Paul Masset

Image of robots struggling with a social dilemma.

1/ Why does RL struggle with social dilemmas? How can we ensure that AI learns to cooperate rather than compete?

Introducing our new framework: MUPI (Embedded Universal Predictive Intelligence) which provides a theoretical basis for new cooperative solutions in RL.

Preprint🧵👇

(Paper link below.)

Jobs | Psychological & Brain Sciences Tenured/Tenure-track position in Cognitive Psychology Open Date Dec 01, 2025 Salary Range or Pay Grade The expected academic base salary range for this position is $110,000- $144,500 (Assistant Profes...

Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins is inviting applications for 3 open-rank tenured/tenure-track positions in (1) Behavioral Neuroscience, (2) Cognitive Neuroscience, and (3) Cognitive Psychology.

pbs.jhu.edu/about/jobs/

These are is a great reviews (primarily for striatal projecting DA neurons): doi.org/10.1016/B978...
doi.org/10.1016/B978...

McGill also has two great PhD rotation programs (similar to many US schools):
- IPN rotation program: www.mcgill.ca/ipn/programs...
-Quantitative Life Sciences (QLS) rotation program: www.mcgill.ca/qls/

Students are encouraged to apply via both the Psychology program: www.mcgill.ca/psychology/g... and the Integrated Program in Neuroscience: www.mcgill.ca/ipn/prospect... IPN applications are reviewed on a rolling basis but applying by the Dec 1st deadline to both programs is strongly preferred.

Experimental approaches would involve refining and developing complex cognitive tasks in rats, chronic multi-site Neuropixel recordings, and advanced computational methods. McGill has a great neuroscience scene and Montréal is an amazing place to work at the intersection of neuroscience and AI

I am recruiting graduate students for the experimental side of my lab @mcgill.ca for admission in Fall 2026!
Get in touch if you're interested in how brain circuits implement distributed computation, including dopamine-based distributed RL and probabilistic representations.

CAN meeting postcard

Share your research at the next Canadian Neuroscience Meeting May 18-21, 2026 in Montreal!
Calls for Parallel Symposia, Satellite Meetings, Poster Abstract and Travel & Professional Awards are now open - Don't miss these opportunities!
can-acn.org/meeting-2026/

Subsecond dopamine fluctuations do not specify the vigor of ongoing actions Nature Neuroscience - Liu and colleagues show that the vigor (that is, speed and amplitude) of dexterous movements is not controlled by ongoing fluctuations in extracellular dopamine within the...

Delighted to see this finally out: rdcu.be/eO9oW
We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.

2025 UCL Neuropixels Course - YouTube Lectures at the 2025 UCL Neuropixels course (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/neuropixels/training/2025-neuropixels-course)

All talks of the 2025 UCL #Neuropixels course are now available: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

For more information on the course see the website: www.ucl.ac.uk/neuropixels/...

And for those at #SfN, come say hi at the #Neuropixels booth (Number 3731) or at my Poster 👋.

Happy Neuropixeling!

How do VTA DA neurons sculpt downstream representations to reinforce actions? VERY excited about our new preprint (by Alex Pan Vazquez & @czimmerman.bsky.social )

More detailed thread by @chenjiang01.bsky.social here (once Bluesky removes the spam label...)
bsky.app/profile/chen...

First paper from the lab!
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social

Simultaneous detection and estimation in olfactory sensing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.686013v1

Stoked to see our study out in final form! Big kudos to @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social for driving this along for the past 5 years.

🔷 Launch of the IVADO 2026 Postdoctoral Research Funding Program for outstanding national and international postdoctoral researchers.

More info: ivado.ca/en/scholarsh...

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #R3AI #Funding #Postdoc

Applying to do a postdoc or PhD in theoretical ML or neuroscience this year? Consider joining my group (starting next Fall) at UT Austin!
POD Postdoc: oden.utexas.edu/programs-and... CSEM PhD: oden.utexas.edu/academics/pr...

Apply to the new CSHL grad program in BioAI/neuroAI!

(Masters degree or equivalent required in a quantitative area such as computer science, physics, mathematics, or engineering)

www.cshl.edu/phd-program/...

Mila's annual supervision request process is now open to receive MSc and PhD applications for Fall 2026 admission! For more information, visit mila.quebec/en/prospecti...

McGill University in early Autumn

Delighted to share that we are currently hiring for a tenure-track position (open rank) in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at McGill University. Come join a great department! Link to apply: mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/mcgill....

This is one of the most outstanding examples of circuit understanding I've seen in a long time. The unification of theory and experiment is beautiful.

When Malcolm presented this in my lab, the audience was cheering at the end, and one person shouted (non-ironically) "You did it!"

Finally preprinted! TL;DR: thalamic head-direction neurons can shape their activity regardless of input. Big thanks to @apeyrache.bsky.social and master experimentalist @sskromne.bsky.social .

Stoked to see this paper finally out!

It answers two big questions: where visual objects are encoded in the brain, and how head-direction cells get oriented using visual landmarks.

Super fun collaboration with @mace-lab.bsky.social and Stuart Trenholm.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Assistant Professor (Neuroscience, Tenure Track) - Lethbridge (City), Alberta (CA) job with University of Lethbridge | 39049 Assistant Professor (tenure track) of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

For anyone on the neuroscience job market, our ads are up. We are looking for anyone working in systems neuroscience of animals to join us in southern Alberta 🇨🇦
#academicsky #neuroskyence #neuroethology #academicjobs #Canada
neurojobs.sfn.org/job/39049/as...

Come join us at University of Toronto. We're hiring a Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience.

#neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

Frontiers | Summary statistics of learning link changing neural representations to behavior How can we make sense of large-scale recordings of neural activity across learning? Theories of neural network learning with their origins in statistical phy...

Since I'm back on BlueSky - with @frostedblakess.bsky.social and @cpehlevan.bsky.social we wrote a brief perspective on how ideas about summary statistics from the statistical physics of learning could potentially help inform neural data analysis... (1/2)

Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Having fun facilitating this amazing group of young Profs at the #Neuro4Pros workshop with @kordinglab.bsky.social and @meganakpeters.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and Hannah Bayer.

Watch out world: this is the next generation of leaders!

compneurosci.com/Neuro4Pros/i...

For anyone interested in an academic job in 🇨🇦, we will soon be advertising an Assistant Prof position in Systems Neuroscience (rodents and other animal models) at ULethbridge. There are many pros and cons of working here, so feel free to DM me to find out more
#neuroskyence #academicsky

Tonic dopamine and biases in value learning linked through a biologically inspired reinforcement learning model Nature Communications - Accurate future predictions are essential for guiding behavior, and disruptions in this process are associated with psychiatric disorders. Here the authors show that changes...

My first paper with @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social is finally out in @natcomms.nature.com ! rdcu.be/eACGf

TL;DR: asymmetric learning rates can be induced by shifts in tonic dopamine giving rise to pessimistic/optimistic biases in agents or animals undergoing reinforcement learning .