Shervin Safavi
neuroprinciplist.bsky.social
Shervin Safavi
@neuroprinciplist.bsky.social
searching for principles, goal-driven behavior, empirical approach, integration | doing comp neuroscience & psychiatry | PI @cmc-lab.bsky.social | previously @maxplanckcampus.bsky.social (Peter Dayan & Nikos Logothetis)
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
🧪Preprint!
How foragers depart from optimal models can tell us a lot about how they compute their decisions.

A strong but underexplored departure is that foragers widely vary when they leave identical patches.

A 🧵
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

With
@emmavscholey.bsky.social @brainapps.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Our next paper on comparing dynamical systems (with special interest to artificial and biological neural networks) is out!! Joint work with @annhuang42.bsky.social , as well as @satpreetsingh.bsky.social , @leokoz8.bsky.social , Ila Fiete, and @kanakarajanphd.bsky.social : arxiv.org/pdf/2510.25943
November 10, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Very much looking forward to this exciting lineup!

Also excited about presenting our work on how timescales of environmental dynamics affect foraging decisions (Wednesday), a work together w/ Tiffany Ona, @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social, Bruno Cruz, @xindipoo.bsky.social and Peter Dayan
November 4, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Our call for ELBE Visiting Faculty at the Center for Systems Biology Dresden is live with deadline 30 November: www.csbdresden.de/join-us/as-a... Please visit us during your sabbatical!
@mpi-cbg.de @math-mpicbg.bsky.social @csbdresden.bsky.social
As a Visiting Faculty
© 2025 CSBD
www.csbdresden.de
October 31, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
We are doing it again!!!!

Save the date for the next in-person #AstrocyteCafe next June 3-5 (2026) in Pamplona (Spain)!

We can’t wait to see many of you in person again, thanks so much to the main local organizer @maitesolas.bsky.social ♥️
November 2, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
If you missed this event and you want to catch the replay, videos are up at this link:
www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...

See this thread for Day 1 highlights, and the next post for Day 2.
Today and tomorrow 11a-3p EST, I'll be live posting this terrific workshop. It's open to all! So register at this link if you'd like to watch too (or follow this 🧵 for the highlights).

Agenda: 16 presentations + overviews, discussions, recaps and reviews.

www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...
November 1, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Reminder everyone that #SNUFA is next week! Make sure to register in advance to get emailed the link to join.
Spiking NN fans - the #SNUFA workshop (Nov 5-6) agenda is finalised and online now. Make sure to register (free) soon. (Note you can register for either day and come to both.)

Agenda: snufa.net/2025/
Registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/snufa-2025...

Thanks to all who voted on abstracts!

🤖🧠🧪
SNUFA 2025
Spiking Neural networks as Universal Function Approximators
snufa.net
October 30, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Pleased to share that our survey "Getting aligned on representational alignment" — on representational alignment across cognitive (neuro)science and machine learning — is now published in TMLR! openreview.net/forum?id=Hiq...
Kudos to @sucholutsky.bsky.social @lukasmut.bsky.social for leading this!
October 29, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
🚀 We’re hiring - Join our lab 🚀

🔍 Hiring: PhD (75% TV-L) & Postdoc (100% TV-L)
🧠 fMRI, VR, EEG, modelling

We combine a range of cognitive neuroscience methods to study flexible behaviour.

📅 Start: Feb 2026 or later | ⏳ Apply by Nov 3!

More details:
tinyurl.com/ms3a9ajt

#CognitiveNeuroscience
October 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Various theoretical properties derived for gamma oscillations based on canonical E-SOM-PV microcircuit connectivity using mean-field modelling, which moves beyond classic Wilson-Cowan models in important ways
biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - w. Farzin Tahvili & Matteo Di Volo
A mean-field model of neural networks with PV and SOM interneurons reveals connectivity-based mechanisms of gamma oscillations
Classic theoretical models of cortical oscillations are based on the interactions between two populations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Nevertheless, experimental studies and network simulatio...
biorxiv.org
October 24, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Today and tomorrow 11a-3p EST, I'll be live posting this terrific workshop. It's open to all! So register at this link if you'd like to watch too (or follow this 🧵 for the highlights).

Agenda: 16 presentations + overviews, discussions, recaps and reviews.

www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...
October 22, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Delighted to share our new paper, now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"Hierarchical dynamic coding coordinates speech comprehension in the brain"

with dream team @alecmarantz.bsky.social, @davidpoeppel.bsky.social, @jeanremiking.bsky.social

Summary 👇

1/8
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Understanding brain-body interactions can help inform new therapeutic developments and foster a more holistic approach to #BrainHealth.

Join us October 22 - 23 to learn about the current knowledge landscape and future directions for research: https://ow.ly/ZbUR50XbZH6
October 16, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
The final paper of my PhD is now out as a preprint. This is a follow-up piece in series of two companion papers modelling awareness and suppression in a new variant of continuous flash suppression.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.17154

🧵 1/3
A Minimal Quantitative Model of Perceptual Suppression and Breakthrough in Visual Rivalry
When conflicting images are presented to either eye, binocular fusion is disrupted. Rather than experiencing a blend of both percepts, often only one eye's image is experienced, whilst the other is su...
arxiv.org
October 21, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
The applications for the new round of CaCTüS Internship are now open! This is an extraordinary opportunity for students from underrepresented backgrounds to develop research skills necessary for advancing their careers!

www.projects.tuebingen.mpg.de/application/
October 20, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
New essay in @currentbiology.bsky.social special brain-body issue! Fly lab meets psychiatrist: how bodily signals shape cognition and mental health. Great collaboration with Albino Oliveira-Maia showing @champalimaudf.bsky.social discovery ↔️ clinic at its best. www.cell.com/current-biol...
From cognition in the body to the body in cognition
Carlos Ribeiro and Albino Oliveira-Maia propose how brain–body interactions may inform the study of ‘higher’ cognitive functions such as learning and memory across model systems.
www.cell.com
October 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution posted on October 16, 2025 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Nice things for the

**13th #MindBrainBody Symposium 2026**

happening under the hood 😊

Save the date: 📆 March 9-11, 2026 (Berlin and virtual)

Stay tuned for the call and announcement!

(For info about the last 12 MBBSymposia: mindbrainbody.de)

#interoception #neuroskyence
October 17, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Just out in Nature! “The astrocytic ensemble acts as a multiday trace to stabilize memory.” We identified astrocytic ensembles that link experiences across days to stabilize memory nature.com/articles/s41.... New astrocyte tools are openly available at Addgene: addgene.org/Jun_Nagai/. 1/8
October 15, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
📣 BIG NEWS EVERYONE. I am so excited to announce…

🎉 I’m moving to University College London @ucl.ac.uk to join the Experimental Psychology department in @uclpals.bsky.social! 🎉

The big move happens in spring/summer. So I’m already exploring recruiting staff & students at UCL for fall 2026!
October 13, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
A study led by Cina Aghamohammadi is now out in ‪@natcomms.nature.com‬! We developed a mathematical framework for partitioning spiking variability, which revealed that spiking irregularity is nearly invariant for each neuron and decreases along the cortical hierarchy.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
October 12, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Curious how cognitive computational models might shed light on question in mental health? Come dive into hands-on tutorials, modeling, and clinical applications during our 3-day workshop 👾 🧠
⌛️ Only 3 days left to apply for the New York Computational Psychiatry Workshop (Nov 10–12)! Don’t miss your chance to learn about methods in computational psychiatry. Apply now!

👉 form.jotform.com/252448781112...
More info: bit.ly/nycpw2025

Please share & RT!
October 10, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
A little backstory on this one: sometime during the pandemic @hannah-haberkern.bsky.social and I were chatting in the servery at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social about how to encourage interactions between people working on foraging (+ neuroscience) across different species and perspectives... 1/n
October 7, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Shervin Safavi
Our review is out 🎉

We discuss how neural computations in the retina shape behavior, continuing the top-down tradition of Lettvin et al.'s classic bug-detector neurons

Check it out 👀 arevie.ws/46HMEjd @annualreviews.bsky.social w/ coauthors @serenariccitelli.bsky.social @annaintegrated.bsky.social
October 7, 2025 at 11:39 AM