Joao Barbosa
@jbarbosa.org
3.6K followers 820 following 1.2K posts
INSERM group leader @ Neuromodulation Institute and NeuroSpin (Paris) in computational neuroscience. How and why are computations enabling cognition distributed across the brain? Expect neuroscience and ML content. jbarbosa.org
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
jbarbosa.org
A good time to repost this banger from 'The Responsibility of Intellectuals' by Noam Chomsky in '67

Vance is absolutely correct: universities are - and must be - the enemy.

This is why the Right is attacking scholarship globally. They want to end the privilege Chomsky's talking about in 67
jbarbosa.org
Confusing take. The evolutionary distance between the two species is a beautiful mystery.

The evidence in monkeys isn’t nearly as strong, nor has the same sophisticated experiments, but the mechanism was first proposed in that context.

It's an amazing coincidence? Is it silly? Nature's fault!
vincentcostaphd.bsky.social
Hot take…asking whether mechanisms relevant for flies remembering odors aligns with those underlying working memory in primates is silly.

Mushroom bodies and lateral prefrontal cortex aren’t even close to an example of convergent evolution.

bsky.app/profile/blue...
bluedebris.bsky.social
At #BernsteinConference heated debate on WM mechanisms. I love that this is still far to be settled!

trained RNNs from A.Compte aligns with fruitfly direction WM data from K.Nagel: it is persistent.

Large scale recording in macaque V1 in T.Moore Lab: it is not.

#neuroskyence what's your take?
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
nyudatascience.bsky.social
CDS Asst. Prof. @neurograce.bsky.social has launched a YouTube channel, “5 Minute Papers on AI for the Planet,” translating climate-AI research into short video explainers, inspired by her course at CDS, “Machine Learning for Climate Change.”

nyudatascience.medium.com/cds-grace-li...
CDS’ Grace Lindsay Launches YouTube Channel on “AI for the Planet”
Grace Lindsay’s new YouTube series turns climate-AI research into five-minute videos for a wide audience.
nyudatascience.medium.com
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
modirshanechi.bsky.social
After a few days of extensive discussions about curiosity at @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social's retreat, I realized—perhaps for the first time—that the word curiosity in Persian (کنجکاوی) literally means "exploring corners"! It's such a vivid way to express curiosity! so amusing to think about it!
jbarbosa.org
Definitely cool! But far from the kind of evidence that is around for the opposite. The hypothesis is very hard to prove and papers in favor of it essentially start from null results (eg lack of decoding)
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
shahabbakht.bsky.social
Regardless of what explainability/mech interp in AI is actually after, and whether or not they know what they’re searching for, we can confidently say they’re pursuing what systems neuroscience has pursued for decades, with very similar puzzles and confusions.
bayesianboy.bsky.social
What problem is explainability/interpretability research trying to solve in ML, and do you have a favorite paper articulating what that problem is?
jbarbosa.org
Sure! Or to play a role in shaping activity dynamics. But my point is that, in comparison, there's no real evidence for any of that
jbarbosa.org
There's probably nothing more influential or w/ more explanatory power in neurosci than attractors and more generally computations through population dynamics. In comparison, the level of evidence for fast plasticity being relevant for cognition is close to zero

It's more of a heckler than a debate
bluedebris.bsky.social
At #BernsteinConference heated debate on WM mechanisms. I love that this is still far to be settled!

trained RNNs from A.Compte aligns with fruitfly direction WM data from K.Nagel: it is persistent.

Large scale recording in macaque V1 in T.Moore Lab: it is not.

#neuroskyence what's your take?
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
mehr.nz
postdoc, in an esoteric field, preparing for the job market
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
helencbarron.bsky.social
** We have up to TWO funded PhD positions available in our lab!! Apply below to find new ways to enhance memory👇 Pls retweet **

Deadline: 2nd December

1. Cross-species closed-loopTMR: tinyurl.com/bddu4tp6

2. TUS and TMR in humans:
tinyurl.com/jjws5ctj

Happy to chat to interested applicants.
Enhancing memory using cross-species closed-loop Targeted Memory Reactivation | mrcbndu
tinyurl.com
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
mehr.nz
"the quickest way to get a collaborator to return edits on your manuscript is to write down their affiliation wrong" (ancient academic proverb)
jbarbosa.org
The grifter lesson!
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
drrickadams.bsky.social
Post doc job alert 📢! Announcing a v exciting job on a Wellcome-funded project in my group at UCL, looking at auditory hallucinations... Advert here 👀: rb.gy/230w8l - deadline is end of Oct. Please apply! 1/5
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
rb.gy
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
kaniamaciej.bsky.social
My first Bernstein Meeting was a blast! ✨🤓
So much inspiring research and great people!!
Glad I could share some of our recent work on how playful the plastic spike nets can get! 🏓🕹️

#pong #bernstein25 #rolltheball
@bernsteinneuro.bsky.social
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
mschrimpf.bsky.social
I've been arguing that #NeuroAI should model the brain in health *and* in disease -- very excited to share a first step from Melika Honarmand: inducing dyslexia in vision-language-models via targeted perturbations of visual-word-form units (analogous to human VWFA) 🧠🤖🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2509.24597
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
rademaker.bsky.social
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.
jbarbosa.org
Can this be because postdocs have higher salaries? Unlikely, but trying to see the glass half full
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
rdgao.bsky.social
Manuel Brenner and I managed to organize this workshop not knowing we were gonna end up being new neighbors this month. The lineup speaks for itself.

There were some last minute cancellations so we jumped in to fill their big shoes and will talk about the future directions of the new labs too!
Reposted by Joao Barbosa
rdgao.bsky.social
but actually though where do we go for the afterparty @mariusschneider.bsky.social ?