Aniol Santo-Angles
@aniolet.bsky.social
Neuroscience. University of Helsinki.
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
It is actually an incredibly frustrating time to be a theoretical neuroscientist right now imo, for this reason
Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain.
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
November 17, 2025 at 1:23 AM
It is actually an incredibly frustrating time to be a theoretical neuroscientist right now imo, for this reason
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
To those who access published (nonhuman) neurophysiology data & analysis code: what’s your favorite place to find it?
October 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
To those who access published (nonhuman) neurophysiology data & analysis code: what’s your favorite place to find it?
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Colombo et al., Plos Biology, "Hemispherotomy leads to persistent sleep-like slow waves in the isolated cortex of awake humans"
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Hemispherotomy leads to persistent sleep-like slow waves in the isolated cortex of awake humans
Hemispherotomy is a neurosurgical procedure for treating refractory epilepsy by disconnecting a significant portion of the cortex. This study shows that the isolated cortex exhibits EEG patterns resem...
journals.plos.org
October 16, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Colombo et al., Plos Biology, "Hemispherotomy leads to persistent sleep-like slow waves in the isolated cortex of awake humans"
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
15 years in the making, we confirmed that mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - have an unusual localization in patients who experience psychosis (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders). You’ll never guess what kind of patient cells we used to make this discovery… 🧵
October 10, 2025 at 4:47 PM
15 years in the making, we confirmed that mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - have an unusual localization in patients who experience psychosis (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders). You’ll never guess what kind of patient cells we used to make this discovery… 🧵
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
It's never occurred to me that it IS an assumption. This is the most astonishing start to a paper I've read in years:
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."
One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature
In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same mother having distinct genomes and morphologies.
www.nature.com
September 24, 2025 at 5:26 PM
It's never occurred to me that it IS an assumption. This is the most astonishing start to a paper I've read in years:
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Talk: Cognition is Emergent - Earl K. Miller
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...
"Cognition is emergent" by Earl Miller
YouTube video by Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon
youtu.be
September 13, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Talk: Cognition is Emergent - Earl K. Miller
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Will try!
But I'll say in advance that I view the mouse brain as very different. Their anatomical connectivity is very high, with almost the entire cortex interconnected. Something like 97% if the Kennedy figures are right. Experiments in primates and humans are needed but obvly cannot be done now.
But I'll say in advance that I view the mouse brain as very different. Their anatomical connectivity is very high, with almost the entire cortex interconnected. Something like 97% if the Kennedy figures are right. Experiments in primates and humans are needed but obvly cannot be done now.
September 10, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Will try!
But I'll say in advance that I view the mouse brain as very different. Their anatomical connectivity is very high, with almost the entire cortex interconnected. Something like 97% if the Kennedy figures are right. Experiments in primates and humans are needed but obvly cannot be done now.
But I'll say in advance that I view the mouse brain as very different. Their anatomical connectivity is very high, with almost the entire cortex interconnected. Something like 97% if the Kennedy figures are right. Experiments in primates and humans are needed but obvly cannot be done now.
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
(1/26) Excited to share a new preprint led by grad student Albert Wakhloo, with me and Larry Abbott: "Associative synaptic plasticity creates dynamic persistent activity."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Associative synaptic plasticity creates dynamic persistent activity
In biological neural circuits, the dynamics of neurons and synapses are tightly coupled. We study the consequences of this coupling and show that it enables a novel form of working memory. In recurren...
www.biorxiv.org
August 25, 2025 at 5:17 PM
(1/26) Excited to share a new preprint led by grad student Albert Wakhloo, with me and Larry Abbott: "Associative synaptic plasticity creates dynamic persistent activity."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
🚨New paper🚨
Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.
Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW
Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.
Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW
August 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM
🚨New paper🚨
Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.
Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW
Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.
Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
1/3) This may be a very important paper, it suggests that there are no prediction error encoding neurons in sensory areas of cortex:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I personally am a big fan of the idea that cortical regions (allo and neo) are doing sequence prediction.
But...
🧠📈 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I personally am a big fan of the idea that cortical regions (allo and neo) are doing sequence prediction.
But...
🧠📈 🧪
Sensory responses of visual cortical neurons are not prediction errors
Predictive coding is theorized to be a ubiquitous cortical process to explain sensory responses. It asserts that the brain continuously predicts sensory information and imposes those predictions on lo...
www.biorxiv.org
July 11, 2025 at 3:45 PM
1/3) This may be a very important paper, it suggests that there are no prediction error encoding neurons in sensory areas of cortex:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I personally am a big fan of the idea that cortical regions (allo and neo) are doing sequence prediction.
But...
🧠📈 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I personally am a big fan of the idea that cortical regions (allo and neo) are doing sequence prediction.
But...
🧠📈 🧪
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
a friend of mine shared this ai-generated "emotion wheel" and unfortunately i have been laughing my ass off at it for like 15 minutes now. today i am feeling Fnliinneon
June 5, 2025 at 2:46 PM
a friend of mine shared this ai-generated "emotion wheel" and unfortunately i have been laughing my ass off at it for like 15 minutes now. today i am feeling Fnliinneon
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Because we must build good things while we scream about the bad, I have started a "Data for Good" team @data-for-good-team.bsky.social that partners with organizations needing short-term data science help. We have three projects ongoing & will add more as our capacity grows.
data-for-good-team.org
data-for-good-team.org
May 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Because we must build good things while we scream about the bad, I have started a "Data for Good" team @data-for-good-team.bsky.social that partners with organizations needing short-term data science help. We have three projects ongoing & will add more as our capacity grows.
data-for-good-team.org
data-for-good-team.org
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Depressed individuals often experience a profound slowing/standstill of time. Northoff argues this is due to a desynchronization between “self-time” (inner) and “world-time” (external); inner sense of time becomes abnormally slow, making external events feel overwhelmingly fast or unmanageable. This
May 3, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Depressed individuals often experience a profound slowing/standstill of time. Northoff argues this is due to a desynchronization between “self-time” (inner) and “world-time” (external); inner sense of time becomes abnormally slow, making external events feel overwhelmingly fast or unmanageable. This
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
It's kinda obvious. #AGIComics has already figured out which brain region is the most important. 😇
April 27, 2025 at 8:56 PM
It's kinda obvious. #AGIComics has already figured out which brain region is the most important. 😇
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
High-Dimensional Dynamics in Low-Dimensional Networks.
New preprint with a former undergrad, Yue Wan.
I'm not totally sure how to talk about these results. They're counterintuitive on the surface, seem somewhat obvious in hindsight, but then there's more to them when you dig deeper.
New preprint with a former undergrad, Yue Wan.
I'm not totally sure how to talk about these results. They're counterintuitive on the surface, seem somewhat obvious in hindsight, but then there's more to them when you dig deeper.
April 21, 2025 at 5:00 PM
High-Dimensional Dynamics in Low-Dimensional Networks.
New preprint with a former undergrad, Yue Wan.
I'm not totally sure how to talk about these results. They're counterintuitive on the surface, seem somewhat obvious in hindsight, but then there's more to them when you dig deeper.
New preprint with a former undergrad, Yue Wan.
I'm not totally sure how to talk about these results. They're counterintuitive on the surface, seem somewhat obvious in hindsight, but then there's more to them when you dig deeper.
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Functional organization derived from network-driven processes offers clear advantages wrt traditional methods when studying human brain networks, outperforming SoTA communication models in explaining functional communities from structural data.
#Neuroscience 🧪🧠
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
#Neuroscience 🧪🧠
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
April 10, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Functional organization derived from network-driven processes offers clear advantages wrt traditional methods when studying human brain networks, outperforming SoTA communication models in explaining functional communities from structural data.
#Neuroscience 🧪🧠
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
#Neuroscience 🧪🧠
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
This data can also be accessed on the MICrONS Explorer – a growing portal for connectivity and functional imaging data.
Dive into the data: www.microns-explorer.org/cortical-mm3
New to MICrONS? Check out these tutorials: tutorial.microns-explorer.org
Dive into the data: www.microns-explorer.org/cortical-mm3
New to MICrONS? Check out these tutorials: tutorial.microns-explorer.org
Cubic Millimeter — MICrONS Explorer
www.microns-explorer.org
April 9, 2025 at 3:03 PM
This data can also be accessed on the MICrONS Explorer – a growing portal for connectivity and functional imaging data.
Dive into the data: www.microns-explorer.org/cortical-mm3
New to MICrONS? Check out these tutorials: tutorial.microns-explorer.org
Dive into the data: www.microns-explorer.org/cortical-mm3
New to MICrONS? Check out these tutorials: tutorial.microns-explorer.org
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
In the physical world, almost all information is transmitted through traveling waves -- why should it be any different in your neural network?
Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"
1/14
Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"
1/14
March 10, 2025 at 3:34 PM
In the physical world, almost all information is transmitted through traveling waves -- why should it be any different in your neural network?
Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"
1/14
Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"
1/14
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Is scientific intuition real? One definition: a scientist has good intuition if they design experiments which yield important results without necessarily being guided by an underlying theory. They "just know" what to do. I think a lot of what we call intuition is basically luck.
February 15, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Is scientific intuition real? One definition: a scientist has good intuition if they design experiments which yield important results without necessarily being guided by an underlying theory. They "just know" what to do. I think a lot of what we call intuition is basically luck.
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
I found this to be an informative and provocative read - what happened to cognitive science? Authors argue, based on bibliometric and scientometric analysis, that cognitive science as a discipline is basically dead. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
What happened to cognitive science? - Nature Human Behaviour
Núñez et al. use bibliometric and socio-institutional indicators to show that over the years, cognitive science has failed to transition to a mature, coherent, interdisciplinary field.
www.nature.com
February 12, 2025 at 7:04 PM
I found this to be an informative and provocative read - what happened to cognitive science? Authors argue, based on bibliometric and scientometric analysis, that cognitive science as a discipline is basically dead. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
(1/30) New preprint! "Symmetries and continuous attractors in disordered neural circuits" with Larry Abbott and Haim Sompolinsky
bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Symmetries and Continuous Attractors in Disordered Neural Circuits
A major challenge in neuroscience is reconciling idealized theoretical models with complex, heterogeneous experimental data. We address this challenge through the lens of continuous-attractor networks...
www.biorxiv.org
January 29, 2025 at 6:26 PM
(1/30) New preprint! "Symmetries and continuous attractors in disordered neural circuits" with Larry Abbott and Haim Sompolinsky
bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
Not the biggest problem we're facing right now, but wow it's annoying that when this guy shares my work everyone tells him how brilliant he is and when I share it I get random dudes swinging by to tell me I can't do maths
February 2, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Not the biggest problem we're facing right now, but wow it's annoying that when this guy shares my work everyone tells him how brilliant he is and when I share it I get random dudes swinging by to tell me I can't do maths
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
New preprint: "The geometry of the neural state space of decisions", work by Mauro Monsalve-Mercado, buff.ly/42wVHD5. Surprising results & predictions! (Thread) We analyze neuropixel population recordings in macaque area LIP during a reaction time, random-dot motion 1/
January 31, 2025 at 2:32 PM
New preprint: "The geometry of the neural state space of decisions", work by Mauro Monsalve-Mercado, buff.ly/42wVHD5. Surprising results & predictions! (Thread) We analyze neuropixel population recordings in macaque area LIP during a reaction time, random-dot motion 1/
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
I wrote about the concept of agency (both human and artificial) in the year 2025. gracewlindsay.com/2025/01/24/2...
2025: Agency gained and lost
If you’ve had even a passing glance at tech journalism over the past few months, you know the top buzzword for AI in 2025 is agentic. Agentic AI (according to many think pieces and press releases a…
gracewlindsay.com
January 24, 2025 at 8:41 PM
I wrote about the concept of agency (both human and artificial) in the year 2025. gracewlindsay.com/2025/01/24/2...
Reposted by Aniol Santo-Angles
The Marchenko–Pastur law describes the limiting spectral distribution of eigenvalues of large random covariance matrices. The theorem proves that as dimensions grow, the empirical spectral distribution converges weakly to this law. https://buff.ly/406Xaxg
January 22, 2025 at 6:00 AM
The Marchenko–Pastur law describes the limiting spectral distribution of eigenvalues of large random covariance matrices. The theorem proves that as dimensions grow, the empirical spectral distribution converges weakly to this law. https://buff.ly/406Xaxg