Rhodri Cusack

Finally got around to this interesting exchange. Much to like! However, in my view neonate cortex is building a foundation model while sub-cortical sensorimotor routes support newborn behaviours and, importantly, bias the inputs to the foundation model (e.g. orienting toward faces).

This is a great opportunity for rising stars and established research leaders particularly when combined with an ERC frontier research grant (€4-4.5 million including relocation-to-Europe supplement).

Deadline for expression of interest is Aug 28

The Trinity College institute of Neuroscience is located on Trinity's main campus in the heart of the city. Founded in 1592, Trinity is a research intensive university with strength across disciplines, currently ranked 75 in the world, valuing diversity, inclusion and kindness.

Ireland launches global talent fund! www.researchireland.ie/funding/glob...
If you're a neuroscience professor (assistant/associate/full) and would consider relocating to the vibrant and booming city of Dublin, please get in touch!

Very pleased that my commentary on Jonathan Birch's fantastic "The Edge of Sentience" has finally appeared. @birchlse.bsky.social and I agree on many things, but there was enough distance between our views to make this a productive exchange.

Thank you very much for the discussion, Martin, @marielgoddu.bsky.social and Ruthe! Look forward to discussing more. Will any of you make it to CCN in Amsterdam?

Interesting! Random exploration is consistent - the important thing is that the infant doesn't start to optimize decisions that corrupt learning by forcing early cheap solutions building on sub-optimal representations.

Eye movements are exploration too as @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social reminds me

I love the idea of explore-to-exploit transition in childhood! But, in the helpless period (first 6-8 months?) there's no reaching, crawling or walking, and humans get much less exploration done than a chicken or a lamb. Pre-exploration infantile chillaxing- that's what we're trying to explain.

I'm glad you like the fundamental point. The novel contribution is to suggest that the requirement for lots of self-supervised learning upfront could drive a long helpless period in human infants. Otherwise, helplessness is dangerous and such a lot of work for the caregivers!

Defending the foundation model view of infant development

Thanks to fellow defenders @clionaod.bsky.social, Marc'Aurelio Ranzato, and @charvetcj.bsky.social

Defending the foundation model view of infant development www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

CCN 2025 Satellite Event Background The human visual system is full of optimisations—mechanisms designed to extract the most useful information from a constant stream of incoming data. The field of neuro-AI has made significa...

Not just one, but two fantastic chances to discuss how infant development can inform machine learning and vice-versa at CCN 2025 in Amsterdam!!! Satellite workshop sites.google.com/view/child2m...
and Generative Adversarial Collaboration sites.google.com/ccneuro.org/...

Defending the foundation model view of infant development In response to the opinion article by Cusack et al. [1], Zettersten et al. [2] challenge the proposal that human infants undergo a stage-like development from sensory to goal-directed actions. Zetters...

Excited to see our response published www.cell.com/trends/cogni... to Zettersten at al's thoughtful commentary www.cell.com/trends/cogni... on our TiCS perspective "Helpless infants are learning a foundation model" www.cell.com/trends/cogni... @trinityneuro.bsky.social @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

Great to see this award to Peter Gorman, from Trinity-Columbia's joint BA programme. www.tcd.ie/news_events/... @trinityneuro.bsky.social

Professor, Senior Lecturer/Lecturer and Lecturer posts - Glasgow City (GB) job with University of Glasgow | 12838283 University of Glasgow College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences  School of Psychology & Neuroscience Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience/Psy...

We are recruiting for 5 permanent staff positions (Prof, Senior-, Lecturer) including for 7T-MRI. Please have a look and share widely.
(Closing date: May 12)

www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Fabulous chance to study brain health in athletes!

The developing Human Connectome Project fetal functional MRI release: Methods and data structures Abstract. Recent advances in fetal fMRI present a new opportunity for neuroscience to study functional human brain connectivity at the time of its emergence. Progress in the field, however, has been h...

Very pleased to share the fMRI pipeline paper from the fetal release or the developing human connectome project, a true labour of love and incredible work from Slava Karolis #dhcp #connectome #fmri direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

Join us as an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology. my.corehr.com/pls/trrecrui...

White matter connections of human ventral temporal cortex are organized by cytoarchitecture, eccentricity and category-selectivity from birth Nature Human Behaviour - Kubota et al. find that white matter connections of ventral temporal cortex are innately organized by cytoarchitecture, category and eccentricity from birth, and also...

The latest paper from my PhD is now out in Nature Human Behavior! rdcu.be/edRwQ

Anatomical correlates of category-selective visual regions have distinctive signatures of connectivity in neonates - PubMed The ventral visual stream is shaped during development by innate proto-organization within the visual system, such as the strong input from the fovea to the fusiform face area. In adults, category-sel...

Emily, I haven't read your paper yet and it looks interesting! But I'm curious why you didn't cite @cabrallaura.bsky.social's work (with me) examining the connectivity of ventral visual category regions in neonates pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36521345/

Hippocampal encoding of memories in human infants Humans lack memories for specific events from the first few years of life. We investigated the mechanistic basis of this infantile amnesia by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magne...

Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

(Assuming it's for backup)

Why not aws glacier?

Cortical maturation unfolds hierarchically, endowing the PFC with extended plasticity. But do timeframes of plasticity vary across PFC layers?

With 7T quantitative myelin imaging, EEG, and cognitive data, we uncover heterochronous laminar maturation in the PFC 1/n. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congratulations!

Announcing a new endowed Chair in Young People's Mental Health at @campsydept.bsky.social. An exciting opportunity to shape mental health strategy and conduct world-leading research in one of the most intellectually vibrant places in the world. Please share!

Happy new year too!

I learned a new word for this recently - "enshitification".

Congratulations!