Mark Histed

The information environment matters.

And consensus truth is a public good we can build democratic institutions to facilitate and protect.

agree.
Admitting and talking about what’s happening - in Iran, in US science, in Minneapolis, in public health, in DC - is simply essential now.

Thanks for this. These plots are highly informative.

The NIMH effective payline is 3%.

Wild.

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Amazing pic

Strongly-put, but much true:

Universities should stand up for our shared principles—democracy, equality, promoting the general welfare, academic freedom...and good-faith, honest engagement.

Prasad did not uphold those ideals.
UCSF should judge him; we as members of civil society should.

That is a very interesting point.

@michaelgoard.bsky.social said something similar to this

Natalie Aviles speaking

Pluralistic governance at NIH • NIH is the largest single funder of biomedical research in the worlds • Two kinds of pluralism in NIH governance • Madisonian pluralism: checks and bala, between Legislative and Executive Brar • Dahlian pluralism: role for members of scientin community in decision-making

“Scientists are members of civil society [who can speak up], but they sometimes don’t see themselves in that way”

“NIH has long been ahead of other agencies in increasing inclusiveness … in part due to lobbying from patient groups”

- @nataliebaviles.bsky.social 🧪

Right. In some ways our result can be seen as creating dynamics with a 50-100 ms period. And high-dimensional dynamics.

Yes, Ken. We didn’t want to talk about predictive coding for exactly this reason— because it is associated with suppression. Our read of the literature is that “predictive processing“ is more general and that’s why we used it. But maybe you see that differently. We’ll think about terms.

important results

The US research system. The big results, the Nobel prize work that leads to future cures, will happen more slowly and happen in other countries.

This is such an exciting time to be in neuroscience. We are working out the foundational principles of how the brain works, working on big questions about whether neural activity is even similar or different over time.

And the sad thing is how the whole research system is being destroyed.

Thanks for sharing, Earl. We hope this direct demonstration of local network interactions will lead to more study of what the cortical recurrent network is doing.

It is so good!

Be strong and hold tight to your values, all

The imperial presidency is a mistake

Can electrical microstimulation be used to steer cortical population activity on- and off-manifold? Our new preprint says yes — using data-driven control in macaque PFC. Joint work with @gbarzon.bsky.social, Anandita De, Isaac Moran, Conner Carnahan, and Luca Mazzucato.

Hannah Arendt spent years arguing that authoritarians put personal loyalty above merit, and in fact prefer appointing mediocrities, since their incompetence helps guarantee their loyalty and serves authoritarian goals by further hollowing out institutions, and Liberty U. Law made it career advice.

Funded by NIH + NSF. No private investor funds a 16-week mouse study on OL gene biology.

Federal science builds the foundation industry stands on. Neurological disease costs the U.S. $800B/year. This is what the return on that investment looks like.

#NIH #NSF #TaxpayerInvestment #Neurotech

🧪 #neuroscience

Sigh. And yet.

You will not be the special one who is immune to propaganda.

Everyone’s information environment influences their thoughts

If I'm reading this correctly, the CIT judge in this post-Learning Resources claim for a tariff refund just purported to issue universal relief on the ground that he's the only judge who'd adjudicate such claims, ... [1].

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

90% of media literacy is blocking out or ignoring sources with a bad agenda, and I’ll die on that hill

90% of good media literacy is blocking out or ignoring sources with a bad agenda and I’ll die on that hill

📣 Excited to announce the 2nd edition of our workshop
“Agent-Based Models in Neuroscience: Theory, Autonomy, Embodiment & Environment”
at @cosynemeeting.bsky.social #CoSyNe2026!!
🧠🤖🌍🪰🐟🐭💪🧘🏃

🗓️ March 17, 2026
📍 Cascais, Portugal
🔗 Speaker lineup and schedule: neuro-agent-models.github.io

To be fair, the Senate just confirmed an FLRA appointee, so it is likely that by now Trump would have had control of the FLRA anyway.

Issues here related to Humphrey‘s Executor and the Project 2025/MAGA efforts to shift power to the President and SCOTUS, but I’ll leave those here

NIH Says It Will No Longer Recognize the Research Fellows’ Union NIH leadership said the union “should never have been certified,” in an email to the union’s leadership.

There is a pincer move here that runs right through the corrupt Supreme Court.

Fed Soc judges have allowed Trump to effectively tie up the agency that governs federal unions, the FLRA.

Now the Trump HHS is derecognizing federal unions with their recourse options limited.