andy alexander

Applications are open for the Neuroscience PhD program at University of Oregon! Creative and collaborative science, in a beautiful environment 🧠🔬🌲⛰️ ion.uoregon.edu/training-pro...

New preprint out (first from my new group!) 🚨 "Predictive Grid Cell Coding Does Not Require Explicit Planning" biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

Grant peer review costs a lot: ~$40k per application in reviewer time, with proposals reviewed again and again. In @thetransmitter.bsky.social , I propose a partial lottery: reviewers decide pass/fail, chance picks among the passes, and "unmissable" ideas and ECRs get protected routes.

Excited to announce our last September seminar Dr. Douglas Nitz (UCSD)! @ucsdhealth.bsky.social 📢 "Subiculum and the Generation of Integrated Forms of Location and Orientation Tuning" 🗓️ September 29 @ 10 - 11 AM 📍 Falling Leaves 2200 Register now: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🗓️ Join me on October 7 for one of the inaugural lectures of the Science of Intelligence Institute #UCBerkeley. Can we write scientific laws for intelligence? I believe that we can, that the math for it already exists, and that they apply across brains & machines. Let's chat: tinyurl.com/mvrfs39w

Spatial goals trap hippocampal replay https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748857v1

Awesome work from @ronkeiflin.bsky.social @margole.bsky.social and team!

The DEI committee at Temple University is hosting a “Demystifying grad school apps” workshop in which prospective psychology grad school applicants can learn about how to apply. If you’d like to attend, be sure to submit the form by September 1st!

we have a backlog of work coming out over the next year on the development of innate approach/avoidance behavior. Here is part one of five. I hope this helps folks looking at the roots of visually -guided approach v. avoidance decision making.

Psilocybin lengthens hippocampal sharp wave ripples https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.17.745042v1

If you’re interested to do an interdisciplinary co-mentored, field transition, or open ended theory/computation postdoc at WTI, please get in touch!

I am delighted to be a Guest Editor for a Special Issue in Animal Cognition on Curiosity in Animals (along with @victorajuwon1.bsky.social and @monteirotiago.bsky.social) We seek papers that investigate curiosity across contexts and taxa. Get in touch for more info! link.springer.com/collections/...

The generic prospective student emails are getting out of hand. I just received virtually identical emails from the first and second author of a paper. One genuine email is worth 1000 generic ones. If you can convince me you're a real human I will very likely want to talk to you.

A few years of work behind this one. 🧠 The challenge isn’t just finding the right stim pattern. It’s understanding, predicting, and ultimately controlling the neural response between stimulation & perception No paywall: authors.elsevier.com/c/1nZjs3BtfH... We walk through the main results below 👇

Please share--the Shansky lab is currently recruiting at all levels to work on an NIH-funded project investigating sex differences in the neural circuits that drive defensive behaviors. The official job ad isn't yet up, but interested folks can contact me as instructed here www.shanskylab.com/join

Congrats to @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social for winning a highly competitive and prestigious 2026 University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship for her work on predictive prey capture In mice! Xiaoxiao you are a rockstar! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social psych.ucsb.edu/news-events/...

Congrats to @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social for winning a highly competitive and prestigious 2026 University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship for her work on predictive prey capture In mice! Xiaoxiao you are a rockstar! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social psych.ucsb.edu/news-events/...

📣 It's Roll Call time! Kick off #BINW26 by introducing yourself! Share a selfie or short video telling us who you are, what you do, and the future you're helping reimagine. 🧠 Tag us and use #BINRollCall so we can celebrate our amazing community! Tag 3 BIN members you'd like to see join Roll Call ✨

We're hiring! Postdoc position to study the neural control of reaching using high-density multi-area electrophysiology. 5 years of funding, great collaborative environment. Please share with anyone who may be interested. For details, see: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A split second separates reacting from colliding! UCSB postdoc @mariusschneider.bsky.social earns $94K from Zaleski Discovery Award to build neuromorphic wearables that warn blind travelers in time⚡ Link: www.cs.ucsb.edu/happenings/a... #UCSB #ComputerScience #AssistiveTech #NeuromorphicComputing

Our review on superposition in AI & brains is published in @nature.com #Machine #Intelligence 🌐 Neural networks encode concepts in superposition. We can recover them in 3 steps: identifiability, compressed sensing, interpretability. W/ @david-klindt.bsky.social O'Neil Reizinger & Maurer 🌟

Our lab is re-opening the search for a postdoc! The candidate we chose this round unfortunately had to withdraw (2-body problem). If you or someone you know is looking for a postdoc in ephys + spatial navigation + neurodegeneration, come check us out: aeryjoneslab.github.io

New review on ecological visual processing. Really enjoyed writing this as part of a longstanding collaboration with @crisniell.bsky.social, @mbeyeler.bsky.social, and @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social

Another amazing iNav in the books. You know a conference is excellent when you get back and want to go into lab on a Sunday. Amazing views in Banff and a strong contingent of current and former UCSB Navigation folks!

The Moser Group is presenting our work on Wednesday afternoon at #FENS2026! •Mechanism for L-R sweeps •Attention modulation of sweeps •Grid/place remapping rules & dynamics •”Mega torus” as a hi-capacity memory space •Moving the grid bump •Development of tori & rings •RSC/HC pops. in a spatial task

It’s not too late to submit to NeuroXR 2026 @ieeeismar2026.bsky.social! We’re looking for work across XR, neuroscience, HCI, affective computing, neuroengineering, rehabilitation, BCIs, and assistive tech. Deadline: July 5, 2026, 11:59 PM AoE neuroxr-ws.github.io/www/

Why did RNNs fail to learn long-term dependencies? What if we added one more modification, maybe now? It turns out we can give a pretty broad, analytical answer! See the attached paper for a rigorous treatment using centre manifolds, low-rank RNNs, and dynamical systems theory! go.aps.org/4fXWEeF

Very nicely done Radiolab episode featuring @emilyjacobs.bsky.social and team’s work. Check it out! radiolab.org/podcast/this...

@fatihdinc.bsky.social won the Richard C. DiPrima Prize from SIAM! He is an incredible scientist and I feel genuinely lucky to work with him alongside @wtredman.bsky.social and @ninamiolane.bsky.social . Congrats Fatih! Read more here: news.ucsb.edu/2026/022632/...

Ok I get it Trondheim you're amazing.

Our new paper is out in Current Biology! We learn many things in parallel, and brain circuits are constantly rewiring across brain areas. It is notoriously difficult to understand which rewiring events are responsible for which type of learning. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

So... I got more information about this plan. The most important points follow on the next posts. 1/3

"Support academic institutions under attack" A short correspondence with @sepikeshavarzi.bsky.social and @roozbehkiani.bsky.social -- Defending academic life is not peripheral to the mission of science. It is part of it. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

FN > 45 Whatever objective you use, Ventana imaging systems will get more field-of-view out of it, with full NA, and diffraction limited. The best ever for multiphoton / two-photon. And fast! 16,000 - 24,000 lines/s across the full field of view. pacificoptica.com/ventana/

My lab is hiring two full-time research assistants! One position is for a project on spatial navigation across the lifespan, with a focus on midlife aging and menopause. The other is for functional imaging and spatial reference frames. recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10136 recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10137

🚨🧪🧵URGENT INPUT NEEDED: NIH asks input for next strategic plan-including emphasis on non-animal models (NAMs) to replace animals. Per NIH insider, anti-animal responses now outnumber scientists 200-700x. Please please provide input. Deadline: May 26, 11:59 PM ET. grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

Excited to share the upcoming 6th Annual Rising Stars in Neuroscience Symposium @utah.edu! great lineup of graduate students presenting exciting neuroscience research. Looking forward to a fun couple days of science and discussion with a fantastic group of early career scientists.

the most anti free speech administration in this country’s history

Cool paper from Garret Stuber's lab and colleagues, led by Madelyn Hjort. mPFC-VTA circuit for contingency degredation. doi.org/10.1038/s415... Fig. 3 & 4 used the Cousa objective: **2p imaging + 2p holographic optogenetic stim., deep in brain using microprisms** ! pacificoptica.com/cousa/

It was a blast to put this review together with @adriennekinman.bsky.social and Larissa! The subiculum is a gem of a brain region. Also - the manuscript process at @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social was a pleasure - thoughtful&involved feedback from reviewers&editor that really elevated our manuscript

Two #BionicVision studies 👁️🧠 from our lab at #ARVO2026: 1. Argus II timing breaks sighted flicker-fusion assumptions: May 5, 8:30–10:15 AM 2. What shapes blind adults’ attitudes toward vision-restoration technology: May 6, 10:15 AM–12:00 PM Come find us in Denver!

Predictive pursuit emerges in high-dimensional recurrent neural networks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.23.720457v1

We are looking for two Research Assistants to conduct experiments and data analyses investigating the neural mechanisms of strategic and social decision-making using head-fixed (1) and freely-moving (1) behavioural paradigms in mice. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Very excited to announce the first preprint from the lab @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social -- "Predictive pursuit emerges in high-dimensional RNNs." @wtredman.bsky.social (starting his own group at JHU this fall) summarizes the work nicely in this thread.