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Benjamin Cowley

@benjocowley.bsky.social
434 followers 211 following 71 posts

Assistant Professor in computational neuroscience at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Think cortically, act neuronally. cowleygroup.cshl.edu

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Reposted by Benjamin Cowley
Princeton Neuroscience Institute @princetonneuro.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
🌟 Applications are open! The Princeton Neuroscience Institute invites exceptional postdoctoral researchers to apply for our CV Starr Fellowship, which provides an attractive salary and research funds. 🗓️ Deadline: Nov. 06, 2026 🔗 pni.princeton.edu/apply/postdo...
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Ben Hayden @benhayden.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Inferring the evolving objectives that organize animal behavior
Understanding how the brain supports flexible, goal-directed behavior is a central aim of neuroscience. Yet such behavior is highly variable and unfolds over long timescales, making it challenging to ...
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Princeton Neuroscience Institute @princetonneuro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
📢 We’re hiring! PNI is seeking a full-time Lecturer in Computational and Cognitive Neuroscience to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in computational modeling and human cognitive neuroscience. Priority consideration: Nov. 30 Apply: apply.interfolio.com/193741 #NeuroSkyence #NeuroJobs
exterior photo/rendering of the PNI and psychology building
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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Preprint time! This is a cool one. Complex systems, be they neural nets, interacting genes, or power grids, can produce diverse dynamics-- things like point attractors, limit cycles, and chaos. The dynamic landscape you get depends on how elements interact. But those interactions can also change!
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
That to me suggests it's just too large. I understand visa issues, etc., but at what point should it splinter? What is the number to cap accepted work?
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
That and three locations for Neurips...it feels more like SfN (prelim data, get feedback) than rigorous review. ML conferences have fallen to Goodhart's Law, alas.
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Sven Dorkenwald @sdorkenw.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Applications are now open for the San Juan Winter School 2027 on Connectomics and Brain Simulation! Join us to learn how to analyze and simulate connectomes. sjcabs.com
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John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
**Second** job in computational/theoretical neuro at @dukemedschool.bsky.social! Really great opportunity, great colleagues.
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Jieyu Zheng @jieyusz.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
An acortical mouse — born without hippocampus and most of its neocortex — learns the Manhattan Maze: a 30× improvement in 5 hours, 18 rewards! Now a question for everyone: How can an acortical brain do this? Leave a comment! Preprint w/ @mameister4.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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COSYNE @cosynemeeting.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
📢Have work to share with the computational and systems neuroscience community? Abstract submissions for #COSYNE2027 are now open. Deadline: 18 October 2026, 11:59 p.m. AoE Submit your abstract: www.cosyne.org/abstracts-su... #Neuroscience
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Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Whole-body cellular activity imaging in zebrafish, headed by Virginie Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social - new paper is out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Imaging cellular activity across all organs reveals body-wide circuits - Nature
An imaging system developed to record cellular activity throughout the whole body of zebrafish captures cellular organ dynamics and identifies multiple distributed circuits.
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 09/09/2026
If you thought "everything is everywhere" in the brain: inactivations reveal a clear distinction of labor. Sensory areas sense, colliculus promotes eligible actions (!), and prefrontal cortex integrates. The role of superior colliculus in a logistic decision www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Princeton Neuroscience Institute @princetonneuro.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
We're hiring! PNI is recruiting an assistant professor of neuroscience working with non-human primates in any area. Review begins Oct 19: apply.interfolio.com/192521 #NeuroJobs #Neuroskyence
photo of PNI and psychology building
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Enny van Beest @ennyvb.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Textbook: tracking position during navigation is primarily the job of the hippocampus. Recent findings suggest a more complicated story. Recording >20k neurons brainwide, we indeed find spatial representations in every region! With @kenneth-harris.bsky.social and @carandinilab.net
Brainwide representations of a virtual corridor
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Jieyu Zheng @jieyusz.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
How fast can mice learn complex mazes? With @mameister4.bsky.social we reveal memory, generalization, latent learning, and remote credit assignment of mice in the Manhattan Maze. Do mice born without a cortex or hippocampus have them too? Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Rapid spatial cognition in mice, with and without neocortex and hippocampus
Rapid learning, memory, and generalization are often attributed to circuits of the neocortex and hippocampus, but their specific role remains unclear. To examine these cognitive abilities together in ...
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
(1/2) When Janelia set out to map every neuron in the fly brain in 2008, many thought it couldn’t be done. Nearly 20 years later, a complete wiring diagram of the 166,000+ neurons of the adult male fruit fly is helping to reveal the brain’s secrets: bit.ly/4zT7jPf.
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Reyes-Lamothe lab @reyes-lab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
We’re hiring! The Biology department at McGill is hiring a tenure-track professor in Quantitative Cell Biology. We’re looking for an outstanding researcher and educator to join our community. Deadline: October 9 Info & application: mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/McGill_Caree... Please share!
mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor in Quantitative Cell Biology - Department of Biology
Please refer to the How to Apply for a Job (for External Candidates) job aid for instructions on how to apply. If you are an active McGill employee (ie: currently in an active contract or position at ...
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Joao Barbosa @jbarbosa.org · 03/09/2026
I can finally tell the world that i was selected for an ERC stg 🤯 Maybe this what people mean when they say they are "humbled by" but I am at peak imposter syndrome, and I really mean it: 1/
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Samantha Butler @samanthabutler.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Please spread the news - the Department of Neurobiology at UCLA is hiring. This is an open rank search for all and any amazing neuroscientists! Please apply here by Nov 15th, first review end of October : recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF11296
recruit.apo.ucla.edu
Open-rank tenure-track faculty position
University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!
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Marc Coutanche @marccoutanche.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
We are recruiting an Assistant Professor in Cog Neuro/Cog Psych to join us at Rice! Please spread the word! apply.interfolio.com/192080
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Sonya Neal @neal-lab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Come be my colleague!! 🎉 We’re hiring an Assistant Professor in Developmental Biology at UCSD! If you’re doing exciting work in development or regeneration, come join us!! Please spread the word and apply! apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04591
apol-recruit.ucsd.edu
Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology
University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!
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Tal Golan @talgolanneuro.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
How can we design experiments that make computational models disagree? One section of our new @natrevneuro.nature.com Review with @kriegeskorte.bsky.social and @heikoschuett.bsky.social examines studies that used stimulus sets designed to elicit distinct predictions from competing models. 1/16
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
There is another position for a wet lab faculty (multi-systems biology), so glass half full!
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
CSHL is hiring a new BioAI faculty member, part of a multi-year hiring process for the Foundations of the Future. We need to fill a new BioAI building, come join! www.cshl.edu/about-us/car...
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Martin Schrimpf @mschrimpf.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Hiring postdocs @EPFL: please reach out and/or apply to the AI Center fellowship www.epfl.ch/research/fun.... My #NeuroAI group is excited about testing and building models of brain and behavior, from sensory through language to cognition, and from healthy to dysfunction (treatment)! 🧠🤖🧪
epfl.ch
EPFL AI Center and Swiss AI Initiative Postdoctoral Fellowships
The 3rd call is now open with a submission deadline on 9 November 2026 17:00 (CET).
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The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · 29/08/2026
The Ferrier Medal and Lecture 2027 is awarded to Professor Kenneth Daniel Harris for his contributions to neuroscience by unifying experimental neurophysiology with advanced analytical methods and for pioneering methods that allow recording from thousands of neurons. #RSMedals bit.ly/4qCJZRo
A man in a black shirt smiles at the camera in front of a whiteboard covered in scientific notation.
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Patrick Mineault @patrickmineault.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
How has neuroscience changed in the past 10 years? I reread The Future of the Brain, a 2014 compilation of essays from neuroscientists, to see if we accomplished what we said we would. Atlases! Connectomes! Whole brain simulations! TL;DR: we did pretty well! www.neuroai.science/p/the-future...
neuroai.science
The Future of the Brain, past and present
Reflecting on a decade of neuroscience advancements
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Kanaka Rajan @kanakarajanphd.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
(1/8) Our approach for untangling brain-wide interactions is out today in @cp-neuron.bsky.social! Current-Based Decomposition (CURBD) uses RNNs constrained by real neural data to reveal the input driving neurons, uncovering how brain regions talk to each other. doi.org/10.1016/j.ne... 🧵👇
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Cris Niell @crisniell.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Very happy to share our new review on visual computation in the cephalopod brain, with @vangeliqueallen.bsky.social, out now! We discuss exciting recent advances in understanding how the radically different brain of cephalopods processes the visual scene. 🐙🔬👀 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Dan Feldman @danfeldman.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
The Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley is hiring an Asst Professor in Computational Neuro. All areas of computational/theoretical neuro are welcome. Deadline Oct 30. Join our neuroscience community! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05446 #AcademicJobs #Neuroscience #NeuroJobs
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor - Computational Neuroscience - Department of Neuroscience
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Makes sense! I was wondering if someone on the team was passionate about that movie. I've also seen The Matrix, Mad Max, and Sherlock in other animal studies!
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Thomas Zenkel @thomaszen.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
📣 Our paper introducing openretina, a collaborative framework for retina modelling across datasets and species, is now published as an eLife Reviewed Preprint. Paper: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... Code: github.com/open-retina/... Docs: open-retina.org
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Alana Darcher @alanadarcher.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
🎉 *extremely* excited to share our human single neuron + movie dataset is out in #ScientificData! 📄 Human neuron activity during an 83-minute movie from 2,286 neurons and 29 patients 🔗https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-026-07955-0 1st public dataset from @humansingleneuron.bsky.social!🧵
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I'm curious what the backstory was for choosing this particular movie...better than an oscars award!
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John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
**Four** positions in AI/ML for biology at @dukemedschool.bsky.social, including in Neurobiology. @scottsoderling.bsky.social and David Page are leading a tremendous initiative in Discovery AI. Wonderful colleagues, wonderful place.
nature.com
AI/ML for Biology - 4 tenure-track assistant professor positions - Durham, North Carolina job with Duke University - Biochemistry & Cell Biology | 12862109
Discovery AI Initiative and Departments of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Integrative Immunobiology, Neurobiology, and Pharmacology & Cancer Biology
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John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
🚨We’re moving! 🚨 Starting this fall, my lab will be moving to the Center for Neural Science at NYU and the Center for Computational Neuroscience at the @flatironinstitute.org. 1/
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Spencer LaVere Smith @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Ecological Visual Processing in the Mouse - with @michaelgoard.bsky.social @crisniell.bsky.social @mbeyeler.bsky.social Visual computations that are engaged in ecological contexts: active sensing, motion processing, scene analysis, distance estimation, and spatial perception. doi.org/10.1146/annu...
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Chess! Brains!
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Marlene Cohen @marlenecohen.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I have always believed that ideas from basic systems neuroscience could eventually help people. But for years that felt more like hope than reality. But look! This is one of the most personally satisfying papers my lab has produced because we’re getting there. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪🧵 1/
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
What does the rightmost red dot represent? Autonomous companies? At least the axes were labeled.
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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Updated preprint and code from my lab. If you want to explore more realistic neural dynamics in models that can still perform visual tasks, check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Modeling Dynamical Vision with Biologically Plausible Recurrent Convolutional Networks
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) trained for image recognition have demonstrated remarkable conceptual similarities to the primate ventral visual pathway, but their standard feedforward architectu...
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
might be some chess involved too...
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Wei-Chung Allen Lee @darbly.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Now published - the #BANC! A full central nervous system (CNS) connectome of a limbed animal at single-synapse resolution, enabling us to follow sensory-motor arcs and understand how the CNS controls the body. rdcu.be/fncjS. #neuroscience. Video by @quorumetrix.bsky.social 1/18
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Michelle Greene @mgreenephd.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
🚨New dataset just dropped🚨 Introducing Places in the Wild: 67,000 RAW-format photographs (45 mpix) densely sampled from 810 places (260 basic-level categories). This is 11x the number of pixels in ImageNet! Preprint is here: arxiv.org/abs/2606.02481 1/
arxiv.org
Places in the Wild: A Large, High-Resolution RAW Photograph Dataset for Ecologically Valid Vision Research
Large image datasets have accelerated progress in cognitive neuroscience and computer vision. However, most datasets are low-resolution, internet-sourced JPEGs with unknown capture conditions and limi...
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Martin Schrimpf @mschrimpf.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Two simple ideas for building improved brain encoding models: 1. learn to use representations from all model layers via a gating mechanism + 2. start from natively multimodal features for multimodal predictions. State of the art performance; see mirage-brain.epfl.ch for details #NeuroAI 🧠🤖🧪
mirage-brain.epfl.ch
MIRAGE: Adaptive Multimodal Gating for Whole-Brain fMRI Encoding
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 01/06/2026
Neuropixels + Optogenetics = Neuropixels Opto Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics. 960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors. Today in @natmethods.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... Thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @alleninstitute.org, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social & team.
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Mike Zheng @xmikezheng20.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I’m happy to share a protocol we’ve been working on for building modular, synchronized multimodal data acquisition systems for systems neuroscience behavior rigs. @mbd1mbd1.bsky.social @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social dx.doi.org/10.17504/pro...
dx.doi.org
A modular toolkit for synchronized multimodal data acquisition in systems neuroscience
A modular toolkit for synchronized multimodal data acquisition in systems neuroscience. Animal behavio. Read full protocol, steps, and materials on protocols.io
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Brad Hulse @bradkhulse.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Story time friends... Ring attractor networks rely on fine-tuned symmetric connectivity. The fly head direction network has ring attractor dynamics but heterogeneous connectivity. How is this possible? 1/🧵 Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Kristin Branson @kristinmbranson.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
New preprint with @lingqiz.bsky.social: Neurodata Without Boredom: Benchmarking Agentic AI for Data Reuse arxiv.org/abs/2605.12808 1/10
Overview of the data conversion task. The benchmark includes eight datasets spanning a range of neural recording modalities, behavioral tasks, measurements, experiment protocols, and data formats. For each dataset, agents were also given the released paper, methods, and code, together with a structured prompt. The agent’s goal was to convert each heterogeneous source dataset into a common format suitable for a neural decoding task. 
Diagram has a column for each of 8 papers from mouse systems neuroscience. The first row shows the name of the dataset and a description of the focus of that work: 1) Allen2P: Visual change detection,2) Lee2025: Spatial coding & remapping, 3) Majnik2025: Cortical development, 4) Sosa2024: Spatial reward learning,  5) Chen2024: Memory-guided decision, 6) Hasnain2024: Context-based decision, 7) Zhang2025: Visual-motor decision, 8) Zhong2025: Visual learning. 
The next row shows the type of neural recording data: 1, 3, 4, 8: head-fixed calcium imaging, 2: miniprobe, 5-7: neuropixels or other silicon probes
The next row shows the types of behavioral and task variables. These are different for every task
The next row shows a visualization of the experiment protocol for each task. Again, these are different for every task
The next row shows that this information is all condensed into data, paper, and code. Data has the different types of information in different orders and structures. It also shows the type of files: 1: NWB files & SDK, 2,6: MATLAB files, 3, 7: Python files, 4-5: NWB files, 8: Various + API
The next part of the diagram shows the task, which is for agents to convert the data to a common data format for a downstream decoder task.
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Martin Hebart @martinhebart.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Finally, today is the day: Josefine Zerbe will present and release our new multi-echo 7T fMRI dataset LAION-fMRI during #VSS2026, with >30 fMRI session per subject and unprecedented stimulus diversity. Come to Talk Room 1 (Scene perception) today at 5:15. Details will follow in a separate thread!
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