Michael Pasek

This is who runs this account

When reading a line like "the glow of the flame briefly illuminated his face", most readers tend to build an image in their mind. 🧠
People with aphantasia, however, report that they do not. We wanted to know: Does this change how they physically read stories? (1/5)

IMAGE SHOWS GRAPHIC OF CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY PHYLOGENY EXPLORER TOOL.

MAJOR NEWS! We just launched an awesome new tool! The illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer lets users trace any bird’s lineage, compare species relationships, and explore major evolutionary milestones with a click of a button. SHARE and EXPLORE! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/phy...

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.

My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

Plot showing metabolic rate and brain size vs. body mass. Warm-blooded animals expend an order of magnitude more energy and have brain sizes an order of magnitude larger

Soapbox time: the problem with metabolic efficiency arguments in neuroscience is that they often confuse energy efficiency with energy expenditure. Biological systems are optimized for energy efficiency, but that does NOT imply they are optimized for low energy expenditure 🧵 1/

Very cool! Would you have the reference for the plot?

Story: Many years ago, every few months over a period of 5+ years, I would head up to Cold Spring Harbor Labs to work on an Evolution textbook (see cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...).

Covers of three of my books, Evolution, Airborne, and Life's Edge

With the gift-giving season upon us, how about an autographed book? You can order one (or more!) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

check out our manuscript (led by Obinna Ukogu) on Design principles of cytotoxic T-cell response: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hey #motorcontrol researchers! @jul-bouvier.bsky.social, LeMouel & I organize *Searching for principles in Motor Control* Paris Sept 23-24, 25 @sorbonne-universite.fr @institutducerveau.bsky.social @neuropsi.bsky.social: Submit Abstract for Posters by Aug 31! motorconference.sciencesconf.org?lang=en

I'm selecting papers for an upper-division undergraduate course on Systems Neuroscience, and want to have a paper that highlights the best of what's possible with modern genetic tools (particularly optogenetics, given the preceding lectures).

Does any one have any recommendations?

Neuroscience methods - YouTube Nanocourse: Approaches to Study Neural Circuits This course was taught by Anita Autry, Tiago Gonçalves, and Luke Sjulson at Albert Einstein College of Medici...

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube!

Please like and repost to help us get the word out!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition
Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization
🧵

A figure comparing box plot and showing all data points. Group1: normally distributed data. Group2: bimodal data. Group3: Data with 3 modes.

Friends don't let friends make bad graphs repo has been updated!

Friends don't let friends use boxplot for binomial (bimodal) data. Is your box plot hiding something from you?

#DataVisualization

github.com/cxli233/Frie...

Postdocs read Spikes

Neuronal sequences in population bursts encode information in human cortex - Nature The temporal order of neuronal firing within bursts of population spiking in the human anterior temporal lobe is dependent on the category as well as the identity of the individual stimulus, and this ...

This study shows that spike sequences carry information beyond what rates and latency to first spike do:

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

My reactions:

1) Cool to see this in humans.
2) Are people still surprised that spike times carry information beyond rates/first-spike latency?!?!?!

🧠📈 🧪

Arxiv sharing reminder

pdf ❌
abs ✅

Couldn't find one so made a quick physics of life list, enjoy! go.bsky.app/EA2VsDN

Cover of textbook. Photo of path in a forest. Text overlaid saying 'Introducing Mathematical Biology, An Open Education Resource by Alex Best'

As my follower count creeps towards that of the old place, an unashamed plug for the FREE online textbook I wrote for #mathbio students. 'Introducing Mathematical Biology' is FREE, interactive, accessible and FREE. Please feel free to share with students. sheffield.pressbooks.pub/introducingm...

People often ask me for child development book recommendations. 📚

One of my very favorites, by Alison Gopnik, is called The Scientist in the Crib.

And the title couldn’t be more fitting.

(Thread 🧵)

Would love to be added!

[stares back in songbird]