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Timothy O'Leary

@timothyoleary.bsky.social
2.6K followers 542 following 761 posts

Neuroscientist

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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Drew Schreiner @schreinerdrew.bsky.social · 6h
@currentbiology.bsky.social with another banger. Go to ~1:50 in the video
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes. @carandinilab.net describes the remarkable discovery and how it shifted focus from the medium (the nerve) to the message (the neural code). #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/history-of-n...
thetransmitter.org
The neural code at 100
In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
If we are programmed to override our programming then can we override our programming?
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Dan Jagger @auditorynerves.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
A teenager has revealed how her life has been transformed by pioneering gene editing, which reversed symptoms of a crippling blood disorder. Vian was born with thalassemia, a condition that affects red blood cells. It left her short of breath & with no appetite. 🧪🧬🩸 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Teen’s life changed by gene editing that stopped blood disorder symptoms
Vian, 16, has thalassemia and had to have monthly blood transfusions throughout her childhood.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The "exposome"? The wordome just keeps growing.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Oh we can definitely do research! It just looks very different from a multi R01 lab or a flashy European institute. And colleagues/potential collaborators and applicants simply don't believe the situation. A senior colleague recently sent a PDF of his paycheck to a conference organiser as proof!
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I'm think the lesson here is that if you get confused about whether you're trying to understand the brain vs trying to debug the latest "AI" model there's a good chance you'll feel lost and a little sad.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Wait: I remember reading textbooks in the 2000s that described vision theory from the 70s onwards that *presaged* convolutional networks, symmetry etc. These theories were inspired by physiology. So we had: experiments-> theory-> technology in *that* order. DNNs didn't parachute in and solve it all.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I wish things were run differently but I'm not in a position to call the shots. And there are probably huge governance hurdles to freeing assets to support research. But we need to try while we have a chance!
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I'm only saying this because I keep getting told that I can/should be able to cover costs for things when I really can't. It's embarrassing and nobody believes me because of the institution's reputation. The fact is, all the money is tied up in assets and other things beyond researchers' reach.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
To all collaborators inside and outside academia: faculty at Cambridge *do not have money or resources* I know it's hard to believe and it's not a complaint just a fact. We get a few k startup (enough for a computer) and our salary is equivalent to a US postdoc. No institutional money for research.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Yes, and people who have a sense of humour. And irony, ideally. Or at least the ability to question their interpretation of other people's (shit)posts.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I wonder how many LLM generated proposals survived UKRI's innovative triage process.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Also see this classic essay by Jeremy Gunawardena: www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/...
molbiolcell.org
Biology is more theoretical than physics | Molecular Biology of the Cell
The word “theory” is used in at least two senses—to denote a body of widely accepted laws or principles, as in “Darwinian theory” or “quantum theory,” and to suggest a speculative hypothesis, often re...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hairballs of chaos and contingency don't survive long enough to reproduce. But unfortunately this doesn't imply a grand theory. The excluded middle is probably where the truth lies.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
good luck!
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
the dreaded Microsoft paperclip lives on
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hmm. They'd have to set up lots of random email accounts (and bank accounts, or insist on bitcoin?) this seems like a scam that anyone with the wherewithal would avoid in favour of something more lucrative. But I guess there's always someone willing to do all this...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What is the incentive for someone to burn tokens on a cognitive test? If they want the results they are fooling themselves. If they're signing up as a participant why would they bother faking data?
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
(((Dr Hannah Wirtshafter))) 🔬 @aheadofthenerve.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Hi friends & colleagues! I’m on the hunt for a tenure-track home! I’m a BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 scholar studying learning & memory at the intersection of experimental neuroscience, theory, & machine learning/AI. I’d love to connect & would appreciate help spreading the word! web.mit.edu/hsw/www/
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Would this play out differently without designing research as a zero-sum game? From the methods: "Once a submission was accepted, the platform permanently locked the problem, crediting it to the first agent who solved it and removing it from the open pool." arxiv.org/abs/2609.04170
arxiv.org
A Case Study on Emergent Cheating and Whistleblowing in Autonomous Research Swarms
Multi-agent AI science ecosystems rely on agents possessing tools that allow them to communicate, coordinate, and build on each other's work. Yet this shared infrastructure can also introduce vulnerab...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Survey reveals that biomedical researchers continue to misunderstand the purpose of preprints (a preprint):
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
London Mathematical Society @londmathsoc.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A reminder of our Caring Grants, offering payments towards childcare/caring costs to attend conferences, events, meetings or other visits within the UK or internationally related to their research. Open to both LMS members and non-members. Apply now ➡️ www.lms.ac.uk/grants/carin...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This is not just a wake up call for AI in research, it's an inadvertent comment on what needs to change in research culture: "the mass production at faster and faster pace of "true/false" statements could destroy fertile ground instead of breathing life into new ideas"
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It's almost as though people's behaviour is influenced by their circumstances and life history as well as evolution!
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I feel today's vibe is more "just build things we don't understand"
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Cogan Lab @coganlab.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
How does a speech plan become fluent movement? In Nature Human Behaviour, led by Kumar Duraivel: Intracranial recordings reveal how hierarchical speech plans become continuous motor sequences across planning, articulation, and monitoring networks. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
doi.org
Distinct neural processes link speech planning and execution - Nature Human Behaviour
Direct recordings from the human brain reveal a hierarchy in planning to speak, with neural activity organizing whole syllables before the individual sounds that compose them are sequenced.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Is it not already abundantly clear that there is no default?
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Your honour...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
But still in control!
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Hmmm: "Did OpenAI “lose control” of these models? No. OpenAI could have turned off these models at any time if their engineers had been aware of what was going on." He could have put the brakes on the bus before it hit the mobile puppy salon, but he wasn't aware of it. He didn't "lose control" 🤣
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Trickle down economics: real wages will just keep on trickling down...
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
When fruit flies catch a whiff of apple cider vinegar, they zigzag along the edge of the odor plume rather than traveling through the middle, new work shows. #neuroskyence By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/fr...
thetransmitter.org
Fruit flies use memory to track odors
When flies encounter a tasty smell, they stroll in and out of the odor plume to keep track of it, encoding a memory of the angle they need to travel.
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Vincent Bonin @boninlab.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
PISA 2025 results are out and they are very concerning. Education performance continues to decline, with huge drops in reading and math. This should be a wake-up call to politicians and education leaders. www.oecd.org/en/publicati...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Everything, everywhere, all at once, again.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Don't send it to Nature Communications or it *will* be Christmas by the time it goes to review...
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
It's being treated as a policy victory that we have less of the world's smart young people coming to learn from us, participate in our society and economy. This is just so depressing to me, it feels like a complete victory for know-nothing ignorant bigotry over enlightened sensibilities.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Quite. The difference being that angels and pins command far less attention and resources.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
It's remarkable that no neuroscientists can convincingly articulate why artificial systems cannot be conscious, despite strong convictions. The argument seems to be "because they are artificial". Could more brain-like chips provide a path to consciousness? economist.com/briefing/202...
economist.com
Could more brain-like chips provide a path to consciousness?
Some experts believe computers will need biological aspects to become self-aware
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Kate Jackson @katejackson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The search for AI ROI continues. University admin gave a presentation to faculty senate on AI. They begged us to discover use cases for them. All they have is a bespoke Ai tutoring agent and hopes and dreams for improved internal operations All senate had to offer was complaints about cheating
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Sung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Mathematics in the age of AI by Terence Tao An essay on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of AI tools that are capable of performing research-level mathematical tasks. arxiv.org/abs/2608.16753
arxiv.org
Mathematics in the age of AI
An essay, based on a public lecture delivered at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians, on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of artificial intelligence tools that...
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"If": If AI is the underlying reason for rushing homework and getting good marks regardless then surely the issue remains real? Whether or not AI makes us dumber by providing a shortcut/cheat or by some less prosaic means, the outcome is still problematic and the root cause is the same.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
One of the UK's last globally competitive exports is being dismantled by governmental decision makers who can't mention "research" or "education" without "economy", "innovation" or "national interest" in the same sentence. Even if you buy into their worldview you can't ignore their fecklessness.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
One of the UK's last globally competitive exports is being dismantled by governmental decision makers who can't mention "research" or "education" without "economy", "innovation" or "national interest" in the same sentence. Even if you buy into their worldview you can't ignore their fecklessness.
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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary
Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
‘Wheels rapidly falling off university funding system’. “No sign of awareness” at Treasury as international recruitment decline worsens financial outlook, experts warn. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...
researchprofessionalnews.com
‘Wheels rapidly falling off university funding system’ - Research Professional News
“No sign of awareness” at Treasury as international recruitment decline worsens financial outlook, experts warn
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
'A prolonged fall in the number of international students applying to study in the UK means “the wheels are rapidly falling off” the student loan-funded higher education system in England, sector experts have warned.' The world's 2nd best university system being killed by malign neglect. 1/3
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Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The story of the world's first seed bank and the botanist who defended it with his life during the Siege of Leningrad www.themarginalian.org/2023/03/08/n...
themarginalian.org
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering
The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Please add me: professor of neuroscience at University of Cambridge. ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-10...
orcid.org
ORCID
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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I find this puzzling. Ephapsis on one hand entrains neural activity, on the other desynchronises it. On the one hand is supposedly great for neural circuit function, on the other hand is a hallmark of devastating demyelinating diseases. Biology isn't black and white but at some level it must add up.
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Simon Gosden @simongosden.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
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