My talk at the WWTNS is now online! In it, I explore how both random processes and Hebbian learning shape representational drift: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH4P... In the end I raise the question: How can neuronal activities change while representational similarity is preserved? 🧠🧪

Following up on my last post with some more detail: Our new opinion in CONEUR: Statistical learning and representational drift: A dynamic substrate for memories authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... Neural activity patterns drift over days. Yet, representational similarity remains stable. 🧠🧪 1/5

New opinion paper out in CONEUR: Statistical learning and representational drift: A dynamic substrate for memories We propose: Representational drift arises from stochastic changes balanced by statistical learning. Probably with the craziest figure I’ll ever publish… 🧠🧪 doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Great new review on neural manifolds by @juangallego.bsky.social and @mattperich.bsky.social. Amazing read. Lots of intuition and examples. Great synthesis of why manifold structure pops up everywhere in neuroscience, from motor control to cognitive tasks. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧠🧪 1/3

New preprint by @carolinehaimerl.bsky.social: A self-consistent model reproducing key features of representational drift without synaptic changes. Great piece of theoretical work! That said, I think it remains an academic exercise. Synapses change, all the time. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧠🧪

Great new paper by my colleagues Gloria & Alex, and @lichengzou.bsky.social. Hebbian plasticity accounts for much of representational drift: Drift is ongoing memory storage, not noise. Also reconciles contradictory findings on stability after repeated exposure. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧠🧪

⏳ Register for the #BernsteinConference by July 30 and secure the early-bird fees! Register here 👉 bernstein-network.de/bernstein-co...

An alle Forscher*innen, die KI verwenden/erforschen und deutsch sprechen: Macht mit! Ich war jetzt schon paarmal dabei und es hat immer sehr viel Spaß gemacht. (Dieses Mal habe ich leider keine Zeit...) 🧪

Habe beim deutschen #ImAScientist zum Thema KI mitgemacht. Dort können Schüler*innen mit Wissenschaftler*innen chatten. Ist oft super chaotisch mit einer ganzen Klasse zu chatten, aber macht richtig Spaß. Kann ich wirklich nur empfehlen! Meine Eindrücke dazu: imascientist.de/2025/07/09/d... 💬🧪🧠👩‍🔬👨‍🔬

Don't forget to submit your abstracts! And see you in Frankfurt. :D

Just submitted my abstract. :) You still have the whole weekend to submit yours for a contributed talk at the #BernsteinConference 2025! Probably my favorite conference, and once again the speaker lineup looks fantastic. Hope to see many of you in Frankfurt.

Our new story. Now also posted by the official side. :) Activity patterns drift. Representational maps are preserved. Even after single neuron ablations, representational maps are recovered within days.

Thanks a lot, @bernsteinneuro.bsky.social, for featuring our new @natneuro.nature.com paper in your News Flash!

New paper (I played a minor role in)! Representational similarities in mouse auditory cortex remain stable during drift. When Taka Noda ablated neurons, these similarities destabilized but recovered within days - previously unresponsive neurons stepped up to fill gaps. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧪🧠

Putting the final touches on my talk for this Thursday’s Neurochats. If you're in Barcelona, come by and say hi! Would love to see you there! 🧠✨

📢 Don't miss the upcoming activities! 📢 🗓️ This Thursday: Neurochats Seminar 🔗 More info: www.crm.cat/neurochats-s...

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

New preprint: Can we study creativity like any other brain function? We propose a framework to investigate the creative process at the level of neuronal circuits, inspired by systems neuroscience, aiming to spark cool new experiments in the near future. 🧠🧪 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Oh boy. Still a long way to go...

I will be presenting in the Worldwide Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar on Wednesday, February 19, at 11 AM ET / 5 PM CET. My talk is titled "Representational drift reflects ongoing balancing of stochastic changes by Hebbian learning." More information and register for the link at www.wwtns.online.

Ich habe mal versucht, Teile meiner Doktorarbeit verständlich zusammenzufassen. Das ist dabei herausgekommen. Viel Spaß beim Lesen. :) Vielen Dank @klaus-tschira-stiftung.de für die Unterstützung und den immer spannenden KlarText-Blog!

Great new study by @roger-beaty.bsky.social, @yoedkenett.bsky.social and others (not on bluesky, yet...), showing: Creativity seems to need a sweet spot of dynamic switching between default and executive brain networks. Effects are small (as normal with fMRI), but the size of the dataset is amazing.

Our new preprint: We found that during representational drift co-activation of neuron pairs is predictive of future effective connectivity. Drift is - in parts - just Hebbian plasticity. But we also need a stochastic process to account for our observations. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Great preprint on the visuomotor transformation in zebrafish. Different visual stimuli are linked to hunting, freezing and escape behaviours via neuronal activity in the optic tectum. doi.org/10.1101/2024...

Apropos of never ending discussions about whether ANNs are "good" models of the nervous system, here is a slide I present to masters students showing a network that is found in motor control circuits *across phyla* (that's pretty ubiquitous!) I ask them to guess what it does...

Interesting new paper by Yaniv Ziv's lab. Even though I disagree with their interpretation: If sensory experience shapes future neuronal representations, how is there no learning involved? www.cell.com/current-biol...

Looking good @bsky.app! Let's see, how this goes.