Andrew Pruszynski
@andpru.bsky.social
sports and neuroscience hot takes
44!! are you f'ing kidding me
Anyway, if you missed this science write-up and you’re also looking for your second wind, it’s worth skimming it to make peace with yourself.
www.theguardian.com/science/arti...
www.theguardian.com/science/arti...
Scientists find humans age dramatically in two bursts – at 44, then 60
US findings suggesting ageing is not a slow and steady process could explain spikes in health issues at certain ages
www.theguardian.com
January 7, 2026 at 12:26 AM
44!! are you f'ing kidding me
Reminder that this job is open! If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch. Deadline is February 20th.
Great news! We are looking for an NHP neuroscientist as the assistant professor level. We have no preconceived ideas -- looking for the most exciting research going. If you have any questions, please reach out. universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...
Search Jobs - University Affairs
universityaffairs.ca
January 6, 2026 at 8:36 PM
Reminder that this job is open! If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch. Deadline is February 20th.
we all fail constantly at this job
I think it helps to know that everyone fails constantly in this job
January 6, 2026 at 12:50 AM
we all fail constantly at this job
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
🚨 PI position in dept. of Neuroscience with lab located the @crchum.bsky.social
Hiring at assistant/associate prof level in the fields of neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies
can-acn.org/professor-re...
Hiring at assistant/associate prof level in the fields of neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies
can-acn.org/professor-re...
Professor-researcher (assistant or associate) in Neuroscience related to neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies – Université de Montréal – Canadian Association for Neuroscie...
can-acn.org
January 5, 2026 at 11:13 PM
🚨 PI position in dept. of Neuroscience with lab located the @crchum.bsky.social
Hiring at assistant/associate prof level in the fields of neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies
can-acn.org/professor-re...
Hiring at assistant/associate prof level in the fields of neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies
can-acn.org/professor-re...
no one wants to read your CV of failures
January 5, 2026 at 11:18 PM
no one wants to read your CV of failures
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
Would love to hear expert views on this paper. It appears to show that the operationalization of brain activity the field has relied on for 3 decades—the BOLD response—is not actually a sensible measure of brain activity.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
BOLD signal changes can oppose oxygen metabolism across the human cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Using quantitative brain imaging, the authors show opposite fMRI BOLD signal to metabolic activity due to variable oxygen extraction across the human cortex. This questions the canonical interpretatio...
www.nature.com
January 5, 2026 at 5:22 PM
This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
"Simple heuristics to run a research group" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 1, 2026 at 7:16 PM
"Simple heuristics to run a research group" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
My new years resolution is: simplify
January 1, 2026 at 7:11 PM
My new years resolution is: simplify
Great read as always. There is clearly accelerating tension between ever more complex computational approaches applied to brain data and actually figuring stuff out about the brain.
Just published my review of neuroscience in 2025, on The Spike.
The 10th of these, would you believe?
This year we have foundation models, breakthroughs in using light to understand the brain, a gene therapy, and more
Enjoy!
medium.com/the-spike/20...
The 10th of these, would you believe?
This year we have foundation models, breakthroughs in using light to understand the brain, a gene therapy, and more
Enjoy!
medium.com/the-spike/20...
2025: A Review of the Year in Neuroscience
Enlightening the brain
medium.com
January 1, 2026 at 7:03 PM
Great read as always. There is clearly accelerating tension between ever more complex computational approaches applied to brain data and actually figuring stuff out about the brain.
In my PhD I had a sticky note on my computer monitor: "remember sunk costs". For 2026, I will put it back.
Blog post: Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...
Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 3:33 PM
In my PhD I had a sticky note on my computer monitor: "remember sunk costs". For 2026, I will put it back.
"Do the control you’re scared of. Often, you know the go/no-go experiment you should do, but you put it off because you’re scared of the result. You know what I’m talking about."
Blog post: Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...
Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 3:31 PM
"Do the control you’re scared of. Often, you know the go/no-go experiment you should do, but you put it off because you’re scared of the result. You know what I’m talking about."
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
Unfortunately this study, while heroic in many ways, does not take into account cardiac, respiration and other vasomotor effects, all of which have spatial signatures. Nor is there an electrophysiological measure of neural activity. Be careful before throwing the baby out with the bath water.
December 28, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Unfortunately this study, while heroic in many ways, does not take into account cardiac, respiration and other vasomotor effects, all of which have spatial signatures. Nor is there an electrophysiological measure of neural activity. Be careful before throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Very nice paper by Matt Kaufman's group: "Routing of task-relevant information in mouse PPC during continuous visuomotor control". www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Routing of task-relevant information in mouse PPC during continuous visuomotor control
Posterior Parietal Cortex (PPC) exhibits tuning to many variables, including strong representations of visual information, movement, and behavioral biases. Whether PPC communicates all these variables...
www.biorxiv.org
December 28, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Very nice paper by Matt Kaufman's group: "Routing of task-relevant information in mouse PPC during continuous visuomotor control". www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I started r/sensorimotorneuro a while back because I thought Reddit would make a great platform for what we used to do on science twitter. Its been wildly unsuccessful so far but you never know: www.reddit.com/r/sensorimot...
Sensory. Motor and all Systems Neuroscience
This is a space to discuss all things systems neuroscience (and adjacent) from cool new findings and papers to upcoming meetings and job opportunities. Keep it civil.
www.reddit.com
December 27, 2025 at 1:05 AM
I started r/sensorimotorneuro a while back because I thought Reddit would make a great platform for what we used to do on science twitter. Its been wildly unsuccessful so far but you never know: www.reddit.com/r/sensorimot...
11 years as faculty done. Feels longer.
December 26, 2025 at 5:59 PM
11 years as faculty done. Feels longer.
get ready for the holidays!
This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out https://superlab.ca/posts/2025-12-19-list316.html @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @gribblelab.org #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor
December 19, 2025 at 1:20 PM
get ready for the holidays!
If you're (1) into nhp neurophysiology and/or biological motor control, (2) a foreign big shot and (3) interested in moving here, please reach out -- this new program looks extremely attractive (min. $8M over 8y)! www.uwo.ca/research/can...
Canada-Impact-Plus - Research - Western University
www.uwo.ca
December 18, 2025 at 9:15 PM
If you're (1) into nhp neurophysiology and/or biological motor control, (2) a foreign big shot and (3) interested in moving here, please reach out -- this new program looks extremely attractive (min. $8M over 8y)! www.uwo.ca/research/can...
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
Great to see this paper on sensory expectations in motor control from @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social and @andpru.bsky.social out in Nature today!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits - Nature
Experiments with human volunteers and macaques show that expectations produced by probabilistic cueing of future sensory inputs shape motor circuit dynamics in order to increase the efficiency of move...
www.nature.com
December 18, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Great to see this paper on sensory expectations in motor control from @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social and @andpru.bsky.social out in Nature today!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
don't worry about general principles -- figure anything out
December 14, 2025 at 8:33 PM
don't worry about general principles -- figure anything out
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
Now published in the Journal of Neurophysiology:
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
Get in touch if you think this tool could help in your science! We will be developing improvements and extensions over the next year.
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
Get in touch if you think this tool could help in your science! We will be developing improvements and extensions over the next year.
December 12, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Now published in the Journal of Neurophysiology:
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
Get in touch if you think this tool could help in your science! We will be developing improvements and extensions over the next year.
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
Get in touch if you think this tool could help in your science! We will be developing improvements and extensions over the next year.
I want to make lbotenic acid lesions in the brain. Is there a manual?
December 12, 2025 at 7:29 PM
I want to make lbotenic acid lesions in the brain. Is there a manual?
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out https://superlab.ca/posts/2025-12-12-list315.html @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @gribblelab.org #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor
December 12, 2025 at 12:33 PM
This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out https://superlab.ca/posts/2025-12-12-list315.html @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @gribblelab.org #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor
Reposted by Andrew Pruszynski
Delighted we made the superlab list @andpru.bsky.social 🫶
List: mailchi.mp/c9edb773c735...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
List: mailchi.mp/c9edb773c735...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
December 12, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Delighted we made the superlab list @andpru.bsky.social 🫶
List: mailchi.mp/c9edb773c735...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
List: mailchi.mp/c9edb773c735...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Funders should at the very least force journals to publish the peer review documents.
We are spreading like peanut butter a very limited resource and we are all wasting a lot of time. This idea will eliminate a lot of journals - Scientific Reports probably first among them.
December 11, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Funders should at the very least force journals to publish the peer review documents.
When's the last time you read a paper in your field and thought: well its got serious issues but it got through peer review at Scientific Reports so it must be all right...
The point is that most papers we all write are incremental -- based on well established methods and ideas -- and have an audience of subfield experts. These are judged by expert colleagues when they read the work. These don't, in my view, need traditional peer review.
December 11, 2025 at 7:49 PM
When's the last time you read a paper in your field and thought: well its got serious issues but it got through peer review at Scientific Reports so it must be all right...