New habits move from the Prefrontal Cortex (conscious effort) to the Basal Ganglia (habit loop). A trick is to automate the first 30 seconds of a habit, minimizing the PFC's required 'energy' for initiation until the Basal Ganglia takes over. #LifeHacks #SelfImprovement #Brain

To plan the future, the PFC represents a step-by-step map of actions, and at every step, this plan moves to the past like a conveyor belt. This proposes a simple subspace architecture for planning. A toy environment can clarify it. A🧵with my toy model and notes: #neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI

To plan the future, the PFC represents a step-by-step map of actions, and at every step, this plan moves to the past like a conveyor belt. This proposes a simple subspace architecture for planning. A toy environment can clarify it. A🧵with my toy model and notes: #neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI

To stop unwanted thoughts, the PFC sends a control signal to the hippocampus (brain's memory retrieval center). This activates local inhibitory interneurons (GABA), which then suppresses retrieval. Difficulties in this pathway may underlie #PTSD, #OCD, anxiety, and #depression.

Impressive (200+ bps) BCI decoding speeds by Paradromics reported this month. Plus BCIs updates from: - E11 Bio - Morgan Stanley - Neuralink - New England Journal of Medicine - Precision - Figure - Stanford, China and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

A core function of cortex is predicting what happens next given the world's state. This recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a delay trick to learn to predict. A simple illustration can explain the idea. A🧵with my toy model and notes: #neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI

A core function of cortex is predicting what happens next given the world's state. This great recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a clever delay trick to learn to predict. A simple illustration can explain the main idea. Here is my toy model and notes:

The mammalian cortex acts as tutor, keeping the job of striatum simple. This totally changes our knowledge of how RL works in the brain. Instead of a new paper, I will dig in what could be the mysterious new mechanism of my last post. Let's deep dive into theories of cortex:

The mammalian cortex acts as tutor, keeping the job of striatum simple. This totally changes our knowledge of how RL works in the brain. Instead of a new paper, I will dig in what could be the mysterious new mechanism of my last post. Let's deep dive into theories of cortex:

Dopamine (DA) in the dorsolat. striatum (DLS) is a teaching signal that shapes learning. DA in DLS ≠ RPE but = to stimulus-choice associations relevant to a learning strategy. This can be beautifully explained as saddles in a loss landscape. Here is my toy model and notes:

This paper may solve a core neuroscience question of the last decades: What is the cortical code? Cognitive cortex also uses tuning, and latent variable span a non-linear manifold. Unlocking this work requires understanding why PSTHs are bad. Here is my toy model and notes:

Significant progress in Brain Chips this month: I summarized everything from Paradromics, MIT Technology Review, UCL, Nature, Alterego, Meta, Neuralink, World Economic Forum, Duke University and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

This paper may solve a core neuroscience question of the last decades: What is the cortical code? Cognitive cortex also uses tuning, and latent variable span a non-linear manifold. Unlocking this work requires understanding why PSTHs are bad. Here is my toy model and notes:

I saw this recently as Fig. 1 of an AI paper that got quite some attention on X. Green-washing is a form of advertising that deceptively uses green PR to persuade the public that an organization's product is environmentally friendly. Can we call this Brain-washing? 🤦🏾‍♀️

Significant progress in Brain Chips this month: I summarized everything from Paradromics, MIT Technology Review, UCL, Nature, Alterego, Meta, Neuralink, World Economic Forum, Duke University and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

Researchers were able to freeze learning in mice. This great recent work shows the striatum is required for skill learning but not skill use (through optogenetics). Understanding the memory-making mechanism helps understand the core idea. Here is my toy model and notes:

Researchers were able to freeze learning in mice. This great recent work shows the striatum is required for skill learning but not skill use (through optogenetics). Understanding the memory-making mechanism helps understand the core idea. Here is my toy model and notes:

For my next paper summary I'd like to read something beyond neo cortex. ❤️⭐ I digged out the following 4 papers from my "to read" list. I am tending to pick #4. Any one you prefer? 🤔

Most reports about this paper focused on the mind "password" aspect. But IMHO, the most exciting part is the existence of a neural intention axis. This is a slap in the face for modern motor neuro, worth simplifying for better understanding. Here are my notes and toy model:

What a week last week: 🤓 NatComms paper corrections resubmitted. 🎉 Reached >17K people for the first time with something I love: making papers easy to understand. 👨🏽‍⚕️Dr confirms worrying issue was nothing to worry. 💸 ETH hits all time high. But I need to tell you this:

Reactions of people hearing for the first time with a hearing aid. I can hardly hold back my tears, especially with the last one. I watch this video every once in a while to remind myself that working on brain chips is hard but worth it 🥲

The brain uses orthogonal sub-dimensions in neural space as communication channels. This is a great new paper using Neuropixels from ~6500 neurons on 8 cortical and deep regions in mice. Simplifying the space helps a lot to understand the idea. Here is my toy model and notes:

Brain interfacing technologies now use artificial direct, electrode communications. However, maximum bandwidth won't be achieved this way, but by thick, new bundles of biological neurons. Those are already being studied as biomaterial scaffolds for the recovery of spine injury.

Brain Chip History 2012: Using a brain chip, brain researchers at Pittsburgh University allowed a woman to feed herself chocolate for the first time after many years of paralysis.

Significant progress in Brain Chips this month: I summarized everything from Pittsburgh, Dartmouth, Sam Altman, Chicago, Figure, Germany, UCL, Princeton, Nature and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

There was this discussion recently about wether the information throughput of the human brain was about 10 bits/s. Then you see this 🤣

Gamers have .gg 2010's start-ups had .io AI companies have .ai I've an idea: What if we make .RO the official TLD for FROs, research labs, #DeSci, and in general research oriented organizations? There are plenty good reasons to consider this, here's my thinking 🧵:

Three graphs showing neuro-technologies are accelerating. neuro/acc

Researchers in Japan developed a light controlled Cockroach Cyborg. They use a UV light helmet to steer cockroaches by taking advantage of their tendency to avoid bright light. In a maze-like environment, 94% successfully escaped, compared to 24% of normal cockroaches. 🔗👇🏽

How the Big Beautiful Bill Will Impact the Health and Neuroscience Industries: neuroforall.substack.com/p/how-the-b...

This is a nice follow up to my previous rant re-post against people disregarding the Utah brain chip. There is a lot of knowledge on all those user/years. Spike life for 14 participants over 20y by @WillettNeuro & Co. Related links & preprint below 💬👇🏽

Fleuron is a really interesting material for brain chips. It is super flexible and has a low body rejection. It can be used to cover electrodes and its transparent, so it could be used for optics. They just showed it can grow with tadpoles while reading their neurons. Link 👇🏾

Writing an answer letter to reviewer and rewriting a paper. I am not using AI yet I have to constantly check my language hoping it doesn't sound like AI. In what world do we live in now ... 👩🏽‍💻

Significant progress in Brain Chips this month: I summarized everything from Neuralink, UCDavis, Figure, Sanmai, China, Canada, Precision, Europe, Nature Neuroscience and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

Nature Neuroscience Unsupervised pretraining in biological neural networks www.nature.com/articles/s4... Audio overview (37 min long) as a comment below in a few minutes.

The latest CLaE @leafs_s paper post was so interesting that I converted it to an audio overview. Nature Multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain Enjoy. youtu.be/LKsevvmd1tE

🇨🇦BCI2025🇨🇦 was quite an emotional rollercoaster🎢 for me, from 🥵 to 🥲. Also made lots of pics for you. There's quite number of posts already about the technical details, so I'll focus on how it felt to be there:

On the way to Banff, Canada. Ready for the #BCI2025 meeting by @BciSociety. Really excited!

Significant progress in Brain Chips this month: I summarized everything from Neuralink, UCDavis, Science, Janelia, Meta, Apple, Synchron, UChicago, Nature and more. Here's everything you need to know and my opinions:

US: let's cut research funding and impose crazy tariffs. China: in the mean time we created a better Open AI and now a better Neuralink. Fresh from the press. Follow @phoenixpeng1119 for updates.

Sorry, could not resist to repost. It just looks awesome.

Just testing the bionics. Nothing to see here. From Tilly Lockey.

I just can't hold this any longer. The number of brain chip related news just exploded this month: - Bliss' update - CorticalLabs update - Anthropic papers - Mind reading review - UCSF speech BCI - Deep ultrasound - Noland's update - Spinal recovery - + more Here my takes:

Is binge programming a thing? 🥴

If Neuralink was to be acquired by xAI, and renamed to be an X company, what would be a good name?

As a neuro researcher I am so jealous of AI scientists. The are so many YouTube and chat channels about AI, so much excitement going on online. Neuro conferences are exciting but not so much going on online. Am I right or I am just rambling?

"Last month, participants used the Link independently for an average of 6.5 hours per day" Quite an achievement.

Here is my monthly summary of the latest developments on Brain Chips: - US Gov GAO report on BCIs - ARIA funding - Bliss leaving Neuralink - Neuralink Miami trial - BCIs that enable sensations - Cyborg rats - UFO mind control - Python tools Here are the links and my opinions:

Trust in scientists and their role in society across world countries. Link to the fresh Nature Human Behavior paper below.

This cognitive disorder poster was produced using an algorithm. Really interesting.