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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa
@somnirons.bsky.social
1.8K followers 240 following 38 posts
Computational neuroscientist bringing machine and neural learning closer together @ox.ac.uk @oxforddpag.bsky.social 🇵🇹🇪🇺🇬🇧🌳 neuralml.github.io
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Jul 4
Pleased to say that our story of how a theory of self-supervised learning in cortical layers accounts for several experimental observations is now out 🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Self-supervised predictive learning accounts for cortical layer-specificity - Nature Communications
How the cortex learns an internal representation of the world and why the cortex relies on a layered structure remain poorly understood. Here, the authors propose a computational theory in which the n...
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
dlevenstein.bsky.social
Dan Levenstein @dlevenstein.bsky.social · 13h
Come do a postdoc at the Wu Tsai Institute!

WTI fellows have freedom to work with anyone at the institute, and preference is given to applicants who want to work on interdisciplinary projects with multiple faculty mentors.

If you’re interested to work with me, please reach out!
wutsaiyale.bsky.social
Wu Tsai Institute | Yale University @wutsaiyale.bsky.social · 2d
📣 Calling experimental, computational, or theoretical researchers!

WTI's Postdoc Fellowships application is now open, offering a competitive salary, structured mentorship, world-class facilities + more: wti.yale.edu/initiatives/...

Apply by November 10: apply.interfolio.com/174525

#KnowTogether
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
pessoabrain.bsky.social
PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 2d
Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience.
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
Why I left academia and neuroscience
Don't worry, this isn't yet another story of rage-quitting.
mikexcohen.substack.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
mschrimpf.bsky.social
Martin Schrimpf @mschrimpf.bsky.social · 9d
Come be our colleague at EPFL! Several open calls for positions 🧪🧠🤖

* Neuroscience www.epfl.ch/about/workin... (deadline Oct 1)

* Life Science Engineering www.epfl.ch/about/workin...

* CS general call www.epfl.ch/about/workin...

* Learning Sciences www.epfl.ch/about/workin...
Faculty Position in Neuroscience
The School of Life Sciences at EPFL invites applications for a Tenure Track Assistant Professor position in Neuroscience. At EPFL researchers develop and apply innovative technologies to understand br...
www.epfl.ch
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
interneuron.bsky.social
Butt Lab - Oxford @interneuron.bsky.social · 20d
A rather 'unique' paper from our lab is online in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social now. Unique in the sense that I don't think anyone else will be rushing to optotag cortical interneurons in the early postnatal brain... because it is nigh on impossible!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
GABAergic circuits reflect different requirements for sensory integration in postnatal mouse neocortex
Information transfer in mammalian cerebral cortex is dependent on GABAergic interneuron circuits that are widely assumed to be uniform across the neoc…
www.sciencedirect.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
laurelinelogiaco.bsky.social
Laureline Logiaco @laurelinelogiaco.bsky.social · 11d
Interested in doing a Ph.D. to work on building models of the brain/behavior? Consider applying to graduate schools at CU Anschutz:
1. Neuroscience www.cuanschutz.edu/graduate-pro...
2. Bioengineering engineering.ucdenver.edu/bioengineeri...

You could work with several comp neuro PIs, including me.
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
katrinvogt.bsky.social
Katrin Vogt @katrinvogt.bsky.social · 11d
How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A multisensory, bidirectional, valence encoder guides behavioral decisions
A key function of the brain is to categorize sensory cues as repulsive or attractive and respond accordingly. While we have some understanding of how sensory information is processed in the sensory pe...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
lhuntneuro.bsky.social
Laurence Hunt @lhuntneuro.bsky.social · 12d
Looking for a PhD next year? Want to come and work on the next generation of OPM-MEG/EEG biomarkers in computational psychiatry?

Apply for our MRC iCase studentship with @mkflugge.bsky.social, collabs with @lilweb.bsky.social + industrial placement at P1Vital:
www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/gradua...
Development of robust, single-subject markers of predictive inference for computational psychiatry
www.medsci.ox.ac.uk
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · 15d
Uauu! That's exciting! how much neuroscience/neuroAI will you/can you do there?
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cosynemeeting.bsky.social
cosynemeeting.bsky.social @cosynemeeting.bsky.social · 29d
#Cosyne2026 is now open for business!

Show us what you got both for the main meeting & workshop proposals 🧠🥳🧠🥳🧠
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
carlosbrody.bsky.social
Carlos Brody @carlosbrody.bsky.social · Aug 29
This rule would have meant I couldn't do my Ph.D. in America.

I did do it in America. Became a professor. 12 thriving U.S. labs are now headed by trainees from my research lab. Like me, they are all working hard to enrich American knowledge and society.

With this self-harming rule, none of that.
crampell.bsky.social
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · Aug 29
Trump admin planning to change student visas from lasting for duration of academic program to fixed 4-yr term, and then much harder to renew
Could destroy US ability to attract global talent, particularly those seeking advanced degrees in STEM. The median time to complete a PhD is 5.7 yrs per NSF.
Trump Deals A New Immigration Blow To International Students
Trump officials have proposed a new rule limiting international students to fixed periods of entry, making a U.S. education more precarious.
www.forbes.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
dengpan.bsky.social
Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28
🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans.

Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning.
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
antihebbiann.bsky.social
Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · Aug 20
I wrote a Comment on neurotheory, and now you can read it!

Some thoughts on where neurotheory has and has not taken root within the neuroscience community, how it has shaped those subfields, and where we theorists might look next for fresh adventures.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Theoretical neuroscience has room to grow
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - The goal of theoretical neuroscience is to uncover principles of neural computation through careful design and interpretation of mathematical models. Here, I examine...
www.nature.com
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Aug 12
where are my manners?! I should have used #CCN2025 and #CCN25 :)
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Aug 12
Sorry to be missing CCN'25!! But if you are around come and check-out some of our work in the cogcompneuro space!
@cogcompneuro.bsky.social @achterbrain.bsky.social @Michal, @Angeliki and @Austin
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Aug 6
Totally agree! We are working on it, but I think interneurons per se are probably not sufficient
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tyrellturing.bsky.social
Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · Jul 11
1/3) This may be a very important paper, it suggests that there are no prediction error encoding neurons in sensory areas of cortex:

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

I personally am a big fan of the idea that cortical regions (allo and neo) are doing sequence prediction.

But...

🧠📈 🧪
Sensory responses of visual cortical neurons are not prediction errors
Predictive coding is theorized to be a ubiquitous cortical process to explain sensory responses. It asserts that the brain continuously predicts sensory information and imposes those predictions on lo...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
tyrellturing.bsky.social
Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · Jul 10
Super excited to see this paper from Armin Lak & colleagues out! (I've seen @saxelab.bsky.social present it before.)

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

tl;dr: The learning trajectories that individual mice take correspond to different saddle points in a deep net's loss landscape.

🧠📈 🧪 #NeuroAI
Dopamine encodes deep network teaching signals for individual learning trajectories
Longitudinal tracking of long-term learning behavior and striatal dopamine reveals that dopamine teaching signals shape individually diverse yet systematic learning trajectories, captured mathematical...
www.cell.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
anna-beyeler.bsky.social
Anna Beyeler 🐝 @anna-beyeler.bsky.social · Jul 10
👨‍💻 Open PI position in our institute 👨‍💻 !! If you are an expert in Computational Neuroscience and want to start your lab in Bordeaux, contact us !
www.fens.org/careers/job-...
@neuromagendie.bsky.social
@neurobordeaux.bsky.social
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somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Jul 11
@oxforddpag.bsky.social
somnirons.bsky.social
Rui Ponte Costa @somnirons.bsky.social · Jul 11
Sharing this very cool drawing that Kevin Nejad generated using AI systems that have themselves been trained via self-supervision, which seems very fitting :)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
juangallego.bsky.social
Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · Jul 8
Homeostasis can keep population-level responses stable in the face of neural drift and "vanishing neurons"

Nice write up of a paper I'm looking forward to reading but that seems to add more wood to the "populations are more than the sum of their neurons" fire

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Resilient cortical maps - Nature Neuroscience
Despite the loss of neurons during aging and the early stages of neurodegenerative disease, many cortical brain functions remain remarkably intact. Although this resilience is traditionally attributed...
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
seanfw.bsky.social
Seán Froudist-Walsh @seanfw.bsky.social · Jul 8
Likewise, would any Bernstein member be willing to support me and @tgivanov.bsky.social 's membership application? Thanks!!
jbarbosa.org
Joao Barbosa @jbarbosa.org · Jul 7
Is there any Bernstein member out there willing to support my membership application? 🙏

@bernsteinneuro.bsky.social is one of my favorite conferences and I have been going for a while, but never became a member and would like to.
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mpicybernetics.bsky.social
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics @mpicybernetics.bsky.social · Jul 8
We are seeking two independent Max Planck Research Groups working in scientific disciplines relevant to our institute. Applications should be sent in PDF format no later than 15th August 2025. Visit our call for applications on our institute website for detailed information!
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
jbarbosa.org
Joao Barbosa @jbarbosa.org · Jul 7
Is there any Bernstein member out there willing to support my membership application? 🙏

@bernsteinneuro.bsky.social is one of my favorite conferences and I have been going for a while, but never became a member and would like to.
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Reposted by Rui Ponte Costa
behrenstimb.bsky.social
Tim Behrens @behrenstimb.bsky.social · Jul 5
Let's say you have a journal that isn't worried about protecting an impact factor, so it didn't need to package a million results into a single paper (to maximise citation-to-publication ratio). What would you do? Couple of suggestions below. Others very much appreciated!
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