David Robbe

Excited to share our new paper: "The Tower Foraging Park: A paradigm for studying cognitive and motor processes underlying behavioral flexibility in freely moving mice,". Out now in @cp-iscience.bsky.social 🧵1/9 www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Looking for a postdoc in comp neuro and human brain imaging? Interested in foraging? Join our international collaboration with Jon Rubin, @jyotikab.bsky.social, & @davidrobbe.bsky.social be.bsky.social to study the neural basis of foraging behavior! cmu.wd115.myworkdayjobs.com/CMU/job/Pitt...

With profound sadness we announce the passing of our colleague and friend Antoine de Chevigny, an expert in cortical development respected for his creativity and curiosity and cherished for his kindness and joie de vivre. He leaves an immense void. Support for his partner: tinyurl.com/2yrh7huc

New Study! @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social Often foraging models assume that the forager knows the environment and proceed to predict decision strategies but how does the foraging learn the structure of the environment ? A new preprint delves into this question

Check this exciting new foraging paper. Very excited that we are currently collaborating with @davidrobbe.bsky.social group to model behavioral mechanisms underlying foraging startegies in the The Tower Foraging Park.

Neuropixels + Optogenetics = Neuropixels Opto Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics. 960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors. Today in @natmethods.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... Thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @alleninstitute.org, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social & team.

This will never cease to astonish me. Not only the nonsense of the request, but also the time pressure. Does this strategy work? Do people really send preprints to these journals?

Cool basal ganglia preprints today! 2 on DA/ACh 1. @paulkramer.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 2. @arifahamid.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Motor learning @juangallego.bsky.social and @clopathlab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU!🎄✨

Peer review is important and useful but we should focus our efforts on a small number of papers that matter (making big claims, using new approaches) and let the vast majority of work live on a preprint server to be judged by their utility over time to domain experts.

“Women who think critically are always labeled difficult because it saves the world from admitting they’re right” — bell hooks Repost of Charmaine Simpson, on LinkendIN: www.linkedin.com/posts/blackh...

Direct Fit to Nature: An Evolutionary Perspective on Biological and Artificial Neural Networks www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - thought-provoking (2019) paper from @urihasson.bsky.social and colleagues

Soapbox time: the problem with metabolic efficiency arguments in neuroscience is that they often confuse energy efficiency with energy expenditure. Biological systems are optimized for energy efficiency, but that does NOT imply they are optimized for low energy expenditure 🧵 1/

My book "The Brain, in Theory" on the publisher's website (out in April 2026): press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Super pleased with this one, led by the amazing PhD student and foraging expert @emmavscholey.bsky.social!

Project structure for scientific coding projects - the latest in my Better Code, Better Science series open.substack.com/pub/russpold...

The race to churn out papers is a systemic problem. Early career scholars are desperate to get more papers to compete in the academic job market. This can make it hard for faculty mentors hard to reduce their output unless they shrink their lab (which removes opportunities from next generation).

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

New preprint: Neural manifolds that orchestrate walking and stopping Here we develop a new theory for neural generation of walking and how it can stop- Next we test the theory using Neuropixels probes in the lumber spinal cord of freely moving rats. See more: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I haven’t posted much here since leaving Twitter/X, but I feel a growing need to share again papers and thoughts about science, the brain, and our too often absurd academic life . My feed hasn’t been very exciting so far, so let’s see if posting and interacting more helps

New preprint from Satoshi Kuroki & Sébastien Royer Grid cells encode reward distance during path integration in cue-rich environments www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...

New Pre-Print: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... We’re all familiar with having to practice a new skill to get better at it, but what really happens during practice? The answer, I propose, is reinforcement learning - specifically policy-gradient reinforcement learning. Overview 🧵 below...

🚨Registration for Mechanistic Basis of Foraging 2025 closes October 20th 🚨 Speakers @mkflugge.bsky.social @aaronbornstein.bsky.social @benhayden.bsky.social @ellileadbeater.bsky.social @davidrobbe.bsky.social @dlbarack.bsky.social @becketebs.bsky.social uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...

Can one bring together Reinforcement learning and Drift Diffusion models to understand collective foraging ? Congrads to Jonathan Marienhagen , Lisa Blum Moyse and Dominik Deffner on this new study. Very happy that I was part of this collaboration. Preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Here's a link to the paper: Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It is simply amazing how Djokovic can so often anticipate where Alcaraz, one of the most creative players, will direct his next shot. Perception intertwined with action. This match is just incredible...

Closing soon! Abstract submission for The Mechanistic Basis of Foraging 2025 A multidisciplinary meeting on the neural, behavioural and computational foundations of foraging across species: uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis... Deadline: August 29

Status, humiliation, and expert knowledge A must-read for my fellow experts who want to better understand why so many people proudly reject what we have to offer in favor of common sense. Get ready to look in the mirror! www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/status-cla...