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Eric Garr

@garrface.bsky.social
848 followers 498 following 118 posts

Research scientist @ NIH. Behavior, brains, biking, bagels. ericgarr.com

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Reposted by Eric Garr
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 12h
This is the issue with saying AI will cure diseases too. Getting data is the limitation. Saying AI can cure all diseases without needing scientists is like saying AI can make a world-champion basketball team by replacing the coaches. You still need athletes who can make great plays and decisions.
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Eric Denovellis @eric-denovellis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I wanted to highlight the work of Alison Comrie et al. that recently came out in Neuron and I don’t think it is getting enough attention: paper: cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(26)00674-4 #neuroskyence
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Heading to the Pavlovian Society meeting in Montreal, may never return.
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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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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
New paper! Decision-making isn't just picking winners via more neural firing, the brain reorganizing activity patterns into different subspaces, shifting from "one option vs. another" to "chosen vs. rejected" doi.org/10.1016/j.is... #neuroscience @picowerinstitute.bsky.social @mitbcs.bsky.social
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Nature @nature.com · 04/09/2026
An agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defense. go.nature.com/4ycEbk8
go.nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defence.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The art docents who used to visit my elementary school would go hard on Homer to the point where I thought he was as famous as Van Gogh. Consequence of growing up in New England.
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Reposted by Eric Garr
Neuropsychopharmacology @npp-journal.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This study found opposing effects of fentanyl on tonic vs. phasic dopamine that may reveal insight on impaired non-drug reward seeking during opioid exposure
nature.com
Acute fentanyl induces opposing directions of changes in tonic and phasic dopamine release patterns and impairs Pavlovian task performance
Neuropsychopharmacology - Acute fentanyl induces opposing directions of changes in tonic and phasic dopamine release patterns and impairs Pavlovian task performance
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Reposted by Eric Garr
Mike Tadross @miketadross.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
1/6 Opioids trigger a dopamine surge that can create dangerous reward associations—yet that same dopamine signal may help shape central pain perception. Can the dopamine surge and reward associations be separated? Our recent Nature study says yes www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The Cellular and Synaptic Actions of Dopamine During Behavior www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Anthony Ramnauth @philoneurosci.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This seems super important for in vivo experiments #Norepinephrine and #dopamine #sensor crosstalk depends on local innervation density doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Norepinephrine and dopamine sensor crosstalk depends on local innervation density - Nature Neuroscience
This study shows that GPCR-based norepinephrine and dopamine sensors display crosstalk in several brain areas. Relative innervation densities determine the extent of crosstalk, and loss-of-function co...
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Nina Friedman @ngfriedman.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Starting in Spring or Summer 2027 K99/R00 (under its new activity code KT1/R00) will only be available to US citizens, permanent residents, and non-citizen nationals. I am hearing this from many program officers, but NIH has yet to make an official statement to my knowledge.
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
A conserved population of genetically defined striatal neurons gates opioid reward www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Congrats Robin!
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Juan Linde-Domingo @lindedomingo.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Replay of procedural memory is independent of the hippocampus 👀👀 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Replay of procedural memory is independent of the hippocampus - Nature Neuroscience
Thompson, Rollik and colleagues show that, during sleep, the brain replays procedural memories in the striatum independently of the hippocampus. Replay content was shaped by prior reward and error out...
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
#NeuroJobs
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
🚨Postdoc position available in computational/theoretical neuroscience at NIMH! The intramural NIH research community is great (amazing collaborators, no worrying about grants, lots of opportunities for professional development). Please repost! www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pd-0931...
training.nih.gov
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Annual Reviews @annualreviews.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
The 2026 volume of the Annual Review of Neuroscience is now online 🧠 The most read article is "Planning in the Brain: It's Not What You Think It Is" by @marcelomattar.bsky.social and @nathanieldaw.bsky.social
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Hugo Spiers @hugospiers.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Just how goal-directed are hippocampal theta sweeps, anyway? Great News & Views from @adredish.bsky.social Lab on recent theta goal papers: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroskyence
nature.com
Just how goal-directed are hippocampal theta sweeps, anyway? - Nature Neuroscience
Planning is a cognitive process that is thought to be grounded in hippocampal sequences, but recent studies have suggested that a simpler mechanism, fundamentally incompatible with those planning hypo...
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
This amount would fund the US National Science Foundation for a decade. 🧪
apnews.com
Pentagon seeks $80 billion from Congress for Iran war
The Pentagon has told lawmakers it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the war in Iran.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Congrats Malcolm!
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
The man wishes he had political appeal.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Whaaaaat!
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Reposted by Eric Garr
Kevin J Miller @kevinjmiller.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Computational models are a key part of science but discovering new ones is hard! DataDIVER discovers concise models from data, which surface new mechanistic ideas and clear predictions for future experiments From Google Deepmind Neuroscience Lab + collaborators www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Local control of dopamine release in nucleus accumbens gates opioid withdrawal aversion www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Excellent summary of how Vought’s proposed rule will destroy science. Please be ready to comment tomorrow, call Congress, tell your friends. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to speak up, that moment is now.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
These all sound like pieces of Key and Peele football player names.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
See Fig S8 L,M. Our tiny contribution 😂 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
This is super cool and lines up with what we found in the Pavlovian case (ie outcome-selective degradation resistant to spontaneous recovery).
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
RAND(Do not use)
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
TIL the MED-PC sample-without-replacement function (RANDD) generates sequential dependencies. This problem is absent in MED-PC V. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
researchgate.net
(PDF) The misbehavior of the RANDD function in Med-PC IV
PDF | The RANDD function in Med-PC® IV is supposed to randomly select a value from a list, without replacement. By happenstance, we detected sequential... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Double blind review? I’m down.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Thanks as always for your counsel :)
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
It is striking that science does not offer many non-trainee positions outside of PI (which I pursued over the last several years; more about that in a future post). I feel fortunate to join NIMH where I can continue doing stimulating and impactful research without the pressure of extramural funding.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
I will continue conducting research on the neural and computational mechanisms of learning, with an eye toward achieving translational insights in psychiatric disorders. I’m very happy to move beyond the “trainee” designation and into a professional federal appointment.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
I always told myself that if I could remain in research with better pay, even if not a PI, I would be thrilled. I’m therefore excited to join the Unit on Neural Computations in Learning (PI: Angela Langdon) at NIMH, where I’ll start as Research Fellow.
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Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Could agentic AI topple grant-funding systems? Man, I hope so... the system has been broken for a while, hopefully this will force a thorough rethink. www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
nature.com
Could agentic AI topple grant-funding systems?
Funders must take action before an increase in submission of high-quality proposals written using AI models makes it impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff.
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Prediction without understanding sustained astronomy through a thousand years of epicycles, writes @tonyzador.bsky.social. AI is now offering neuroscience the same deal. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/machine-lear...
thetransmitter.org
Can AI do neuroscience without understanding?
Prediction without understanding sustained astronomy through a thousand years of epicycles. Artificial intelligence is now offering neuroscience the same deal.
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Andrew MacAskill @macaskillaf.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Huge congrats to @snierwetberg.bsky.social , David (not on BSky), and @maxwellxchen.bsky.social for their paper! They developed a mouse task in which relational structure can be isolated from cue identity and reward statistics. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧠📈🧪 #neuroskyence @uclnpp.bsky.social
biorxiv.org
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
F*cking hell. So sorry to hear that. The probabilistic nature of grant scoring hurts postdocs the most.
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Matt Banghart @mattbanghart.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Excited to share our new study on how the brain generates placebo pain relief! We developed a mouse model that recapitulates key features of human placebo analgesia, then used it to identify causal circuitry. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... today.ucsd.edu/story/neurob... 1/n
today.ucsd.edu
Neurobiologists Hack Brain Circuits Tied to Placebo Pain Relief
Scientists have identified the brain circuits tied to placebo pain relief. Researchers have known that placebo effects can be a powerful treatment, yet the underlying neurological mechanisms have not ...
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Nice work! Does the same relationship hold for unconditioned licks (ie consumption)?
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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
transformer-circuits.pub/2026/emotion... This got press hate because of the word "emotions" but it is cool work. "Internal motivational states" serve as a form of working memory that helps animals organize their behavior, so why not ask if similar computational primitives help LLMs to do the same?
transformer-circuits.pub
Emotion Concepts and their Function in a Large Language Model
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Hey @ditzkoff.bsky.social I knew I recognized you! Sorry for the identity mishap, trying to work on my journalist vs. neuroscientist decoder.
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Reposted by Eric Garr
Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
@jhennig.bsky.social has shown that dopamine exerts a real-time effect on conditioned responding, beyond its role in learning: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Another indication that dopamine is more than a learning signal! A joint effort with @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social and @mhburrell.bsky.social.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Research Fellow at NIMH. Yeah, that’s my sense, thanks mostly to reading your candid takes.
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Remember this example whenever anyone tells you that you’re generally safe living in a blue city within a red state (something I was told frequently while on the faculty job market)
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Eric Garr @garrface.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
On the whole, who do you think is worse off atm: extramural or intramural researchers? Asking as someone who is moving from a university to NIH 😐
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Alex Williams @itsneuronal.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Cosyne invited me to give a long tutorial (4 hours!) on methods to quantify differences high-d neural recordings across animals, brain regions, deep neural nets, etc. The recording is up on youtube. I hope it inspires more research on this fundamental topic! www.youtube.com/watch?v=n44x...
youtube.com
Cosyne 2026 - Cosyne Tutorial: Comparative Analysis of Neural Population Codes
YouTube video by Cosyne Talks
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