will soon be hiring postdocs to work on neural data analysis & modelling in the context of a recently awarded ARIA grant aimed at "precision control" of neural population dynamics (w. collabs. across the UK)

Reach out if interested!

www.aria.org.uk/opportunity-...

Maybe an outlier data point, but I recently got a very competitive score on my renewal application. To your point, though, the proposal could have practically been submitted as a new proposal given how significantly the topic differed from the current grant

Sure, happy to chat. I don't think there's anything fundamentally different between "deliberate hypothesis testing" and trail-and-error (which should reflect random sampling if feedback is binary, but can be more directed if feedback is more rich).

I think you may be conflating reinforcement and reward learning. Because you are giving people magnitude and direction info (e.g., hot/cold), exploration should be more deliberate/directed, but you're still using non-SPE learning so the rate will be different than when given sensory feedback

Isn't this just reward learning?

Trump Administration Puts New Chokehold on Billions in Health-Research Funding The National Institutes of Health can’t award grants to outside researchers under a new White House restriction.

The NIH can’t award ANY grants to outside researchers under new WH restriction, reports @wsj.com.

The pause came in the form of a footnote from OMB Director Vought, in a document that doles out federal funds to the NIH.

Prelude to rescissions, especially after his comments over the weekend?

Mount Holyoke College in lovely western Massachusetts is hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist. Amazing students and fantastic faculty support - please share!
mtholyoke.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

#Neurorehabilitation is a powerful tool for improving quality of life in Parkinson’s disease, yet it receives only a small fraction of research funding. In his latest blog post, @aaronlwong.bsky.social argues why rehab research deserves a seat at the table alongside drug and surgical interventions⬇️

How that forward model gets trained and comes to exist is an open question; one idea is that it is through RL

We think you have a forward model that makes a prediction of the expected sensory consequences of an action, which is then compared with sensory feedback to drive learning. You could argue that the forward model therefore acts as a kind of "memory" of what the desired behavior should be

Director Vought: We write to ask you to fully implement the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, including funds appropriated for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The continuing resolution supp011s NIH initiatives across a range of critical research areas­cancer, cardiovascular disease, rare pediatric disorders, and more. These vital efforts are not only necessary to Make America Healthy Again, but also have a direct impact on American families, biomedical innovation, our economy, and competing with Communist China. We are concerned by the slow disbursement rate of FY25 NIH funds, as it risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports. Suspension of these appropriated funds - whether formally withheld or functionally delayed - could threaten Americans' ability to access better treatments and limit our nation's leadership in biomedical science. It also risks inadve11ently severing ongoing NIH-funded research prior to actionable results. We share your commitment to ensuring NIH funds are used responsibly and not diverted to ideological or unaccountable programs. We are confident Secretary Kennedy and Director Bhattacharya are well positioned to uphold gold standard research by ensuring that NIH awards are grounded in transparency, scientific merit, and a clear alignment with national interests. Our shared goal is to restore public trust in the NIH precisely because its work is focused on results, accountability, and real-world impact. Withholding or suspending these funds would jeopardize that trust and hinder progress on critical health challenges facing our nation. Ultimately, this is about finding cures and seeing them through to fruition. We respectfully request that you ensure the timely release of all FY25 NIH appropriations in accordance with congressional intent. Doing so will ensure continued momentum in curing disease, supp011ing American innovation, and delivering result…

Sincerely, Katie Boyd Britt John Boozman Shelly Moore Capito Bill Cassidy Susan Collins Lindsey O. Graham David H. McCormick Mitch McConnel Jerry Moran Lisa Murkowski Thom Tillis Todd Young Dan Sullivan Tim Scott

From @aaas.org check-in with Sudip Parikh: a letter by 14 Republican senators urge the Office of Management and Budget to release NIH funding. If this includes your state (AL, ME, WV, SC, KY, KS, AR, PA, NC, IN, AK), Sudip recommends contacting & thanking them for being American science leaders.

This is exactly how people think cerebellum-based learning works. And the connection to RL makes sense given the recent work showing interconnections between basal ganglia and cerebellum

Rubber arm illusion in octopus The feeling of a body as belonging to oneself is called the sense of body ownership and the centerpiece of conscious experience. Kawashima and Ikeda investigated the sense of body ownership in an octo...

Rubber arm illusion in octopus: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

“With these considerations, we expect to fund through the 4th percentile.”

There it is, in black and white, the destruction of cancer research in the US.

Maybe PsychoPy? There are a lot of pre-built experiments or it's fairly easy to program ones yourself (especially if you don't need any fancy functionality. And it's free to use, especially if you run it directly rather than hosting a web version (although Pavlovia costs are very low)

US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Award Western University, in vibrant London, Ontario, delivers an academic and student experience second to none.

Graduate students who have an offer to study in the US but are reconsidering or have been denied entry or current grad students who want to leave, then consider coming to Western University in Canada. Our University just launched a US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Program : grad.uwo.ca/finances/wes...

We are sending this message to you as ________Program awardee since July 2015. As you should be aware, NSF is focusing on a handful of Administration research priorities: Artificial intelligence Quantum information science Biotechnology Nuclear energy Translational science National security/national defense Many of you may see your work as connecting to one or more of these priorities but those connections are not always reflected in your annual reports. So please help us out! If your work can be seen as situated within, or applicable to, any of the above areas (defined broadly), please send us an email with a short description (2-3 sentences) of that connection, preferably this week. This should be focused on the current work, training, and outcomes of your NSF award from the program. Please email___________ and in the email subject line, please reference your NSF award number, and the priority areas mentioned in the body of the email (e.g., NSF XXXXXXXX, Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology). Please do not use abbreviations for the priority areas in the subject line. For Collaborative Projects, only one email response is needed, but please include both NSF award numbers in the subject line. If you have had multiple _________awards since 2015, please send separate emails for each award. Please don’t ignore this request. We are trying to clarify the role of our sciences within these new priorities. If we need more information, we will reach out to you individually. If your work does not connect to any of these priorities, that’s fine- NSF also remains “…committed to awarding grants and funding all areas of science and engineering to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare and secure the national defense.” (https://www.nsf.gov/updates-on-priorities). Please do not respond to this email if your work does not connect to any of the above priorities.

Just received this suspicious request from an #NSF email address I have never gotten email from before.

It requests a specifically formatted reply with 2-3 sentences on how my grant relates to the 6 new MAGA "priority" areas.

1/x
@marisakabas.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social
🧠🟦
#academicsky

Postdoctoral Fellowship Opening!📣

The Sensorimotor Learning Lab is seeking a Postdoc to join us in Fall 2025! Under the direction of @amandastherrien.bsky.social, the fellow will investigate the mechanisms of sensory plasticity in adaptive motor learning.

Link to learn more and apply⬇️

An open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt GenAI in education

Please join me in signing this important open letter: openletter.earth/an-open-lett...

“We will not contribute to the erosion of academic freedom and educator agency by forcing educators into compliance with technology they find unethical.”

✉️ READ the open letter.
✍️ SIGN it.
🔄 SHARE it.

Let’s show the world that #Philly stands up for science, for inclusion, and for every athlete’s right to belong.

open.substack.com/pub/philadel...

10, end of🧵

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Biological Truth Is That There Is No Simple Dichotomy Between Male and Female By Amanda S. Therrien Ph.D.

Penn’s acquiescence to the Trump Admin last week is troubling. It condones scapegoating, revisionism, & transphobia.
It also condones an interpretation of biological sex that flies in the face of current biological science.

Here, @amandastherrien.bsky.social discusses the actual biological truth.

Congrats!

I have been going through Judge Young’s ruling and was going to post, but @maxkozlov.bsky.social captures the highlights very well. Read, Read, Read

Will the Senate Save NIH? Rescuing biomedical research is every bit as important as saving Medicaid.

It seems that only the science community is noticing that NIH and NSF budgets are cut 40% and 55% in the budget bill, respectively. If you live in Maine, West Va, Pennsylvania, Alabama, or Louisiana, CALL YOUR SENATOR as they could make a difference. See below.

prospect.org/politics/202...

For anyone who missed it at NCM, check out our latest work!

For anyone who missed it at NCM, check out our latest work!

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years.

NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."