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Lynn Sörensen

@lynnkasorensen.bsky.social

230 followers 220 following 14 posts

Using brain-inspired models to study cognition | PostDoc in DiCarlo lab @ MIT | PhD @ UvA Amsterdam

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jan 7

New year, new preprint!💫 I'm excited to share my first(!) postdoc paper working with Jim DiCarlo & ‪@kohitij.bsky.social‬

#NeuroAI #CompNeuro

We revisited a long-standing question: How does category feedback (a.k.a. training) reconfigure IT responses? 🧠

Our long story short [1/7]:

Kohitij Kar @kohitij.bsky.social · Dec 30

(1/3) 🌟New preprint with @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social and Jim DiCarlo

When animals learn new object discrimination tasks, how much does their IT cortex change?

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

The effects of object category training on the responses of macaque inferior temporal cortex are consistent with performance-optimizing updates within a visual hierarchy

How does the primate brain coordinate plasticity to support its remarkable ability to learn object categories? To address this question, we measured the consequences of category learning on the macaqu...

www.biorxiv.org

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Steven Scholte @neurosteven.bsky.social · Sep 8

🧠 New preprint: Why do deep neural networks predict brain responses so well?
We find a striking dissociation: it’s not shared object recognition. Alignment is driven by sensitivity to texture-like local statistics.
📊 Study: n=57, 624k trials, 5 models doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Aug 14

Happy Birthday Iris - what a way to celebrate! 😀

Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Aug 5

We still have a few spots left - make sure to join us if you're in the area!

Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jul 11

Join us for the #CCN2025 local meetup, we're hosting at MIT's McGovern Institute on Aug 13-15!
Think: conference talks 🧠 + local discussions over food & snacks 💬+ meeting awesome researchers in your backyard 🏠 Open to all researchers in the area!
Intrigued? Sign up here: forms.gle/oq6Rw3TvUja6...

CCN Boston Local Meetup @ MIT

This form is to register to attend a 'local meetup' for CCN 2025 held at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT (https://2025.ccneuro.org/local-meetups/). We will watch the conference talks,...

forms.gle

Reposted by Lynn Sörensen

Anna (Anya) Ivanova @neuranna.bsky.social · Jul 22

Atlanta community: we are organizing a CCN @cogcompneuro.bsky.social watch party!

Watch the talks, engage in structured discussions, and (optionally) present your own work.

Register:
forms.gle/AWxVPbrgxkdd...
Schedule:
tinyurl.com/ccn2025atlanta

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Rob Mok @robmok.bsky.social · Jul 18

JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jul 11

CCN Boston Local Meetup @ MIT

forms.gle

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Tim Kietzmann @timkietzmann.bsky.social · Jul 8

Exciting new preprint from the lab: “Adopting a human developmental visual diet yields robust, shape-based AI vision”. A most wonderful case where brain inspiration massively improved AI solutions.

Work with @zejinlu.bsky.social @sushrutthorat.bsky.social and Radek Cichy

arxiv.org/abs/2507.03168

arxiv.org

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Anne Urai 🟥 @anne-urai.bsky.social · Jun 20

So far we have CCN local meetups @ NYC @neurograce.bsky.social, Boston @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social, Atlanta @neuranna.bsky.social, Lyon and Bucharest!

Who will host one on even further away from Amsterdam (West Coast? East Asia? Africa?)

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Iris Groen @irisgroen.bsky.social · Jun 16

In these tumultuous times, still happy to report a scientific achievement: our preprint on affordance perception was just published in PNAS!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Using behavior, fMRI and deep network analyses, we report two key findings. To recapitulate (preprint 🧵lost on other place):

Representation of locomotive action affordances in human behavior, brains, and deep neural networks | PNAS

To decide how to move around the world, we must determine which locomotive actions (e.g., walking, swimming, or climbing) are afforded by the immed...

www.pnas.org

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RT Pramod @rtpramod.bsky.social · Jun 17

Thrilled to announce our new publication titled 'Decoding predicted future states from the brain's physics engine' with @emiecz.bsky.social, Cyn X. Fang, @nancykanwisher.bsky.social, @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

(1/n)

Decoding predicted future states from the brain’s “physics engine”

Using fMRI in humans, this study provides evidence for future state prediction in brain regions involved in physical reasoning.

www.science.org

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Tim Kietzmann @timkietzmann.bsky.social · Jun 5

Can seemingly complex multi-area computations in the brain emerge from the need for energy efficient computation? In our new preprint on predictive remapping in active vision, we report on such a case.

Let us take you for a spin. 1/6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · May 28

When we communicate science, we often don't say where the resources for it come from. This is clearly a mistake: people consuming science should know who is funding it--and if that funding is being taken away. So, I decided to document the funding sources of every scientist mentioned in my book.

graph with scientist names on the x axis and colored indicators for NIH, NSF, and Other funding. Also indicators for active pre-1960 and Outside US

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · May 28

I believe this is an in-person event, unfortunately. I will reach out to the other people involved to confirm, though, and let you know if I learn anything else.

Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · May 27

The deadline for this is ⏰THIS SATURDAY!⏰ Please consider applying and share your science with the MIT BCS community!🧠

Gabriel Stine @gabrielmstine.bsky.social · Mar 19

The MIT BCS postdoc association in collaboration with the BCS department is excited to announce this year's rising star symposium for external postdocs! Please consider applying and send to anyone who may be interested! See the link and flyer below for more info:

mailchi.mp/be586538a6ab...

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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · Mar 26

I’m hiring a full-time lab tech for two years starting May/June. Strong coding skills required, ML a plus. Our research on the human brain uses fMRI, ANNs, intracranial recording, and behavior. A great stepping stone to grad school. Apply here:
careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...
......

Technical Associate I, Kanwisher Lab

MIT - Technical Associate I, Kanwisher Lab - Cambridge MA 02139

careers.peopleclick.com

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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · Mar 3

Kanwisher Lab is preparing for this Friday's #Standupforscience Rally!

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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · Feb 6

I admire this tremendously! THIS is the next generation we need to protect. It's one that is both genius AND steps up.

Cek @ckean02.bsky.social · Feb 5

Senior undergrad starting my PhD next year. I’m absolutely terrified — I love science and I’m great at it, but that might not be enough anymore. I’ve channeled my rage into making and distributing this:

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Steven Scholte @neurosteven.bsky.social · Feb 4

Registration for CCN2025 is open! 2025.ccneuro.org/meeting-regi...

Meeting Registration

2025.ccneuro.org

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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · Jan 28

Academic workers across the country are organizing to call on our congressional representatives on Thursday, 1/30, at 3pm ET / 12pm PT to demand these restrictions be lifted immediately.
There will be a training over zoom at the beginning of the event.
Join us!
form.jotform.com/250226137228...

Join researchers across the country in fighting restrictions on the NIH

Please click the link to complete this form.

form.jotform.com

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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · Jan 24

I wrote about the concept of agency (both human and artificial) in the year 2025. gracewlindsay.com/2025/01/24/2...

2025: Agency gained and lost

If you’ve had even a passing glance at tech journalism over the past few months, you know the top buzzword for AI in 2025 is agentic. Agentic AI (according to many think pieces and press releases a…

gracewlindsay.com

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Steven Scholte @neurosteven.bsky.social · Jan 9

The #CCN2025 conference 2025.ccneuro.org is looking for area and senior area chairs for the new 8-page track. You can sign up for area chair and form this list we will also invite senior area chairs. We might also nominate you ourselves :-) forms.gle/MTBgZZxQaDY8...

Nominations for Area Chairs:

Area Chairs should have the following requirements: A senior researcher in the area (professor or senior research fellow, could also be a postdoc) Have authored at CCN at least once You can nominate y...

forms.gle

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jan 9

Congratulations on your position!!! Academia is lucky to have you. I'm rooting for you and wish you lots of strength. Thanks for sharing this.

Reposted by Lynn Sörensen

Eghbal Hosseini @eghbal-hosseini.bsky.social · Dec 27

Why do diverse ANNs resemble brain representations? Check out our new paper with Colton Casto, @nogazs.bsky.social , Colin Conwell, Mark Richardson, & @evfedorenko.bsky.social on “Universality of representation in biological and artificial neural networks.” 🧠🤖
tinyurl.com/yckndmjt

Universality of representation in biological and artificial neural networks

Many artificial neural networks (ANNs) trained with ecologically plausible objectives on naturalistic data align with behavior and neural representations in biological systems. Here, we show that this...

tinyurl.com

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Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jan 7

Please check out the paper (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) for more details and feel free to ping me if you have questions or comments! [7/7]

Lynn Sörensen @lynnkasorensen.bsky.social · Jan 7

🐒🤖 Obviously, we're studying plasticity at a coarse scale here. Still, I find it encouraging to see that there is a convergence between biological & artificial learning in the context of representational shifts in IT when controlling for performance! [6/7]

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