Cris Niell

Call it #ExplainableAI or just making sense of complexity. We establish a direct link between DNNs fit to #AuditoryCortex and more intuitive subspace models from the 2000s. Congrats @jeremewingert.bsky.social @satyaparida.bsky.social & Sam Norman-Haignere! #NeuroAI #SensoryNeuroscience rdcu.be/e5gLY

Less than two weeks left to apply for the Cephalopod Neuroscience Gordon Conference! An exciting lineup of speakers and posters, and financial aid is available upon request. 🐙🦑
www.grc.org/cephalopod-n...

An illustration of a mouse on a ball looking at a field of grass displayed on monitors.

Can your AI beat a mouse?

Mice still outperform our best computing machines in some ways. One way is robust visual processing.

10 years ago I decided to work on HARD behavior driven by COMPLEX visual processing. And that risk is paying off now. #neuroAI 1/n

Applications are open for the first Cephalopod Neuroscience Gordon Conference, to be held February 2026! Hope to see many of you there! 🐙🧠🔬
www.grc.org/cephalopod-n...

A very nice article about our research on the octopus visual system, by @callimcflurry.bsky.social @thetransmitter.bsky.social

Decreased CO2 saturation during circular breathwork supports emergence of altered states of consciousness - Communications Psychology Circular breathwork induces altered states of consciousness similar to psychedelics, predicted by decreases in CO2 saturation. Acute physiological and psychological dynamics during breathwork in turn ...

Our first paper on altered states of consciousness induced by #breathwork is officially out now! It addresses four big questions: (1) Can simple breathing alter your consciousness? Most definitely! And in very similar ways to psychedelics! (1/4)
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

#standupforscience Oregon!

List of Stand Up for Science events—official events in red, solidarity events in blue.

SO MANY STAND UP FOR SCIENCE EVENTS TO CHOOSE FROM—153 and COUNTING!

To get more information on our local events and to register your own, head to www.standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information/ ☀️⬇️🌎

Yes! We should organize a meeting on aquatic prey capture one of these days.

Is the impact of spontaneous movements on early visual cortex species specific? Recent studies in non-human primates do not find pronounced signals related to the animal’s own body movements in the responses of neurons in the visu…

Recent studies found pronounced neuromodulation in the early visual cortex due to locomotion and spontaneous body movements in mice but not in non-human primates. We reconciled this dichotomy in this new open-access feature review @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social

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

When we enter a new environment, we use visual input to rapidly build an internal model of the local spatial environment. How does our brain do this? We review past literature and suggest some new ways forward in our new review in @currentbiology.bsky.social: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Sniffing helps animals identify smells and connect them to places and events, but noses can’t sense time or place.

How do brains connect odors with internal models of the world?

Our preprint suggests that the olfactory bulb participates in this connection.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Octopuses Are Colorblind. Here's How They See the World Cephalopods have developed unique visual systems to deal with their underwater world

More cephalopod content for your holiday reading! (don't be fooled by the title - there's some funky cuttlefish facts in there too)

Thank you to @crisniell.bsky.social and all of the other researchers I interviewed for this! www.scientificamerican.com/article/octo...