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Matteo Carandini

@carandinilab.net
3K followers 480 following 184 posts

Neuroscientist at University College London (www.ucl.ac.uk/cortexlab). Opinions my own.

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Reposted by Matteo Carandini
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Applications are now open for the SWC Systems Neuroscience PhD Programme. Join us in London! 🎓 World-class neuroscience training 💰 Fully funded 4-year programme 🖥️Close links to @gatsbyucl.bsky.social Apply by 9 Nov: www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/content/...
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David Malakoff @davidmalakoff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Major Ukraine research center damaged in Russian strikes | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Major Ukraine research center damaged in Russian strikes
Damage to century-old Palladin Institute marks “disaster for biological science in Ukraine”
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Unofficial BBCNews (World) Bot @bbcnews-world-rss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ukraine: People escape historic Kyiv building hit by Russian drone
bbc.co.uk
Ukraine: People escape historic Kyiv building hit by Russian drone
The BBC's Paul Adams reports from the scene of the strike on Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences.
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Reposted by Matteo Carandini
John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky
I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking. 

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review.  Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage.  To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.
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Reposted by Matteo Carandini
Nima Dehghani @neurovium.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
56k submissions to ICLR These conferences are now 90% AI-written garbage. These ppl who submit AI papers to have a conference paper on resume (for job/position) have effectively turned that value that they are after to "0". Greed + AI slop -> a pile of rubbish x.com/denny_zhou/s...
x.com
Denny Zhou (@denny_zhou) on X
ICLR 2027 has received more submissions than all previous years (2013–2026) combined
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Nico Schuck @nicoschuck.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
2023: 8,039 proposals 2024: 10,360 proposals 2025: 17,066 proposals 2026: 21,627 proposals Something's gotta give
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Jeremiah Cohen @jeremiahycohen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Happy to share the version of record of our locus coeruleus paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Prior thread on some of our discoveries in this study: bsky.app/profile/jere...
nature.com
Topographic structure and function of locus coeruleus noradrenaline neurons - Nature
Dorsal and ventral noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus form topographic subpopulations whose projection patterns and activity encode choice switching, reward-prediction errors and disregard o...
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Eliezyer de Oliveira @eliezyer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
After a long journey through review, our paper is finally out in Nature Communications. We started with a simple problem: The visual cortex is strongly modulated by movement. So how can it represent the visual world without movement interfering with everything? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Marlene Cohen @marlenecohen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Now out in Nature Neuroscience: fantastic work by @cxue.bsky.social, Sol Markman et al who discovered a neural reason that performance suffers under cognitive load: “Feature interference underlies a neuronal basis for the behavioral cost of task uncertainty”. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🧵1/
nature.com
Feature interference underlies a neuronal basis for the behavioral cost of task uncertainty - Nature Neuroscience
Using a combined approach of monkey electrophysiology, artificial neural networks and human psychophysics, Xue et al. show that neuronal interference from irrelevant information underlies behavioral e...
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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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Vinny Costa @vincentcostaphd.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
More stories like this one, please and thank you www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/s...
nytimes.com
The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice
Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.
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Rob Campbell @raacampbell.com · 06/09/2026
Our BrainSaw serial-section 2-photon platform acquires whole-organ datasets automatically and requires minimal tissue processing. It has a growing international install base and has contributed to 35 publications. Learn more at: swcmicroscopy.com/brainsaw/ #microscopy #neuroscience
A BrainSaw serial section 2-photon system. This particular example was modified from an TissueCyte 1000 commercial system. Others have been built from scratch or were modified from in vivo multi-photon systems. Each BrainSaw is unique, but all run BakingTray serial section 2-photon acqusition software that plugs into ScanImage. Somatostatin tdTomato transgenic mouse imaged on BrainSaw serial section 2-photon. Full res images acquired at around 1 micron/pixel. Top images derived from 10 micron/voxel isotropic 3D stack. Detail from a BakingTray acquisition obtained from a BrainSaw serial section 2-photon microscope. Image shows three AAV injections leading to expression of fluorescent proteins (mCherry, GFP, and BFP) in layer 5 neurons of mouse primary visual cortex. Imaged at 780 nm.
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The superposition of these two studies — both incredible — reflect a snapshot of "one big thing" systems neuroscience has yet to resolve. In mice: 1. Task-related signals are everywhere. 2. Absent large swaths of "everywhere," suprisingly sophisticated learning & behavior remains.
Post by Enny van Beest, "Brainwide representation of navigation"Post by Jieyu Zheng, "How fast can mice learn complex mazes?"
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 04/09/2026
Brainwide Representation of Navigation Enny recorded >20k neurons across forebrain and midbrain while mice navigated 1D VR. She found that every region encodes spatial position! Hippocampal formation stands out only in uniformity of the representation. But visual cortex beats it in precision...
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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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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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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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UK Parliament @ukparliament.parliament.uk · 23/08/2026
Tonight the Palace of Westminster is illuminated in the colours of the Ukrainian flag to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day and show Parliament’s support for the people of Ukraine.
Houses of Parliament illuminated in blue and yellow at night, reflected on the River Thames
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 17/08/2026
I am proud of this paper. Since it came out in 2022 it has received 0 citations (yes that's a zero). But multiple young scientists have found it useful! (from other labs, so they were not coerced...). Perhaps you will find it useful too? SOME TIPS FOR WRITING SCIENCE doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
doi.org
Some Tips for Writing Science
When preparing a scientific paper, we typically write with coauthors who have different backgrounds and styles, and we target readers who have little time and patience. To help both readers and writer...
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vincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵
The average CD_5 index per year for Web of Science. The original Park et al. decline (top curve) becomes essentially flat (bottom curve) when removing papers with CD_5=1. Those papers largely correspond to dataset artefacts.
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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
New substack: without big changes, slow growth is normal: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/stagnation...
chrisdillow.substack.com
Stagnation: the norm
We need more than tinkering if we are to raise economic growth significantly.
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 15/08/2026
Fascinating article on the progress of medical research and the surprising factors that can still hold it back. And I didn't know about Eroom's law! (it's the opposite of Moore's law)
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 05/08/2026
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
theguardian.com
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
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BrainGlobe @brainglobe.info · 05/08/2026
All BrainGlobe atlases now have Neuroglancer links so that you can explore atlases in the browser without needing to download them first! All links here: brainglobe.info/documentatio... Here you can view our Eurasian Blackcap atlas: neuroglancer-demo.appspot.com#!https://bra...
Screenshot of the Neuroglancer preview of the BrainGlobe Eurasian Blackcap atlas.
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Reposted by Matteo Carandini
Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Lovely result from the Stephenson-Jones lab at SWC: during sleep, mice replay newly-learned motor skills in the striatum — and it continues even after the hippocampus is fully removed. www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-…
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 31/07/2026
The apical dendrite looks great, and does wonders in a slice. What does it do in the living cortex? It depends on the cell. A causal spatial role for apical dendrites in the cortex www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... by @anyiliu.bsky.social with @kenneth-harris.bsky.social and @fedrossi.bsky.social
A cartoon providing a graphical summary of the paper. It is divided in 3 rows.

The top row shows a pyramidal cell and its apical tuft, and shows the two experiments that we ran: optical dendritic pruning (chopping off the apical tuft), and synaptic imaging done in the same neurons where we do somatic imaging. 

The middle row shows the results pertaining to neurons that prefer large stimuli (this is visual cortex): pruning reduced their responses, and the receptive fields of apical synapses are far away from the that of the soma. 

The bottom row shows the results pertaining to neurons that prefer small stimuli: pruning seemed to do nothing to the responses, and the receptive field of apical synapses are right around that of the soma.
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Anyi Liu @anyiliu.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Pyramidal cells in the cortex send a long apical dendrite to layer 1. What is its role? What happens when it's gone? ✂️ A causal spatial role for apical dendrites in the cortex Out today with @kenneth-harris.bsky.social, @carandinilab.net and @fedrossi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
A causal spatial role for apical dendrites in the cortex
Cortical pyramidal neurons project a long apical dendrite to layer 1 (L1), to receive synaptic inputs that are thought to provide contextual and possibly suppressive modulation. In visual cortex, thes...
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Reposted by Matteo Carandini
Tobias Rose @trose-neuro.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
@ptrrupprecht.bsky.social providing the new go-to GECI reference. Read when doing calcium imaging. rdcu.be/fwF82
rdcu.be
Spike inference from calcium imaging data acquired with GCaMP8 indicators
Nature Methods - In this Analysis, Rupprecht et al. investigate the behavior of GCaMP8 variants in spike inference using several different algorithms. They highlight the role of the...
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Spencer LaVere Smith @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Two-photon calcium imaging. What makes for good data? How can we optimize experiments to get good data? New post labrigger.com/blog/2026/07... and new free web apps from @filip-tomaska.bsky.social (1/8)
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 24/07/2026
The west was much more vocal against apartheid in the 1980s than it is now against this form of discrimination. Even Reagan did better than our current leaders. E.g. 40 years ago he purposefully chose a Black US ambassador for South Africa, to show and give support to those fighting apartheid.
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Michael Hendricks 🇨🇦 @michaelhendricks.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Check out this either somewhat significant or highly significant factoid.
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Samuel Le Meur-Diebolt @sdiebolt.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Hi co-activation patterns people! I've been playing around with CAPs recently and wanted to sanity-check something. My understanding is that CAP vs. anti-CAP is usually interpreted not as "activation vs. no activation", but as two opposing configurations (two poles of the same fluctuation).
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 20/07/2026
A neat description of @agnesland.bsky.social 's discovery. (I wish I could write as clearly as @ericaklarreich.bsky.social)
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 19/07/2026
Could Excel be conscious? We surveyed more than Jan 1 1900 people to find out.
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Simons Foundation @simonsfoundation.org · 19/07/2026
Neuroscientists have long wondered exactly how brain activity relates to blood flow. A new paper from the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain suggests the answer lies in a hidden balance between two opposing groups of neurons. Read more: bit.ly/3QX90to #science #neuroscience
quote from Matteo Carandini: “This shows that the relationship between neural activity and blood volume is more complicated than people thought, but it’s fixed across brain regions and states. We can go from neural activity to blood volume in a rock-solid way.”
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Ben Allen @evodynamics.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Congrats we just made it impossible to come here for a PhD www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/16/m...
bostonglobe.com
Trump administration limits student visas to four years, changing longstanding policy - The Boston Globe
The new rule, which also restricts the international students’ ability to transfer schools or change majors without approval in their first year, will go into effect in mid-September.
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 14/07/2026
Very nice response by the UK's @royalsociety.org to the proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance in the US. And the style of the first paragraph rings a bell...
THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

Dear Professor Carandini

For your information, please see a response, submitted by Royal Society, to the consultation by the US Office of Management and Budget regarding the proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance.

 
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that: science flourishes when based on reliable evidence and rigorous testing. It is tested through experiments, observation, challenge, reasoning and open enquiry. It depends on the freedom of researchers to question established thinking and to evaluate ideas on their scientific merit.

Science is strengthened by international collaboration. The exchange of people, ideas, data and expertise across borders has driven many of humanity’s greatest advances. They remain essential to tackling shared global challenges.

Science depends on trust. Trust that is earned through integrity, transparency, rigorous peer review and the independence of scientific enquiry. Governments determine both high level national priorities as well as levels of investment, doing so by respecting established scientific knowledge. Scientific conclusions must continue to be guided by evidence rather than political or ideological preference.

Science builds bridges between nations. Throughout history, even during periods of geopolitical tension, it has been one of the most powerful examples of constructive international cooperation.

These truths have served science and society remarkably well for generations. The Royal Society is deeply concerned by any actions, wherever they occur, that risk weakening them. Nations and their people will prosper only if these truths are respected, supported and protected. 

Sir Paul Nurse FRS
Royal Society President, and Council

The Royal Society
The UK National Academy of Science since 1660
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
AI may soon enable researchers to generate high-quality science at a previously unimaginable speed. The effects for researchers will be as disruptive as industrial mass production was for artisan manufacturers, writes @kenneth-harris.bsky.social. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...
thetransmitter.org
Mass-produced science is coming. What happens to scientists?
Artificial intelligence may soon enable researchers to generate high-quality science at a previously unimaginable speed.
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 13/07/2026
My home institute, @ucleye.bsky.social, is looking for a new Director! www.veredus.co.uk/job/job-1183a/
veredus.co.uk
Director of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology - REF 1183 | Veredus
University College London Director of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology  Location: London Salary: An attractive remuneration package UCL is a world leading, global university with a community of more...
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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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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
This is stunning
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Kenneth Harris @kenneth-harris.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Introducing the International Brain Lab AI Agent: a tool to help researchers analyze neural activity from across the mouse brain, using AI coding agents. Please try it! We would love your feedback. github.com/int-brain-la...
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Sainsbury Wellcome Centre @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
SWC & @gatsbyucl.bsky.social are inviting expressions of interest from early career researchers who wish to be sponsored for external career fellowships in computational neuroscience. A unique opportunity to work at the intersection of neuroscience and computation. Apply by 16 July.
sainsburywellcome.org
Fellowship Sponsorship | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour & Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, are looking to sponsor early career researchers in theoretical or c...
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Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
www.linkedin.com/posts/alexan...
linkedin.com
We are seeking two postdoctoral fellows to join our team working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Our research is built around three intertwined questions: how to… | ...
We are seeking two postdoctoral fellows to join our team working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Our research is built around three intertwined questions: how to mea...
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 26/06/2026
"NIH officials are telling grantees who submitted annual progress reports [...] to remove papers that name co-authors affiliated with foreign institutions if NIH had not previously approved a foreign component." Sad and absurd in so many ways.
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Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Brexit tore apart European science — 10 years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, there are signs that their relationship in research is healing #AcademicSky A news story by @lizziegibney.bsky.social for @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Brexit tore apart European science — now the research rifts are healing
The UK’s share of EU research funding is climbing, but lost networks will be harder to recover.
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus will close two of its programs dedicated to rodent work, @thetransmitter.bsky.social has learned. #neuroskyence By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ex...
thetransmitter.org
Exclusive: Janelia sunsets rodent work, launches transparent fish project
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus is banking on whole-brain imaging in the Danionella fish to advance neuroscience, but some scientists forced to close their labs say that…
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Kevin J Miller @kevinjmiller.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Data-driven model discovery 🔁 Model-driven experiment selection. For mechanistically-interpretable models! From Google DeepMind Neuroscience Lab, let by @noemielteto.bsky.social
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Tobias Rose @trose-neuro.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I would never say that “drift isn’t a thing” in visual cortex - but at #COSYNE2026 we show that much apparent drift in mouse V1 natural image responses can be explained by gaze drift. Tested with predictive deep network counterfactuals and closed-loop MEI restimulation. With @sinzlab.bsky.social.
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 13/06/2026
Apparently this is acceptable behaviour by a Fellow of the @royalsociety.org www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...
lemonde.fr
Elon Musk's role was 'instrumental' in the Belfast riots, researchers say
The newly crowned world's first trillionaire is once again facing criticism over the violent narratives he amplified on his platform X.
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