Today I received a note from a grad student who lives in Tehran. Her note gives you firsthand experience of what it’s like to live in a city that is being bombed, and what it’s like to be young and feel despair about your future. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/03/hope...

80% of the neurons in our brain are in the cerebellum, and most of those are granule cells. What are these cells doing and why do we need so many of them? David DiGregorio will explain. The talks are open to all (contact me for link). Recorded talks: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab

NeuroBridges brings together students from the countries of the middle east to learn about the brain, and each other. Applications are now open. neurobridges.net/upcoming

Mark Goldman will present computational models of interacting cortical and nuclear plasticity and propose a metaplasticity mechanism that adaptively tunes spike-timing-dependent plasticity at the parallel fiber–Purkinje cell synapse. This is a zoom talk: all are welcome

Citing reduced federal funding, Johns Hopkins is exploring new low cost student housing.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness is an idol of the marketplace. One should direct them towards mutual affection...only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.”

Autism is a disorder that particularly affects the cerebellum. Synaptic protein abnormalities appear to underlie disrupted development, potentially resulting in cognitive symptoms. The recorded talks are available here: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

Neurobridges is a summer school that brings together students from the middle east, teaching them about synapses and circuits, but hoping to build understanding. Here is a little essay about some of the conversations that took place in 2025. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/01/neur...

The fastest inhibitory connection in the brain appears to be via a basket of axons electrically acting to inhibit Purkinje cells. The seminars are open to all (please contact me for link).

Happy New Year, everyone! Excited to share that our paper, “Goal uncertainty attenuates sensorimotor adaptation,” is now published in the Journal of Neurophysiology. Huge thanks to our collaborators—Sritej, Bobby, and Reza @rezashadmehr.bsky.social. Paper: tinyurl.com/yyfast5m

My group of explorers, aiming to chart the cerebellum in 2026.

Are you interested in a MSc/PhD in human sensorimotor neuroscience? Learn to design experiments, analyze data, read & write papers, present at conferences, & work with a vibrant group of students & faculty in a world-class research environment. #neuroskyence #psychscisky gribblelab.org/join.html

Monogamy appears to coincide with the rise of cooperative society. But how monogamous are humans? DNA analysis suggests that humans are more monogamous than many other mammals, but unlike others, we live in groups in which multiple male-female pairs are monogamous and breed. tinyurl.com/mryrnufc

We tend to think of neurons as either excitatory or inhibitory, but some neurons chemically inhibit their downstream targets while electrically exciting their neighbors. What is gained by having an inhibitory neuron excite its neighbor? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Some forms of episodic ataxia are caused by mutations in the gene that encodes a calcium channel. Currently, no medications exist to treat it. Heather Snell presents new results on a potential therapeutic target for episodic ataxia. The seminars are open to all (contact me for zoom link).

A study finds that cats meow harder to greet their male caregivers than female. Females are more verbally interactive, more skilled at interpreting cat meows. Apparently males require more meows to notice and respond to the needs of their cats. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Tenure track position in motor control at Northeastern University northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Shadows of our lab mates as the sun sets over San Diego and SFN comes to an end.

At SFN in San Diego.

Our intelligence and cognitive abilities are perhaps due to an expansion of our cerebral cortex. But surprisingly, compared to highly intelligent birds, primates have many more neurons in their cerebellum as compared to the cerebral cortex. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

The bird branch of evolution separated from mammals hundreds of millions of years ago. Yet, their cerebellum has the same structure as ours, including the zebrin bands. Here is the cerebellum of the zebra finch and the most amazing flyer of them all, the hummingbird. doi.org/10.1159/0005...

Birds are both intelligent and incredibly agile, yet they are quite small. How do they achieve this with their little brains? They have twice as many neurons per brain mass than mammals, including primates. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

George Washington wrote to a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island that the United States was founded not on “toleration … as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people,” but on a government that “gives to bigotry no sanction.”

Tenure-track faculty position in motor neuroscience at Penn State. psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

I don't have much of a view from my office window, but this morning, the wind was brushing the vapor trails left by the rushing jets, leaving behind the froth of a cresting wave. If this was a superhero movie, there would be a surfer riding the waves in the sky.

Since start of 2025, as compared to the same period in 2024, Johns Hopkins has received 40% fewer federal awards, a decline of ~50% in research funding, a reduction of $500 million. University wide, international graduate student enrollment is down by 8% since last year.

The cerebellum receives a surprisingly rich amount of information regarding stimulus value via its climbing fibers. What role does this pathway play in learning to make better decisions? Haining Zhong will explain.

Haining Zhong imaged climbing fibers during auditory discrimination, finding that they encode cue identities and perceptual choices. The responses were reshaped by reversal learning. The predictive nature of these signals suggests a role for climbing fibers in decision-making. Zoom link: email me.

To understand cortico-cerebellar connectivity in humans, the usual approach is to exploit the correlations of functional brain imaging signals during rest. In this talk, Jorn Diedrichsen will present results suggesting that a better approach is to measure co-activation during specific tasks.

At the Society for Neuroscience Conference this year, a scientific meeting to bring closer the neuroscientists who have cultural ties to the middle east. Please join us. www.middleeastneuro.com

In my drive this morning I thought how lucky I am to have a road and a working car in a city that is not being bombed. During lunch with my students I looked at their beautiful young faces and wished for them a better world.

Shlomi Haar will present longitudinal studies of Parkinson's disease, focusing on anatomical and connectivity changes in the brain. Before diagnosis, there is a surprising increase in cerebellar white matter volume, followed by degeneration post-diagnosis.

For black-capped chickadees, looking out at a location activates the same place cells as actually being there, a study from Columbia University shows. By @martajhill.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/hippocampus/...

Rui Costa introduces a computational framework in which cerebellar networks learn to guide cerebral cortex dynamics with task-outcome predictions.

The cerebellum builds internal models of self motion, making it possible for us to read both the signs on the road, and our phones, while we walk. Jean Laurens will describe this computation. Seminars are open to all.

Neuronal computation in the cerebellum via a vector calculus. Work of Mohammad Amin Fakharian, Alden Shoup, Paul Hage, and Hisham Elseweifi www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In people who suffer from essential tremor, excessive cerebellar oscillations give rise to involuntary, rhythmic movements. Ming-Kai Pan will present evidence from both mice and humans demonstrating that the cerebellum contributes to real-time motor control by encoding motor frequencies.

To unlearn is hard, but necessary for recovery, because without it, some memories can bring us depression and anxiety. This process is called extinction learning. Enzo Nio and Dagmar Timmann explain the role of the cerebellum in learning to forget. Seminars are open to all (contact me).

This little bluebird was born 2 weeks ago. Today he ventured to the opening of his birdhouse, felt the sun and the wind for the first time, stood there gripping the edge, deliberating for about 15 minutes, and then finally, leaped forward, opened his wings, and left home.

Artificial neural networks use backprop, which attributes errors starting at the output layer, then works backwards. Cerebellum is also a multilayer network, but learning does not rely on backprop. How does the cerebellum guide learning in all of its layers? David Ehrlich explains.

A group of neurons in the thalamus receive converging inputs from the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. Richard Roth explains the role of these neurons in motor control and motor learning. You can join live (email me), or watch the recordings: www.youtube.com/@shadmehrlab...

Wiring of the brain during development is like a dance where neurons try different partners, then choose the perfect one. Fekrije Selimi explains how the parallel fibers and the climbing fibers find their Purkinje cell partners in the cerebellum.

If the cerebellum is damaged, talking and singing become difficult, as if you have marbles in your mouth. Yet, the cerebellum is usually not included in the brain's vocal circuitry, particularly in songbirds. Lubica Kubikova explains how the cerebellum contributes to learning and performance of song

Do you want to analyse multidimensional large scale foraging data? I have a postdoc opening. Postdoc will be part of an HSFP grant ‘”Neurometabolic mechanisms underlying social foraging” with Robert Froemke (NYU) and Jee Hyun Choi (KIST). Details: stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/8...

We use our tongue much like our hands: to interact with objects and transport them. Here, we report on the role of the cerebellum in control of the tongue, demonstrating that it signals how to stop the movement as the tongue approaches its target. tinyurl.com/38mjzy2n

Because there are few treatments options available to patients with cerebellar disease, an important tool is to use neuro-rehab to engage the healthy regions of the brain so that it learns how to compensate for the damaged cerebellum. Amanda Therrien will explain.

When a movement experiences an error, the brain responds with a corrective movement. With repetition, the initial movement blends into the corrective action, becoming one. Robi Soetedjo describes a neural basis for this process of motor learning.

Perhaps you could use a bit of joy today. Here is the April wind blessing us with progress, without noise.

After the devastating waves that destroyed Fukushima, killing many, one of the residents built a phone booth in his garden. He installed a wooden platform and placed a rotary phone on it. He connected the phone to nothing. People would come to use the phone to talk to ones they had lost.

A principal puzzle in neuroscience is how to relate neuronal activities to control of behavior. I will present ideas on using the climbing fiber input to estimate contributions of the various neurons in the cerebellum. That is, to understand what a neuron does, it is useful to look at its teacher.