Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Alicia Izquierdo @aliciaizquierdo.bsky.social · 13h

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications

Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

www.nature.com

3 33 75

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 1d

Nope I would have panicked ;)

1

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 1d

🚨Big news!🚨
The lab is relocating to Lisbon, joining a great team of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists, and the Neurotechnology Warehouse, a new initiative to bridge basic and translational research.

I'll be sharing postdoc openings soon. Come join us in this new incarnation of the lab!

Champalimaud Research @champalimaudr.bsky.social · 2d

🧠🎼 What does it take to restore movement? Neuroscientist and engineer, @juangallego.bsky.social, joins the new Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology at the Champalimaud Foundation.

🔗 Find out more in this interview: www.fchampalimaud.org/news/juan-al...

17 20 170

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Rob Benson 🦋 @robnellie.bsky.social · 4d

10 19

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 4d

Yup.

AZ Faust @azfaust.bsky.social · 5d

8. Nothing about what is happening in the US is new to anyone from outside of Western Europe/NA/Australia. If anything, it's a bit funny how familiar it all is?

1

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Mark Laubach @marklaubach.bsky.social · 5d

I'm recruiting a PhD student to study how enkephalins affect cognitive processing in the rodent frontal cortex. The project uses pharmacology, multi-electrode recordings, and fiber photometry, and is funded by NIDA. Please share with trainees applying this cycle. Thanks!

15 16

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 5d

Had not been fine and will not be fine. “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly”

1

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 6d

She caused irreparable damage to NHP research in the eu and USA despite any knowledge of the work. AR meaning animal rights groups here. She was also so extremely against gene editing that she would argue against the interests of developing countries continuously. The list goes on.

1 5

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Jonathan A. Michaels @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social · 7d

The neural control & computation lab is recruiting!

If you're interested in using large-scale neural population recordings to study how the brain learns to produce complex and flexible behaviours, please get in touch.

www.ncclab.ca

5 43 95

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 7d

“Wrong life cannot be lived rightly” everything else is ignorance

1

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Andrew Pruszynski @andpru.bsky.social · 8d

We will have an NHP position open at @westernu.ca this year. Posting is coming soon. If you're interested about our setup and the opportunities here, feel free to get in touch.

1 19 26

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 8d

Typically nothing. Depending how long stuff lasts the cycle can shift. That would be the worst outcome. Yay ?

1

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Rosanne Rademaker @rademaker.bsky.social · 9d

We’re looking for a postdoc to join our Max Planck group in Germany some time in 2026. If you have computational and/or neuroimaging expertise, and are interested in questions intersecting perception and cognition, please reach out! I’ll also be happy to chat at the #Bernsteinconference this week.

1 54 60

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 9d

no more U60311.. booooo

2

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Alireza Modirshanechi @modirshanechi.bsky.social · 10d

New in @pnas.org: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

We study how humans explore a 61-state environment with a stochastic region that mimics a “noisy-TV.”

Results: Participants keep exploring the stochastic part even when it’s unhelpful, and novelty-seeking best explains this behavior.

#cogsci #neuroskyence

35 92

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Vinny Costa @vincentcostaphd.bsky.social · 10d

This is fantastic work.

Monkeys show the same pattern of “optimistic” exploration in multi-arm bandits www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1 13 27

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 13d

Convergent and divergent neural and behavioral responses to chronic cocaine use in macaques https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.23.678075v1

3 4

Reposted by Dr. Jan Zimmermann

Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social · 15d

Understanding behavior requires datasets that capture humans while carrying out complex tasks. The kitchen is an excellent environment for assessing human motor and cognitive function, as many complex actions are naturally exhibited in kitchens from chopping to 🧽!

arxiv.org/abs/2506.01608

EPFL-Smart-Kitchen-30: Densely annotated cooking dataset with 3D kinematics to challenge video and language models

Understanding behavior requires datasets that capture humans while carrying out complex tasks. The kitchen is an excellent environment for assessing human motor and cognitive function, as many complex...

arxiv.org

5 14 70

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 15d

Amazing news!!! Mazel Tov

Richard Gao @rdgao.bsky.social · 15d

I've been waiting some years to make this joke and now it’s real:

I conned somebody into giving me a faculty job!

I’m starting as a W1 Tenure-Track Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt in a week (lol), in the Faculty of CS and Math

and I'm recruiting PhD students 🤗

a man wearing a white shirt and tie smiles in front of a window

ALT: a man wearing a white shirt and tie smiles in front of a window

media.tenor.com

1 2

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 17d

This is amazing work !!!

Camillo Padoa-Schioppa @camillopadoasch.bsky.social · 17d

New ms on trinary choices! Somewhat surprisingly, our monkeys’ choices satisfied IIA (independence of irrelevant alternatives). In OFC, decision variables were represented in the same way under trinary and under binary choices. This property implies IIA.

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

Neuronal Activity in Orbitofrontal Cortex during Trinary Choices under Risk

Economic choice entails computing and comparing the subjective values of different goods. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to contribute to both operations. However, previous work focused almost ...

www.biorxiv.org

Dr. Jan Zimmermann @janzimmermann.bsky.social · 17d

Hihihihi we all do ;)

Dave Blake @blakestah.bsky.social · 17d

Because LLMs are simply reflections of their training material, they cannot discern new hypotheses, they can only report on ones they've already seen.

I know, some scientists do that too...