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Sacha van Albada

@albada.bsky.social
865 followers 408 following 10 posts

Computational neuroscientist chasing the secret of the brain. Junior professor at Jülich Research Center & University of Cologne.

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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
On 3 June at 11 am/5 pm CEST I am organizing a webinar for (soon-to-be) postdocs in computational neuroscience. Get to know my work and meet my group if you are looking for a postdoc position! Register at events.hifis.net/event/2649/ (11 am) or events.hifis.net/event/2674/ (5 pm).
events.hifis.net
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
In this new study we show that cortical resting-state activity is hierarchically organized 🧠 Cool work by @aitormg.bsky.social
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
If you need to compare matrices or two-dimensional data that can be brought into matrix form, consider using Singular Angle Similarity: journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...
journals.aps.org
Assessing the Similarity of Real Matrices with Arbitrary Shape
Singular Angle Similarity measures the similarity of real, arbitrary matrices by taking into account their two-dimensional structure, outperforming standard methods like cosine similarity or Frobenius...
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Reposted by Sacha van Albada
NEST Simulator @nest-initiative.org · 25/04/2025
The NEST virtual conference is gearing up! Join us June 17-18, 2025 for a chance to exchange ideas and learn about developments in simulation science! Interested in contributing? The abstract submission deadline has been extended to **April 30**. Visit nest-simulator.org/conference. #nestsim
nest-simulator.org
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AAUP @aaup.org · 25/03/2025
BREAKING: We are suing the Trump admin on behalf of our members for unlawfully cutting off $400 million in federal funding for crucial public health research to force Columbia University to surrender its academic independence. Stay Tuned.
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Reposted by Sacha van Albada
Aitor Morales-Gregorio @aitormg.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
DAY 6: Advent of Comp Neuro 🎄🤖🧠🧪 This nifty theory predicts how intrinsic timescales depend on network structure, neuron properties and input. A nontrivial task! “Microscopic theory of intrinsic timescales in spiking neural networks” tinyurl.com/43esfrrk By @avm.bsky.social and @albada.bsky.social
Figure 1 from van Meegen and van Albada 2021:

Illustration of the theory. (a) We consider populations of randomly connected neurons ( 𝛼, 𝛽) that communicate via spike trains 𝑥𝛼𝑖⁡(𝑡). The neurons of population 𝛽 are connected to those of population 𝛼 with connection probability 𝑝𝛼⁢𝛽. (b) The theory reduces a population to a single neuron driven by an effective stochastic input 𝜂𝛼. The first- and second-order statistics 𝜇𝛼𝜂 and 𝐶𝛼𝜂 of 𝜂𝛼 depend self-consistently on the output statistics, 𝜈𝛼 and 𝐶𝛼𝑥. (c) From the stationary spike train autocorrelation function 𝐶𝑥⁡(𝜏)=𝜈⁢𝛿⁡(𝜏)+ˆ𝐶𝑥⁡(𝜏), we obtain the correlation time 𝜏𝑐, the asymptotic decay 𝜏∞, and the variability of the rate across neurons, 𝜎2𝜈. (d) Instead of the stationary autocorrelation function we sometimes consider the power spectrum 𝑆𝑥⁡(𝑓), which saturates at the firing rate, 𝑆𝑥⁡(𝑓)𝑓→∞−→𝜈, and, for a renewal process, has the zero-frequency limit 𝑆𝑥⁡(𝑓)𝑓→0−→𝜈⁢CV2. Throughout, we consider the population–averaged single-unit statistics (black curve) instead of the statistics of the population-averaged activity (gray curve).
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Aitor Morales-Gregorio @aitormg.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
If you are interested in neural manifolds, dimensionality, brain states, and/or top-down modulation you are gonna like this one! 🧠🙈💫🧪 "Neural manifolds in V1 change with top-down signals from V4 targeting the foveal region" doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... Also enjoy this animation :) #SciArt #neuroskyence
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
It is now possible to model neuron-astrocyte interactions using the NEST simulator. Check out our latest preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Modeling neuron-astrocyte interactions in neural networks using distributed simulation
Astrocytes engage in local interactions with neurons, synapses, other glial cell types, and the vasculature through intricate cellular and molecular processes, playing an important role in brain infor...
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Wow, so many new followers! Is there a huge X-odus going on?
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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 22/09/2024
How do we fix academia's air travel problem? I've been declining invites in order to avoid flying and it feels weird at first but in my experience, organizers are very understanding and many will allow a virtual presentation. www.nature.com/articles/d41... #academiasky
nature.com
Academics say flying to meetings harms the climate — but they carry on
A survey at one of the biggest UK research universities finds that staff often end up flying to meetings despite a preference to avoid air travel. A survey at one of the biggest UK research universiti...
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Matthijs Dorst @mattneuro.dorst-lab.org · 21/09/2024
This randomly popped up in my feed, and I've got to share it since it's just such a "never even thought about this" kind of paper: www.cell.com/cell-reports... Neuron membrane capacitance oscillates wildly during the day?! 🧪🧠
cell.com
Daily oscillations of neuronal membrane capacitance
Severin et al. describe time-of-day changes in membrane capacitance in excitatory neurons from the visual cortex and hippocampus. Membrane capacitance is usually stable. These daily variations could p...
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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 20/09/2024
Fellow dudes. We eat a lot of beef. Eating less beef and more of nearly anything else would greatly reduce the climate impacts of our food choices. And we can still be manly men.
npr.org
Eating less beef is a climate solution. Here's why that's hard for some American men
Climate researchers have long grappled with how to get Americans to eat less beef, a food with a huge global warming impact. Now some are thinking about it through the lens of gender.
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 20/09/2024
That's what Erdoğan's been doing in Turkey. I definitely do not recommend. It's heartbreaking watch everything that's been happening at my alma mater in recent years. Academically unqualified, state appointed bureaucrats gradually replacing admin and faculty ranks; faculty getting purged...
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Gaute Einevoll @gauteeinevoll.bsky.social · 15/09/2024
Episode #18 in #TheoreticalNeurosciencePodcast: On electric brain signals – solo episode theoreticalneuroscience.no/thn18 Electric brain signals (spikes, LFP, ECoG, EEG) are typically modeled statistically. But biophysical forward modeling starting with neurons is an alternative.
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Nash @radiodeadair.com · 15/09/2024
If you're new to Bluesky, you should know that since there's no algorithm the Like button is exclusively for *you.* It doesn't help a post move or spread. If you want to help spread people's work (especially creators whose work you enjoy) YOU HAVE TO RESKEET.
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 14/08/2024
What's with the Bluesky algorithm? Despite having indicated about 30 times that I'm not interested in posts of people saying they're supposed to write a manuscript or are writing or editing a book, or asking for book suggestions, this is the main kind of post it keeps feeding me.
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Sacha van Albada @albada.bsky.social · 11/08/2024
How I hope that this platform really takes off so X and thereby Elon Musk loses influence
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