Jennifer Bussell PhD
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jenbussell.bsky.social
Jennifer Bussell PhD
@jenbussell.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1.8K following 56 posts

Neuroscientist studying information seeking and curiosity via mouse models in the Axel lab at Columbia University. Formerly at Vosshall Lab at Rockefeller University. Mom in Brooklyn, former S Carolinian www.jenniferbussell.org .. more

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Political science 68%
Sociology 15%
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jenbussell.bsky.social
Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · Oct 14
Absolutely thrilled to share my postdoc work in the Axel lab. We found odor-evoked representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex and showed that mice desire knowledge as its own reward. Now on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Representations of information value in mouse orbitofrontal cortex during information seeking
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
www.biorxiv.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

cyrilpedia.bsky.social
Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 1d
'Approximately 1 in 30 trials and more than 74 000 trial participants were affected by grant funding disruptions. Affected trials disproportionately studied infectious diseases, prevention, and behavioral interventions, and were based in the Northeastern US or in other countries.'
Clinical Trials Affected by Research Grant Terminations at the National Institutes of Health
This cross-sectional study summarizes the number of trials with terminated grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and calculates the proportion of affected trials among those with previou...
jamanetwork.com

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

constantinoplelab.bsky.social
Constantinople lab @constantinoplelab.bsky.social · 1d
Who wore it better? Our new paper shows that rat OFC supports Bayesian inference of hidden states! With neural correlates of inferred state transitions at the level of single neurons and population-level latent factors. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

dikshagup.bsky.social
diksha gupta @dikshagup.bsky.social · 1d
come check out this #SfN25 minisymposium happening today at 2pm!

we will discuss recent approaches to make sense of multi-area population dynamics

www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

annecollins.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social · 1d
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning
Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.
rdcu.be

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

jeremyhogeveen.bsky.social
Jeremy Hogeveen @jeremyhogeveen.bsky.social · 3d
Interested in spatiotemporal decoding of choice and feedback in the human brain?

My lab’s postdoc Rohit Yadav will present these beautiful MEG results from our novelty bandit at #SFN2025 Sunday 11/16, PSTR094.23 / LL8 (top row: explore vs exploit; bottom: reward vs nonreward)

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Fabián Muniesa

apnews.com
The Associated Press @apnews.com · 4d
Texas A&M University adopts a policy requiring professors to get approval from the school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
Texas A&M University professors now need approval for some race and gender topics
Texas A&M University has adopted a new policy requiring professors to first get approval to discuss some race and gender topics.
bit.ly

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

goldenneurons.bsky.social
Carla Golden @goldenneurons.bsky.social · 7d
Thrilled to share our new paper, out now in @natneuro.nature.com, uncovering how estradiol, the most potent estrogen, modulates reinforcement learning and reward prediction errors across biological levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#blueprint 1/7
Estrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning - Nature Neuroscience
Dopamine encoding of reward prediction errors naturally fluctuates over females’ reproductive cycles with estrogenic signaling due to reduced expression of dopamine reuptake proteins.
www.nature.com

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

cuny.edu
The City University of New York @cuny.edu · 8d
CUNY is waiving its application fee from Nov. 10-21 for New York State high school seniors on pace to graduate next year. You can apply to up to six of our colleges with one application! Go to cuny.edu/apply.
Promotional graphic for The City University of New York (CUNY) encouraging applications. The top section has a blue background with yellow text that reads: “November 10 to November 21 – Apply to CUNY for Free.” At the bottom left, the CUNY logo appears with the tagline “A Degree for Every Dream.” On the bottom right, a yellow button says “Apply Now” with the URL cuny.edu/apply.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

ennyvb.bsky.social
Enny van Beest @ennyvb.bsky.social · 8d
All talks of the 2025 UCL #Neuropixels course are now available: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

For more information on the course see the website: www.ucl.ac.uk/neuropixels/...

And for those at #SfN, come say hi at the #Neuropixels booth (Number 3731) or at my Poster 👋.

Happy Neuropixeling!
2025 UCL Neuropixels Course - YouTube
Lectures at the 2025 UCL Neuropixels course (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/neuropixels/training/2025-neuropixels-course)
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 12d
VTA dopamine neuron activity produces spatially organized value representations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.04.685995v1

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Mirya R. Holman, John Mollenkopf

sromalewski.bsky.social
Steven Romalewski @sromalewski.bsky.social · 14d
The Ctr for Urban Research at @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social (led by @jomoko.bsky.social) has prepared an online map for tonight's NYC mayoral results. Link below in #thread. For now the map is blank, but it'll fill in w/unofficial returns tonight.

The map will do more than show the 2025 #s.
1/n

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

asaakyan.bsky.social
Arkadiy Saakyan @asaakyan.bsky.social · 14d
N-gram novelty is widely used as a measure of creativity and generalization. But if LLMs produce highly n-gram novel expressions that don’t make sense or sound awkward, should they still be called creative? In a new paper, we investigate how n-gram novelty relates to creativity.
N-gram novelty is widely used to evaluate language models' ability to generate text outside of their training data. More recently, it has also been adopted as a metric for measuring textual creativity. However, theoretical work on creativity suggests that this approach may be inadequate, as it does not account for creativity's dual nature: novelty (how original the text is) and appropriateness (how sensical and pragmatic it is). We investigate the relationship between this notion of creativity and n-gram novelty through 7542 expert writer annotations (n=26) of novelty, pragmaticality, and sensicality via close reading of human and AI-generated text. We find that while n-gram novelty is positively associated with expert writer-judged creativity, ~91% of top-quartile expressions by n-gram novelty are not judged as creative, cautioning against relying on n-gram novelty alone. Furthermore, unlike human-written text, higher n-gram novelty in open-source LLMs correlates with lower pragmaticality. In an exploratory study with frontier close-source models, we additionally confirm that they are less likely to produce creative expressions than humans. Using our dataset, we test whether zero-shot, few-shot, and finetuned models are able to identify creative expressions (a positive aspect of writing) and non-pragmatic ones (a negative aspect). Overall, frontier LLMs exhibit performance much higher than random but leave room for improvement, especially struggling to identify non-pragmatic expressions. We further find that LLM-as-a-Judge novelty scores from the best-performing model were predictive of expert writer preferences.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Will Jennings, A. E. Dessler , and 8 more

johnholbein1.bsky.social
John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 18d

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Nicholas A. Christakis, Simon J. Greenhill , and 2 more

emilymsanford.bsky.social
Emily M. Sanford @emilymsanford.bsky.social · 19d
Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵
Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs
The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...
www.science.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Brendan Nyhan, David Darmofal

citizencohn.bsky.social
Citizen Cohn / Jonathan Cohn @citizencohn.bsky.social · 19d
Thinking what this will mean for STEM labs and departments, especially at places like UFlorida

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

alleninstitute.org
Allen Institute @alleninstitute.org · 21d
🧠✨ Genetic Tools Atlas 3.0 is here!

The GTA now has an additional 750 datasets, including 80+ mouse whole-brain light sheet microscopy images as well as the first macaque datasets.

🔗 https://portal.brain-map.org/genetic-tools/genetic-tools-atlas

#neuroskyence

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

leahhouri.bsky.social
Leah Houri-Zeevi @leahhouri.bsky.social · 21d
What does mating look like when you only have a single shot at getting it right?

Very excited to share our work on an almost-invisible female control, rapidly evolving mating recognition systems, and species that break the rules and take over the world. IN MOSQUITOES>
The male genitalia of an 𝘈𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘴 mosquito

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

ivancalcantara.bsky.social
Ivan Alcantara @ivancalcantara.bsky.social · 22d
But what if there are two co-first authors and the first-first author is actually also co-corresponding author with the last author but the second-first author isn’t?

Reposted by Michael E. Mann, Jan W. Mueller, Rebecca Solnit , and 4 more

sfahrenthold.bsky.social
Stacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 24d
Here it is: the Trump Administration "draft proposal" to the University of California. Published bc faculty sued for its disclosure.

Its terms go beyond what Trump demands in similar compacts to other universities.

EVERYONE should read: faculty, students, admins, alumni.
ucop.edu/communicatio...
ucop.edu

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Zen Faulkes, Alan McNally

azfaust.bsky.social
AZ Faust @azfaust.bsky.social · 25d
I have seen too many junior-to-mid career people making this mistake so I need to get this message out there:

Once you get your first big award (R01, CAREER, standard NSF, BL2 DoD), your most important task is to publish papers that cite that grant for support.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Nandita Sharma, Dawn J. Wright , and 5 more

krassenstein.bsky.social
Krassensteins @krassenstein.bsky.social · 26d
BREAKING: Letitia James has announced a Government portal for Videos and images of ICE Agents who may have committed crimes.

Please Use it and SHARE!

ag.ny.gov/federal-acti...
Federal Action Reporting Form
Federal Action Reporting Form Please use this form to share information regarding federal government action in New York state. Filing a complaint does not start
ag.ny.gov

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

nytimes.com
The New York Times @nytimes.com · 27d
Breaking News: The University of Virginia struck an agreement with the White House to remove the threat of a federal investigation, part of a Trump pressure campaign. It's the first public university to do so. nyti.ms/3Wgo2JR
A brick and white building at the University of Virginia. A headline reads: "Amid Trump's Campus Crackdown, UVA Is the First Public University to Cut a Deal." Photo credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

jenbussell.bsky.social
Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · 27d
Nope, correct opinion. It sucked 🤷🏼‍♀️

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Michael H. Fox

srheilbronner.bsky.social
Sarah Heilbronner @srheilbronner.bsky.social · 28d
Suzanne Haber was just elected to the National Academy of Medicine! Her work on the organization of the cortex and basal ganglia has had a huge impact. Please take the opportunity to congratulate her the next time you see her. www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/u...
University of Rochester Neurobiologist Suzanne Haber Elected to National Academy of Medicine
An internationally recognized scientist, her work has transformed our understanding of the brain networks that play a central role in many mental health disorders, including obsessive compulsive disor...
www.urmc.rochester.edu

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell, Elizabeth Saunders , and 6 more

stevenljohnson.org
Steven L. Johnson @stevenljohnson.org · Oct 17
UVA says no to the compact
To the University of Virginia community: On Monday of last week, Rector Rachel Sheridan and I shared a message with the community regarding the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We were asked to provide comments on the proposal no later than October 20. Today, I sent the letter below to the Secretary of Education and to White House officials. The letter confirms our core values and commitments while expressing our view that federal research funding should be based on merit. I want to thank personally the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, Student Council, and many other members of our community who expressed their opinions on the proposed Compact, through the online form we provided and other means. Your thoughtful feedback shows a profound care for the University and a strong commitment to its future. We will continue to work to strengthen free expression and free inquiry, protect academic freedom, ensure affordability , promote intellectual pluralism, and maintain institutional neutrality in an increasingly polarized world. I am grateful for your continued dedication to the University and I look forward to working with you on these vital projects. Paul Mahoney Interim President University of Virginia October 17, 2025 The United States Department of Education Washington, DC 20202 Dear Secretary McMahon, Ms. Mailman, and Mr. Haley, Thank you for your letter inviting comment on the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We wholeheartedly agree that “American higher education is the envy of the world.” We also agree with many of the principles outlined in the Compact, including a fair and unbiased admissions process, an affordable and academically rigorous education, a thriving marketplace of ideas, institutional neutrality, and equal treatment of students, faculty, and staff in all aspects of university operations. Indeed, the University of Virginia leads in several of these areas and is committed to continuous improvement in all of them. We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship. A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education. Higher education faces significant challenges and has not always lived up to its highest ideals. We believe that the best path toward real and durable progress lies in an open and collaborative conversation. We look forward to working together to develop alternative, lasting approaches to improving higher education. Sincerely yours, Paul Mahoney Interim President University of Virginia

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

amykristinsanders.bsky.social
Amy Kristin Sanders @amykristinsanders.bsky.social · Oct 17
The number rises to 4. MIT, Brown, Penn and USC lead the way in rejecting President Trump's Higher Education "compact" that many argue compromises academic freedom.

Penn State's Faculty Senate overwhelmingly recommended our president reject the compact.

Solidarity is the way forward.
USC rejects Trump education compact aimed at shifting the university to the right
USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer.
www.latimes.com

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

keholsinger.bsky.social
keholsinger.bsky.social @keholsinger.bsky.social · Oct 16
Dartmouth’s President Balks at Trump Compact, Sources Say, as Feds Expand Offer to ‘Any Institution’ www.chronicle.com/article/dart...
Dartmouth’s President Balks at Trump Compact, Sources Say, as Feds Expand Offer to ‘Any Institution’
Sian Leah Beilock has told faculty members she won’t sign the document as written. Meanwhile, the White House’s broader proposal has shifted discussion about the deal.
www.chronicle.com

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell, Jennifer Bussell , and 5 more

olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Oct 16
Just received from a colleague: looks like Penn is going to join the universities refusing the extortionary Trump "compact". I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win
screenshot of an email saying: "To the Penn Community: For 285 years, Penn has been anchored and guided by continuous self-improvement, using education as a ladder for opportunity, and advancing discoveries that serve our community, our nation, and the world. Since receiving the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education on October 1, I have sought input from faculty, alumni, trustees, students, staff and others who care deeply about Penn. The goal was to ensure that our response reflected our values and the perspectives of our broad community. Earlier today, I informed the U.S. Department of Education that Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact. As requested, we also provided focused feedback highlighting areas of existing alignment as well as substantive concerns. At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability. The long-standing partnership between American higher education and the federal government has greatly benefited society and our nation. Shared goals and investment in talent and ideas will turn possibility into progress. I am grateful to the Penn community for your thoughtful input and for what you bring to our University and our missions every day. Sincerely, J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD President University of Pennsylvania"

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

bensaunders.bsky.social
Ben Saunders @bensaunders.bsky.social · Oct 15
Check out our latest, online now at @sfnjournals.bsky.social www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Superior colliculus projections drive dopamine neuron activity and movement but not value
To navigate dynamic environments, animals must rapidly integrate sensory information and respond appropriately to gather rewards and avoid threats. It is well established that dopamine (DA) neurons in...
www.jneurosci.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Robert C. Richards, Michael W. Kraus , and 5 more

bakerdphd.bsky.social
Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · Oct 15
Brown is out! They had to do more dancing in their letter because they previously capitulated and needed to reference their previous agreement but, at its core, this reiterates MIT's letter.

The clock is now on for all other institutions.

www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...
www.brown.edu