Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Danielle Beckman @daniellebeckman.bsky.social · Jun 18

Our preprint about Neuroinflammation in #LongCovid is online! This group met during the community-driven event #UnitedtoFight last year. This publication in #NeuroCovid is just another example of how science works better when we listen to the community and work together with them! (1/3)

Understanding Neuroinflammation in Post-COVID-19 Syndrome: Biological Mechanisms, Diagnostic Biomarkers, and Therapeutic Prospects

5 40 100

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · Jun 18

i love it!

Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.social · Jun 18

I am once again pitching my romantic comedy:

- two academics start dating
- discover they are each other's terrible reviewer
- hijinks ensue

Working title: Love is Double-Blind

7 45

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Lisa Fazio @lkfazio.bsky.social · Jun 16

Since this is going around again, figured I'd add the more hopeful addendum that encourages scientists to keep doing their important research and to speak out about the current attacks on US science.

rdcu.be/emD0Z

When the government cancels your research grant, here’s what you can do | Nature

The mass cancellation of US federal grants marks yet another escalation in political interference in science, but there are ways to keep crucial research going. The mass cancellation of US federal grants marks yet another escalation in political interference in science, but there are ways to keep crucial research going.

rdcu.be

6 12

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Tamir Eliav @tamir-eliav.bsky.social · Jun 14

🚨New in @cellpress.bsky.social
We discovered that hippocampal replays in natural-scale environments are highly fragmented, not full-length.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
👇🧵

2 12 48

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · Jun 9

I just signed the Bethesda Declaration and urge you to do the same today, so that we all stand with NIH researchers as Battacharya appears before the Senate Appropriations Committee tomorrow.

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jun 9

(5/5)

🚨 It’s time to flood the zone.

NIH scientists just took a huge risk speaking out. Now it’s our turn.

📜 Read the Bethesda Declaration
✍️ Sign the Public Letter of Support
👯‍♀️Follow NIHers doing the work: @nihvigils.bsky.social

Read and sign here 👉 www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

www.standupforscience.net

22 49

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · Jun 9

Signed. Read and spread:

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jun 9

(5/5)

🚨 It’s time to flood the zone.

NIH scientists just took a huge risk speaking out. Now it’s our turn.

📜 Read the Bethesda Declaration
✍️ Sign the Public Letter of Support
👯‍♀️Follow NIHers doing the work: @nihvigils.bsky.social

Read and sign here 👉 www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

www.standupforscience.net

3 1

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · May 29

New Op-Ed in the Guardian regarding the new "Gold Standard Science" Executive Order.

From @cdelawalla.bsky.social @carlbergstrom.com @briannosek.bsky.social @michaelemann.bsky.social, Carol Greider, and Victor Ambros.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla

The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science

www.theguardian.com

2 32 48

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 29

📌New bio constrained ANN learning rule: ➡️dendritic target propagation⬅️ considers cell diversity, compartmentalization, FF FB inputs, more. 🧠📈🤖🧪

Aaron Milstein @neurosutras.bsky.social · May 27

Cellular and subcellular specialization enables biology-constrained deep learning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cellular and subcellular specialization enables biology-constrained deep learning

Learning and memory in the brain depend on changes in the strengths of synaptic connections between neurons. While the molecular and cellular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity have been extensively st...

www.biorxiv.org

7

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · May 26

7/7) As a final thought for funding, particularly for younger scientists, I am a strong advocate for the NSERC Discover Grant model:

- Smaller grants, with high success rate (~50%)
- Only one grant per lab
- Young researchers do not have to hit the same bar as established researchers to be funded

1 2 22

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 25

👀Interesting take from @stephanie-theves.bsky.social linking general intelligence and abstraction. One to watch. 🧪🧠📈🧠🤖🧠👩‍🔬 _ ?(emoji analogies seemed fitting)

SfN Journals @sfnjournals.bsky.social · May 25

#JNeurosci: �€ª@stephanie-theves.bsky.social‬ proposes a novel approach to understanding human intelligence, emphasizing neural structure mapping—the brain’s process of abstracting and reasoning based on relational knowledge. vist.ly/3n58cgk

2 16

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Steve Maren @stevemaren.bsky.social · May 24

🚨New paper alert! 🚨 Inactivation of the nucleus reuniens causes relapse of extinguished fear. Here we show this “circuit-induced relapse” depends on hippocampal fear memories and is mediated by hippocampal engrams. Congrats to the team!

Hippocampal ensembles regulate circuit-induced relapse of extinguished fear

Molecular Psychiatry - Hippocampal ensembles regulate circuit-induced relapse of extinguished fear

urldefense.com

2 22 70

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · May 23

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

1.5K 11K 48K

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 21

We agree. KenjiLee your data. @sabbaspoor.bsky.social's version uncovered surprisingly specific spike-field motifs and short latency spike timing interactions in macaque CA1: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Functional cell groups identified from linear arrays through macaque hippocampal CA1.

1 8

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Kenji Lee @kenjilee.bsky.social · May 19

On behalf of Nicole Carr: new preprint from the Chand/Moore labs! High-resolution laminar recordings reveal structure-function relationships in monkey V1.

1/4

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

High–resolution laminar recordings reveal structure–function relationships in monkey V1

The relationship between the structural properties of diverse neuronal populations in the monkey primary visual cortex (V1) and their functional visual processing in vivo remains a critical knowledge ...

www.biorxiv.org

2 11 58

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · May 17

As I try to wrap my head around my new field of affective science writ large and The Theory of Constructed Emotion specifically, @elisennesh.bsky.social has been helpful. For the many here who like to discuss "how we sciene", my sense is that TCE is a different approach than other ways.

Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · May 17

The Theory of Constructed Emotion: More Than a Feeling
doi.org/10.1177/1745...
#neuroscience

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

doi.org

4 8 37

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · May 17

"My instinctive reaction was to withhold this case from publication. The patient was my only sister."

An incredible article (still guarded behind a paywall by Oxford University Press, 90 years after publication)

Hugo Spiers @hugospiers.bsky.social · May 17

Amazing drawings and opening to the discussion in this classic article from 1935 by Penfield and Evans:

THE FRONTAL LOBE IN MAN: A CLINICAL STUDY OF MAXIMUM REMOVALS

academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

2 4 19

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 5

Do everyone a favor and read this. Then act. 🧠📈🧪

Eliza Bliss-Moreau @eblissmoreau.bsky.social · May 4

The NIH move to restrict animal research is a bad one and not just about health - it's about national security.

More here:
medium.com/@eblissmorea...

This will kill us: restricting animal research

Tuesday, as my lab gathered to celebrate the completion of one of our big studies, the National Institutes of Health announced that they…

medium.com

1 14 35

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Carles Bosch @carlesbosch.bsky.social · May 1

#preprint:

We mapped the structure and function of olfactory bulb circuits with in vivo 2-photon microscopy and synchrotron #Xray holographic nanotomography.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

@yuxinzhang.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @apacureanu.bsky.social
@crick.ac.uk @esrf.fr

1 22 62

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 2

👀Come for the 3D microscopy porn, stay for the ensemble coding principle. I will never not like the olfactory circuit organization. Here’s a punchline post in the thread:

Yuxin Zhang @yuxinzhang.bsky.social · May 1

We simulated a toy model, and found that when sister cells show ‘balanced diversity’, they have high encoding capacity as well as high generalization ability, compared to when sisters are identical or completely uncorrelated.

2

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 2

Stimulating vosstacular stim work, and another case of targeting lateral temporal lobe (not medial) for stim in humans. ❓🙋🏻‍♀️ to Joel/Jim: you did parietal stim before, so would you pick LTL or Par. for therapeutic target to address “MTL”ish memory impairment? Or neither?
🧠 📈 🧪

Joel Voss @vosstacular.bsky.social · May 2

Major team effort on phase-locked stim of human hippocampal theta rhythms finally out in the wild! W/ @jkragel.bsky.social @alikwidge.bsky.social and a cast of many. Thanks to the BRAIN Initiative for making it possible.
rdcu.be/ej7VE

Closed-loop control of theta oscillations enhances human hippocampal network connectivity

Nature Communications - Closed-loop brain stimulation of the human hippocampal theta rhythm produces lasting enhancement of network communication. This implicates theta rhythms in human hippocampal...

rdcu.be

1 4

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Dominik Dold @dodo47.bsky.social · May 2

In spiking neural networks, neurons communicate - as in the brain - via short electrical pulses⚡(spikes). But how can we formally quantify the (dis)advantages of using spikes? 🤔

In our new preprint, @pc-pet.bsky.social and I introduce the concept of "Causal Pieces" to approach this question!

1 6 32

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · May 2

📌

Reposted by Kari Hoffman

Tom Wallis @tsawallis.bsky.social · Apr 16

Many processes from industry are not appropriate or overkill for an academic setting, but we can and should be doing better than we currently are.

Our paper tries to give practical advice on how you can improve your scientific workflow, without being a coding guru.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience - Communications Psychology

Programming is essential for modern research in neuroscience and psychology, but it can quickly become a source of frustration and error. This Primer introduces ten practical principles guiding resear...

www.nature.com

5 46 140

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · Apr 29

Yeah, in fact, those would be welcome! We may yet need to reach out, we’re still stepping through how to implement it.

1 1

Kari Hoffman @karihoffman.bsky.social · Apr 29

And just imagine, if it’s possible to decode categories with LFP/iEEG, as here, what the possibilities are with neuronal ensembles…(stay tuned!)