Timo van Kerkoerle

This is yet another example of the enormous damage inflicted on our country by our populist government. Fortunately, the Dutch people have clearly spoken out in recent elections, against the radical voices in society. This offers some hope that a future government can rectify this monstrous mistake.

In particular, in case a new funding source for the maintenance of the primate facility at BPRC can not be found, it can directly jeopardize the development of effective and safe vaccines in future pandemics, as well as the advancement of novel neurotechnologies.

Thereby going against the explicit advice of all the relevant scientific and medical advisory boards, including the Ministry of Science and Education, the University Medical Centres, the medical section of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences, and the recent recommendations from the Bijker committee.

Thank you @mlangelaar.bsky.social, for your dedicated work in leading this beautiful institute.

It is a disgrace that the Dutch political system has allowed this to happen, unable to prevent a small but vocal group of animal activists from creating such a risk to European public health.

Noodkreet wethouder Moorman aan kabinet: ‘Dit keihard snijden in onderwijs schaadt kinderen’ Een brandbrief tegen de bezuinigingen op onderwijs die het kabinet wil doorvoeren, wordt onder meer namens Amsterdam verstuurd. ‘Zeggen dat je voor kansengelijkheid staat, maar intussen kinderen raken...

Keihard snijden in onderwijs schaadt onze kinderen én onze toekomst. De stapeling van bezuinigingen treft juist de meest kwetsbare kinderen. De afbraak van onderwijs moet stoppen! Die oproep doe ik samen met o.a. de @vngemeenten.bsky.social aan politiek Den Haag.

More fields need to do this.

EU almost on track to reach 2030 climate goal The European Union is nearly on track to reach its main climate target for this decade, with countries' existing CO2-cutting plans set to bring the bloc within one percentage point of the goal, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Many believed that EU would not be able to reach its ambitious 2030 climate goal
Now:
EU almost on track to reach 2030 climate goal
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Thanks for sharing. Too bad the trial wasn't succesful.

With all the sad developments in the US - go study in the Netherlands: relatively low tuition (and adequate job search visa after graduating) for high-quality programs like this one in Neurophysics or Cognitive Neuroscience at the neuroscience Donders hub

It's amazing to me that the functional relevance of this basic cortical architecture is still unknown. There is a lot of theory why columnar organization would be useful, i.e. fast & robust communication. But it remains hard to investigate experimentally, combining functional with anatomical imaging

Regional and cellular fractionation of working memory | PNAS This chapter recounts efforts to dissect the cellular and circuit basis of a memory system in the primate cortex with the goal of extending the i...

You probably also know that Patricia Goldman-Rakic showed that columnar organization in PFC matches anatomical projections from contra- vs ipsilateral parietal cortex, so not necessarily visual features:
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Although she also linked it to visual features :
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Revisiting horizontal connectivity rules in V1: from like-to-like towards like-to-all - Brain Structure and Function Horizontal connections in the primary visual cortex of carnivores, ungulates and primates organize on a near-regular lattice. Given the similar length scale for the regularity found in cortical orient...

Indeed, the imaging is impressive, but the stimulus selection seems a bit arbitrary to me. There is columnar organization in terms of connectivity across the visual cortex, but only in V1, this has been linked to function, and only for relatively local connections it seems :
doi.org/10.1007/s004...

Going through months-worth of Google Scholar Alert emails getting caught up on neuro papers, so I figured I'd share some fun findings here 👇

A map of object space in primate inferotemporal cortex - Nature Primate inferotemporal cortex contains a coarse map of object space consisting of four networks, identified using functional imaging, electrophysiology and deep networks.

It's an cool paper, but not very rigorous I would say. In particular, I would assume that neurons in IT connect using features that are topographically organized. See e.g. these paper, I assume you know:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
and Figure 3 in :
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Come study at the @dondersinst.bsky.social Neurophysics Master!

Please find this English masters program in Neurophysics. Study the brain, artificial neural networks and complex systems through the lens of mathematical modeling and physics. Radboud University / Donders (Netherlands) is one of Europe’s leading universities in Neuroscience. 1/3

Today, the ERC formally adopted a decision to increase its support for researchers moving to Europe.

On top of its normal grants, the ERC offers 'start-up' funding to help PIs establish laboratories / research teams in Europe.

This extra funding is now x2 (up to €2 million!)

europa.eu/!6Vdgmp

Fantastic piece indeed! Very clear and convincing. Would you maybe be willing to also share this on LinkedIn?

The NIH move to restrict animal research is a bad one and not just about health - it's about national security.

More here:
medium.com/@eblissmorea...

oh wow I wonder if this is something he could have done when the Trump admin condemned 2000 infants a day to a lifelong HIV infection or when he defied a unanimous Supreme Court decision ah well nevertheless

The deadline is extended to Friday May 9th, as there were some technical issues with the application portal due to the large number of last minute applications.

The deadline is extended to Friday May 9th, as there were some technical issues with the application portal due to the large number of last minute applications.

This looks so cool

Deadline April 30! 👇

One week left to apply!

Thanks for sharing! One week left to apply.

Fantastic work from the group of Wim Vanduffel! Super fast face-selective neurons in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that we need to rethink how 'high-level' the encoding in PFC is. At least it gets a strong transient input, so has to be considered as part of the feedforward processing stream.

No need for 3-photon imaging anymore?

Robust encoding of stimulus–response mapping by neurons in visual cortex | PNAS Neural activity in sensory cortex is modulated by behavioral and cognitive factors, and this modulation is thought to contribute to the selection o...

Robust encoding of stimulus–response mapping by neurons in visual cortex
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
#neuroscience

Inhibitory and disinhibitory VIP IN-mediated circuits in neocortex Cortical GABAergic interneurons (INs) are comprised of distinct types that provide tailored inhibition to pyramidal cells (PCs) and other INs, thereby enabling precise control of cortical circuit acti...

There are many studies on cell types and then there is the gold standard.
Beautiful work on the diversity of VIP interneurons by the Rudy lab!

#neuroskyence

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...