iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jonathan A. Michaels @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Looking for a postdoc in motor control / systems neuroscience? I'm seeking candidates to develop a Connected Minds Fellowship proposal with me at York University: $70K/yr for 2 years + benefits, plus an $8.5K/yr research allowance. Deadline: Sept 27, 2026. 🧵

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

There's a shortcut?! 🤯 I've been putting two dashes (--), a space, then the rest of my text, allowing Word to autocorrect it

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Reza Shadmehr @rezashadmehr.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Climbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellum

Neurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...

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Andrew Pruszynski @andpru.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Official job posting coming when I get back from the cottage but if you're interested in a post-doc doing multi-area high-density electrophysiology in the cortico-thalamic circuit during reaching, feel free to reach out!

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Cian O'Donnell @cianodonnell.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

(apart from the important point that if we let AI do all our thinking, we are doomed) generally speaking this is why I have come to view presentations and paper writing as *doing science*, just as much as lab work or running computer simulations or whatever. Communication and discussion are central

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Cian O'Donnell @cianodonnell.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

During my postdoc I was trying to move to a new area, my supervisor said: you have to go to a conference, it's the only way to learn what they are thinking and what the key questions are. He was completely right. Science is a collective and social human pursuit, not a bunch of pdfs online

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Jonathan A. Michaels @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

The Neural Control & Computation Lab is recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow to investigate the neural basis of learning, flexible neural computation, and skilled movement control using large-scale electrophysiology from single-neuron populations in non-human primates 🧠🐒 www.ncclab.ca/join-the-lab

ncclab.ca

Join the Lab — neural control & computation lab

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

At @jama.com today, 2 radiologists publish the correct consent form for a total body MRI in healthy people Note "no major medical society recommends whole-body MRI screening in the general population because it is unproven, and the harms likely outweigh the benefits." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

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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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Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

What are the real promises and looming perils of neural foundation models? 🧠 I put my thoughts on (virtual) paper for @thetransmitter.bsky.social following a very energised workshop at @cosynemeeting.bsky.social 2025. It's also my first piece for them 😊

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Amy Orsborn @neuroamyo.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

If you're interested in emerging ideas in neural interfaces, I humbly suggest my lab's latest: www.nature.com/articles/s42... Neural interfaces create dynamic interactions between the brain & devices. This means mean we need new engineering approaches beyond typical ML to "decode" a static brain

nature.com

Computational framework to predict and shape human–machine interactions in closed-loop, co-adaptive neural interfaces - Nature Machine Intelligence

Madduri et al. introduce a computational framework grounded in control and game theory to model co-adaptation between users and decoders in neural interfaces. This framework enables a principled desig...

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

On the latest episode, @braininspired.bsky.social with @juangallego.bsky.social about the wealth of evidence that supports the view that neural manifolds are real and useful, even if they may not completely solve the age-old mind-body problem. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/brain-inspir...

thetransmitter.org

Juan Gallego on manifolds and populations of neurons

A wealth of evidence supports the view that neural manifolds are real and useful, even if they may not solve the age-old mind-body problem.

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John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Congrats Tomohiko! I remember thinking this was awesome when you presented it at OIST — glad to see it out!

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Tomohiko Takei @tomohikotakei.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Our paper is out in Science Advances! What makes primate hands so dexterous? We show that evolutionarily distinct spinal and cortical pathways work together to balance stability and flexibility, supporting remarkable primate hand control. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Primate dexterous hand movements are controlled by functionally distinct premotoneuronal systems

Distinct spinal and cortical pathways coordinate muscle synergies and fine control to support primate dexterous hand movements.

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

“If your evidence is purely predictive, stop making mechanistic claims—or start designing the experiment that would let you”

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Jaime Ibáñez @jibanez.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Open PhD position in our neural interfaces lab at University of Zaragoza within the @bsicos.i3a.es to work in the framework of our @erc.europa.eu project ECHOES. The PhD will be focused on analyzing peripheral neural signals to muscles. ➕ℹ️ i3a.unizar.es/es/ofertas-d... Share, please ;)

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Jonathan A. Michaels @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

The Neural Control and Computation Lab is seeking a skilled part-time software engineer in Toronto to lead the development of ATHENA (Automatically Tracking Hands Expertly with No Annotations), our open-source, Python-based toolbox for 3D markerless tracking! www.yorku.ca/health/resea...

yorku.ca

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Thanks for sharing! Here's the accompanying Bluetorial 😀

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Thanks!! And for including it in “the list” Hope to see you soon in Kobe 😀

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Huge thanks to our clinical collaborators at Hillingdon Hospital, and our participants and their carers for their time, patience and efforts. We'd also like to thank Meta for their support. And finally Dario Farina and @juangallego.bsky.social for spearheading this project 13/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

In sum, we show intuitive, multidimensional motor unit-based control in tetraplegic SCI despite the lack of overt movement and presence of spasticity This is an exciting approach that could enable functional restoration of hand function and rehabilitation 12/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

In a step towards controlling assistive devices, one participant controlled a virtual wheelchair. One motor unit drove it forward, whilst the other two units turned the chair left and right 11/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

And a version of Snake that could be played with two motor units -- one for clockwise and another for counter-clockwise turning 10/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Successful deployment of this tech would need to go beyond these lab tasks. One way to do this is via gamified therapy! We developed a version of Pong that could be controlled using the activity of a single motor unit 9/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

More complex control requires simultaneous, independent control of multiple motor units. Our participants were able to control two independent motor units using two different attempted movements to enact 2D control 7/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Control accuracy only got a little better with successive training sessions Notably, we observed relatively high performance right from the first session. We also noted high performance in movements that didn't undergo training We think this means motor unit control is intuitive 6/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

From the first session, participants could proportionately control the activity of a single motor unit to track three different 1D profiles Control accuracy was better when they controlled a population of motor units, and both were better than using raw EMG 5/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

We identified several motor units during attempted movements despite no overt movement Motor units were classified as controllable (fired exclusively during movement attempts) or tonic (fired continuously during both rest and movement attempts, likely due to underlying spasticity) 4/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Using blind source separation, we decode (in real-time) the spiking activity of individual motor units We assessed if people with cervical SCI and no hand function function, could use their residual motor unit activity for control 3/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Even following a complete SCI, there remain residual connections between motor regions in the brain and spinal motoneurons below the injury. We can detect this residual muscle activity using surface EMG electrodes 2/13

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

New preprint! We show that people with tetraplegic spinal cord injury can use their residual motor unit activity to achieve up to three dimensional control using non-invasive high-density surface EMG With my co-first authors Xingchen Yang and Ciara Gibbs www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/13

medrxiv.org

Intuitive, multidimensional motor unit control after paralysing spinal cord injury using non-invasive recordings

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in profound motor impairment for approximately 20 million people worldwide. Regaining hand use is one of their highest priorities. Interestingly, even severely affecte...

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JAMA @jama.com · 01/01/2026

💬 Viewpoint: Mass abstract submissions in #MedEd have led to inflated metrics, less meaningful research, and misaligned incentives for trainees and institutions. ja.ma/3MYsmvO

JAMA viewpoint article titled "Abstract Factory—Research Culture Harming Medical Education" by Samer Al Hadidi et al., published online December 18, 2025. The article discusses the impact of mass abstract submissions on medical education.

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

That said, tiny white matter lesions in specific areas cause massive deficits (e.g., capsular strokes) Anecdotally, I see grey matter lesions resulting in a change in behaviour more often than white matter lesions

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Although it’s surprising how people can be asymptomatic despite having significant small vessel disease. Or how not all white matter lesions in multiple sclerosis cause signs or symptoms

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Exactly, he couldn’t not write (or use his hands for activities of daily living)! That said, he could make complex actions like number drawing… they attributed his deficits to the inability to correct errors. P.S. David Marsden’s patient, not mine 😅

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

I was admittedly a little sad when our SCI study didn’t initially feature in “the list” but am really happy to see it now! (On my wife’s 30th birthday too!) Many thanks!! @andpru.bsky.social, @gribblelab.org, @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social superlab.ca/posts/2025-1...

superlab.ca

Reading List 314 – Sensorimotor Superlab

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Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

🚨Job alert🚨 The lab has up to *3 postdoc openings* for comp systems neuroscientists interested in describing and manipulating neural population dynamics mediating behaviour This is part of a collaborative ARIA grant "4D precision control of cortical dynamics" euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/383909

euraxess.ec.europa.eu

3 Postdoctoral Research Fellows

Champalimaud Foundation (Fundação D. Anna de Sommer Champalimaud e Dr.

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Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

🚨Big news!🚨 The lab is relocating to Lisbon, joining a great team of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists, and the Neurotechnology Warehouse, a new initiative to bridge basic and translational research. I'll be sharing postdoc openings soon. Come join us in this new incarnation of the lab!

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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

‪@benhayden.bsky.social‬ @tyrellturing.bsky.social‬ @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social‬ @pessoabrain.bsky.social I see a lot of talk on here about how we should avoid "x does y" talk because the brain is "a dynamic, reverberant, reciprocally interconnected system". But this does not follow. A thread...

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Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

🚨New paper🚨 Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently. Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW

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Matt Perich @mattperich.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Check out our new review/perspective (w/ @juangallego.bsky.social & Devika Narain) on neural manifolds in the brain! It was a lot of fun to think through these ideas over the past couple of years, and I'm excited it's finally out in the world! 🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 📄: rdcu.be/ex8hW

nature.com

A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience

Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...

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