Jieyu Zheng

These mice without cortex or hippocampus maintain a good repertoire of functions! Me too, I always enjoy the philosophical discussions about the role of cortex :p

It's an indigo bunting! First time for me seeing them on the east coast.

A full-brain load at an amazing cognition conference! Great meeting so many scientists with shared research interests — and #bird obsessions 🧠🐦 Conference birding is real!

Some highlights from the stunning research environment at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social

Very timely after today's talks!

Heading to @hhmijanelia.bsky.social this weekend for the MCN! 🧠✈️ I’ll be presenting a poster on Wednesday, repping @caltech.edu Neuroscience (seems like I might be the only one!).

Hit me up to chat about Manhattan Maze 🗺️, acortical mice 🐭, 10 bits/s 🔢, and all things cognition!

Three Minute Thesis YouTube video by caltech

Manhattan Maze was the finalist for the Caltech 3-minute thesis competition! Check out the fantasy version of our mouse study: 🐭 www.youtube.com/live/3eS2jj8...

The 10 bits/s is a proposed magnitude: so anything between 1-100 bits/s would fall into that range. We also quoted this paper and discussed the likely inflation of that number (39 bits/s), more details in Appendix A.2!

My first outing of "The Unbearable Slowness of Being" at the Caltech Chen Neuroscience Workshop today! What does living at 10 bits/s mean for humans, flies, mice, and crows? More here: jieyusz.github.io/talks/2025_c...
Thanks to Profs. @cfcamerer.bsky.social & Carlos for the invite!

I'm so heartbroken to see all the homes destroyed by the firestorms in Greater Los Angeles —for both people and wildlife. This palm tree on @caltech.edu campus was once a food bank for resident acorn woodpeckers. My photo was taken just five days before the disaster. #wildfires #birds

Rare bird alert! A clay-colored sparrow and a female common yellow throat were observed on campus, in front of the Chen Neuroscience Research building.

Acorn woodpeckers working hard on the campus trees.

Baby fox squirrels play fighting on the tree near Beckman mall

A female coyote (confirmed by observations of urination patterns) in front of the newly built Resnick center.

A snowy egret testing the water temperature in the lily pond. Taken yesterday!

@caltech.edu might be a small campus, but never short of wildlife! Here are some #wildlife photos I took over the past few months /n
#addBirder #birds

Human Thought Is Far Slower Than Your Internet Connection (Gift Article) A new study is “a bit of a counterweight to the endless hyperbole about how incredibly complex and powerful the human brain is,” one researcher said.

I wrote about a scientific paper called “The Unbearable Slowness of Being” which finds that the human brain’s throughput is just 10 bits per second. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/s...
🧪

Thank you for posting about this, fellow bird lover!

The Human Brain Operates at a Stunningly Slow Pace The brain is sometimes called the most complex machine in the known universe. But the thoughts that it outputs putter along at a trifling 10 bits per second, the pace of a conversation

Congrats to @jieyusz.bsky.social and @mameister4.bsky.social on their Neuron paper unpacking an unresolved paradox in neuroscience. It's terrific to see it capture the public imagination, including Scientific American.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

Attached is a piece of art by me for "The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?"

Hope this will inspire you to think about the brain from a new perspective!

Explaining ‘the largest unexplained number in brain science’: Q&A with Markus Meister and Jieyu Zheng The human brain takes in sensory information roughly 100 million times faster than it can respond. Neuroscientists need to explore this perceptual paradox to better understand the limits of the brain…

"[It’s] the largest unexplained number in brain science. I feel like neuroscience should pay more attention to it ..." said Marcus Meister when @claudia-lopez.bsky.social sat down with him and @jieyusz.bsky.social for a Q&A about the brain's information-processing rate.
#neuroskyence

bit.ly/3ZXxWTf

Thank you so much for liking and sharing this! 😍@nicolecrust.bsky.social

This upcoming winter term @caltech.edu, I’ll lead an undergraduate tutorial on "The Ethology of Learning"👇! It’ll run 10 weeks (1-hour lectures + 2-hour readings per week).

Suggestions for readings + nominations for guest lectures are welcomed! Things to do over the holidays...

As a birder, I can say that's a good way of attracting birds over, especially if you play the recordings of rare songbirds to themselves! We do that in the field all the time.

Huge thanks to @johnjvastola for the kind invitation and intro! 🙏 And to the @harvardmed neuroscience audience for your questions. 🧠✨
Hope this talk sparked ideas on the role of the cortex! Slides now uploaded: https://t.co/gEUqQGNlVm https://t.co/eEN4PiWFjU

Outside the lab, I’m all about birds 🦅and art 🎨. It’s like weekend research, but with more instinct than effort —watching animals in the wild is very inspiring. Check out this short piece from Victoria Thomas @LocalNewsDena on my birding adventures: https://t.co/YNLafTjuOK

Thank you @DiscoverMag for a nice summary of "The Unbearable Slowness of Being" by me and @mameister4! https://t.co/ZoPBANdR67

If you are new to neuroscience, give it a read!

Small suggestion & a little plug: How about using my art instead of the stock photo? 🎨😊

What do neuroscientists do on weekends? Art is an option! 🎨

Here’s a piece I did in 2021 when writing “the Unbearable Slowness of Being” https://t.co/rUUyNaWoD1. This painting is on the wall of our lab.

Check out more arts & science here: https://t.co/aoRBzfJsLR https://t.co/fMo1NYS4V9

Fun fact: a good portion of the literature search was done during a remote rotation while COVID-quarantining in a hotel in Singapore. Three years later I’m still suffering from COVID… https://t.co/TlWgAnfImG

Nice Ambition from @elonmusk @djseo_ @neuralink 🚀, but we @mameister4 kindly invite you to read our words of caution first😉⚠️, now on arXIV: https://t.co/rUUyNaWoD1

Academics, please join the discussion on alphaxiv: https://t.co/IHaA4FhPvg. Just one thought at a time please!

Few-shot learning observed: it took me 6 peanuts to befriend a local fox squirrel. Now he checks my window daily—no extinction yet.

Sure, squirrels already have representations of humans as food sources, but doesn't this hint at meta-learning too?

(Photo today at @Caltech) https://t.co/GIlvDUCrNt