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Vincent Breton-Provencher

@vincentbp

Assistant Prof. of Psychiatry & Neuroscience at U. Laval. Noradrenaline, dopamine, learning, etc. VBPlab.com

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14.11.2024
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Latest posts by Vincent Breton-Provencher @vincentbp

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Multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain - Nature Individual dopaminergic neurons encode future rewards over distinct temporal horizons.

Our work with Pablo Tano, @hyunggoo-kim.bsky.social Athar Malik, Alexandre Pouget and @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social exploring how dopamine neurons could enable multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain is out in @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

04.06.2025 18:11 πŸ‘ 111 πŸ” 45 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 2
Postdoctoral position available in the Breton-Provencher Lab at UniversitΓ© Laval to study neuromodulatory systems and foraging behavior – Canadian Association for Neuroscience

My laboratory at UniversitΓ© Laval in QuΓ©bec City, Canada, is looking for a postdoc to study how neuromodulatory systems impact cortical processing during foraging behavior. This fully-funded position offers a collaborative environment in a great city. More infoπŸ‘‡

can-acn.org/postdoctoral...

02.06.2025 14:59 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 22 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks! We are working on a functional reason as a follow up. More to be announced eventually!

29.05.2025 13:28 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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System-wide dissociation of reward and aversive dopaminergic signals Dopamine is central to reinforcement learning, classically linked to reward prediction error signaling. However, recent findings suggest a more complex picture, with dopamine neurons responding to ave...

First pre-print from the lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

28.05.2025 12:37 πŸ‘ 24 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Together with @macshine.bsky.social & @elimuller.bsky.social we have a cool interdisciplinary project on compositional cognition, and we’re looking for a PhD student.

More details here www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
DM or email any questions
Please RT or pass on to interested students. Thanks!

26.05.2025 04:10 πŸ‘ 40 πŸ” 35 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

I honestly think LLMs are very useful tools, but this kinda shit shows the real danger with these models:

Stupid people with important roles will use them for purposes they are not well suited for.

03.04.2025 15:21 πŸ‘ 109 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 6
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Bidirectional emotional regulation through prefrontal innervation of the locus coeruleus - Molecular Psychiatry Molecular Psychiatry - Bidirectional emotional regulation through prefrontal innervation of the locus coeruleus

Check out a new lab paper from Mayumi Watanabe's thesis work showing how different subregions of medial prefrontal cortex differentially regulate extinction of aversive memories through projections to the locus-coeruleus-noradrenaline system:
doi.org/10.1038/s413...

08.03.2025 00:13 πŸ‘ 59 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2
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Excited to present the latest from the lab out today in Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... See Thread! 1/8

04.03.2025 16:34 πŸ‘ 209 πŸ” 62 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 5

Congratulations!!!

14.02.2025 17:49 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
A Neuropixels Opto probe with 3 blue emitters and 3 red emitters lighting up in succession, with corresponding neural activity in different layers of the cortex.

A Neuropixels Opto probe with 3 blue emitters and 3 red emitters lighting up in succession, with corresponding neural activity in different layers of the cortex.

Neuropixels and Optogenetics are delighted to announce the birth of

Neuropixels Opto

Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics

Today in bioRxiv

960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors

By Lakunina, @karolinazsocha.bsky.social, Ladd, et al

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

(1/2)

07.02.2025 09:18 πŸ‘ 325 πŸ” 115 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 12
A man jumping, under the words "Make Time For Joy"

A man jumping, under the words "Make Time For Joy"

Reminder: They're trying to demoralize you, and they're doing a great job of it. Part of resisting is making time for joy despite the attempts to make you feel this is not the time for it. Love your people. Dig the art that speaks to you. Go to the places where life flows into you. You deserve joy.

01.02.2025 16:22 πŸ‘ 13240 πŸ” 2613 πŸ’¬ 286 πŸ“Œ 161
Redirecting

The first paper from the lab! What started as a simple comparison between zebrafish lines turned into an analysis of sensorimotor development in zebrafish larvae: doi.org/10.1016/j.bb...

06.01.2025 17:26 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Neuroscience methods - YouTube Nanocourse: Approaches to Study Neural Circuits This course was taught by Anita Autry, Tiago GonΓ§alves, and Luke Sjulson at Albert Einstein College of Medici...

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube!

Please like and repost to help us get the word out!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition
Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization
🧡

13.12.2024 11:32 πŸ‘ 424 πŸ” 205 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 17
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I joined 75+ @nobelprize.bsky.social laureates urging US Senators to oppose RFK Jr.'s confirmation as DHHS Secretary. If you’re in a state with GOP senators, PLEASE reach out to them! I’d deeply appreciate it if you amplified this post! πŸ™
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/h...

09.12.2024 23:19 πŸ‘ 505 πŸ” 240 πŸ’¬ 14 πŸ“Œ 8
Pericytes modulate brain vascular integrity in social stress and depression Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disease burden worldwide with low therapeutic efficacy. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is essential to maintain brain homeostasis and regulate drug...

Sharing here our most recent preprint and the work of Laurence, PhD student extraordinaire, implicating 🧠 #pericyte in stress responses 🐭 and human depression 😞

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5...

11.11.2024 21:33 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

I am recruiting graduate students for my lab @mcgillu.bsky.social for admission in Fall 2025! Get in touch if you're interested in how brain circuits implement distributed computation, including dopamine-based distributed RL and probabilistic representations.

09.11.2024 20:25 πŸ‘ 42 πŸ” 27 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 6
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🚨Job Alert 🚨
Join our vibrant team ! My neuroscience 🧠 research lab at @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is looking for a laboratory technician - please see the job posting here and apply. bit.ly/4g3dNA6
Feel free to reach out with any questions!

25.11.2024 16:44 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School - Neurophotonics Centre The 18th Edition of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School will take place, from June 2nd to 13th, 2025, at the CERVO Brain Research Center in Quebec City. 2024 Sponsors

The call for participating in the Summer School Frontiers in Neurophotonics June 2nd to 13th, 2025 in Quebec City, Canada is now open! One of my trainees went last year and had a great experience, so I wanted to recommend it! neurophotonics.ca/frontiers-in...

22.11.2024 22:03 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

After popular demand (thanks @martinowk.bsky.social πŸ˜…) here a small representation of our #bluespot crowd! Please share and let me know if I missed someone!

go.bsky.app/DyBTCRF

19.11.2024 06:06 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 3
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Cortical norepinephrine-astrocyte signaling critically mediates learned behavior Updating behavior based on feedback from the environment is a crucial means by which organisms learn and develop optimal behavioral strategies. Norepinephrine (NE) release from the locus coeruleus (LC...

New preprint: In this work done by Gabi Drummond they showed that the updating of behavior following unexpected stimuli is mediated by sustained response of astrocytes in the prefrontal cortex. Fun collaboration with the Surlab! #astrocytes #locuscoeruleus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

17.11.2024 16:05 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School - Neurophotonics Centre The 18th Edition of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School will take place, from June 2nd to 13th, 2025, at the CERVO Brain Research Center in Quebec City. 2024 Sponsors

Neurophotonics is now on Bluesky! For our first post here, we'd like to announce the opening of the call for participation to the Summer School Frontiers in Neurophotonics! Visit neurophotonics.ca/school for more info about this school that combines lectures and hands-on experiments

14.11.2024 20:34 πŸ‘ 37 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2

You love cutting-edge πŸ”¬ imaging 🧠 science πŸ§ͺ and want to learn about the latest tools and techniques and as a bonus visit Quebec City in June?
Here is your chance! πŸ€“

14.11.2024 21:50 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0