Maxime Beau
@maxime-beau.bsky.social
@princeton.edu postdoc with @carlosbrody.bsky.social. @ucl.ac.uk alumnus. Into decision-making, cerebellum, #Neuropixels, ML applied to neuro, open-source dev |🇪🇺🇫🇷🇨🇭|🥋🧑🍳 ☕️
Pinned
Maxime Beau
@maxime-beau.bsky.social
· Mar 1
I am very proud to announce that my PhD paper finally came out in Cell! In this *very* collaborative study, we develop and release a deep-learning approach to predict neuron type identity from their electrical signature. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... 1/16 🧵
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Fred Ramsdell was parked at a campground in Montana on Monday when his wife suddenly started shouting. He first thought that maybe she had seen a grizzly bear. Instead, she had regained cell service and had seen a flood of text messages with the same news. “You just won the Nobel Prize!” she yelled.
Winning a Nobel Prize Interrupted His Off-the-Grid Vacation
Fred Ramsdell found out about his Nobel Prize nearly 12 hours after it was announced because he was on vacation in the Rockies.
nyti.ms
October 7, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Fred Ramsdell was parked at a campground in Montana on Monday when his wife suddenly started shouting. He first thought that maybe she had seen a grizzly bear. Instead, she had regained cell service and had seen a flood of text messages with the same news. “You just won the Nobel Prize!” she yelled.
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Neuropixels Ultra!
By @steinmetzneuro.bsky.social, who led a big collaboration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
By @steinmetzneuro.bsky.social, who led a big collaboration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ultra-high-density Neuropixels probes improve detection and identification in neuronal recordings
To understand the neural basis of behavior, it is essential to sensitively and accurately measure neural activity at single-neuron and single-spike re…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Neuropixels Ultra!
By @steinmetzneuro.bsky.social, who led a big collaboration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
By @steinmetzneuro.bsky.social, who led a big collaboration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Maxime Beau
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature
Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...
www.nature.com
September 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Reposted by Maxime Beau
In neuroscience, we often try to understand systems by analyzing their representations — using tools like regression or RSA. But are these analyses biased towards discovering a subset of what a system represents? If you're interested in this question, check out our new commentary! Thread:
![What do representations tell us about a system? Image of a mouse with a scope showing a vector of activity patterns, and a neural network with a vector of unit activity patterns
Common analyses of neural representations: Encoding models (relating activity to task features) drawing of an arrow from a trace saying [on_____on____] to a neuron and spike train. Comparing models via neural predictivity: comparing two neural networks by their R^2 to mouse brain activity. RSA: assessing brain-brain or model-brain correspondence using representational dissimilarity matrices](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:e6ewzleebkdi2y2bxhjxoknt/bafkreiav2io2ska33o4kizf57co5bboqyyfdpnozo2gxsicrfr5l7qzjcq@jpeg)
August 5, 2025 at 2:36 PM
In neuroscience, we often try to understand systems by analyzing their representations — using tools like regression or RSA. But are these analyses biased towards discovering a subset of what a system represents? If you're interested in this question, check out our new commentary! Thread:
attractors are the new receptive fields
Attractors are usually not mechanisms - new blog post: open.substack.com/pub/kording/...
Attractors are usually not mechanisms
The mathematical objects can not be. And the "attractor models" have not been established as mechanisms in mammals
open.substack.com
July 10, 2025 at 12:37 PM
attractors are the new receptive fields
Reposted by Maxime Beau
🚀 We are excited to share that bombcell is now available in Python! 🐍 Automatically sort your units into good/MUA/noise/non-somatic using quality metrics and interpretable & adjustable classification thresholds.
pip install and play around with our toy dataset:
🔗 github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
pip install and play around with our toy dataset:
🔗 github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
GitHub - Julie-Fabre/bombcell: Automated quality control, curation and neuron classification of spike-sorted electrophysiology data
Automated quality control, curation and neuron classification of spike-sorted electrophysiology data - Julie-Fabre/bombcell
github.com
June 13, 2025 at 6:55 PM
🚀 We are excited to share that bombcell is now available in Python! 🐍 Automatically sort your units into good/MUA/noise/non-somatic using quality metrics and interpretable & adjustable classification thresholds.
pip install and play around with our toy dataset:
🔗 github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
pip install and play around with our toy dataset:
🔗 github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
I really recommend sending your students to the Paris Spring School, many imaging and ephys techniques are covered in pretty good depth and the atmosphere is consistently fantastic every year! And in such a setting! parisneuro.ovh
May 21, 2025 at 11:06 PM
I really recommend sending your students to the Paris Spring School, many imaging and ephys techniques are covered in pretty good depth and the atmosphere is consistently fantastic every year! And in such a setting! parisneuro.ovh
Reposted by Maxime Beau
we're crowd-sourcing a searchable repository of tangible benefits stemming from federally-funded research. Come enjoy the great stories; or send in an idea; or volunteer to join the team.
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!
Searchable database of tangible benefits that federally-funded research gave us.
A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
May 7, 2025 at 11:28 PM
we're crowd-sourcing a searchable repository of tangible benefits stemming from federally-funded research. Come enjoy the great stories; or send in an idea; or volunteer to join the team.
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!
Reposted by Maxime Beau
🔊New resource: Bombcell, automated quality control for extracellular electrophysiology
💡This is an #opensource, user-friendly toolbox that streamlines quality control for spike sorting outputs.
👩🔬Develop by Julie M. J. Fabre
🔗Link: open-neuroscience.com/en/post/bomb...
#OpenScience #Neuroscience
💡This is an #opensource, user-friendly toolbox that streamlines quality control for spike sorting outputs.
👩🔬Develop by Julie M. J. Fabre
🔗Link: open-neuroscience.com/en/post/bomb...
#OpenScience #Neuroscience
May 9, 2025 at 5:36 PM
🔊New resource: Bombcell, automated quality control for extracellular electrophysiology
💡This is an #opensource, user-friendly toolbox that streamlines quality control for spike sorting outputs.
👩🔬Develop by Julie M. J. Fabre
🔗Link: open-neuroscience.com/en/post/bomb...
#OpenScience #Neuroscience
💡This is an #opensource, user-friendly toolbox that streamlines quality control for spike sorting outputs.
👩🔬Develop by Julie M. J. Fabre
🔗Link: open-neuroscience.com/en/post/bomb...
#OpenScience #Neuroscience
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Thrilled to share our state-of-the-art method for in vivo cell-type classification and brain region localization, NEMO, which is now now a spotlight at @iclr-conf.bsky.social !
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
April 21, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Thrilled to share our state-of-the-art method for in vivo cell-type classification and brain region localization, NEMO, which is now now a spotlight at @iclr-conf.bsky.social !
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Two UCL researchers, including Dr Julie Fabre (@uclqsion.bsky.social) have been named as Schmidt Science Fellows, an award given to 32 exceptional early career researchers worldwide.
Congratulations to both Dr @juliefabre.bsky.social & Dr Almarri on this incredible achievement! 👏
Congratulations to both Dr @juliefabre.bsky.social & Dr Almarri on this incredible achievement! 👏
UCL early career researchers selected as 2025 Schmidt Science Fellows
Two UCL researchers have been named as Schmidt Science Fellows, an award only given to 32 exceptional early career researchers worldwide.
buff.ly
April 2, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Two UCL researchers, including Dr Julie Fabre (@uclqsion.bsky.social) have been named as Schmidt Science Fellows, an award given to 32 exceptional early career researchers worldwide.
Congratulations to both Dr @juliefabre.bsky.social & Dr Almarri on this incredible achievement! 👏
Congratulations to both Dr @juliefabre.bsky.social & Dr Almarri on this incredible achievement! 👏
Reposted by Maxime Beau
How do we associate the flavors we experience during a meal 🍽️😋 with postingestive effects like food poisoning 🤢🤮 that arise much later?
Our answer in @nature.com this week: Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavor representations in the amygdala.
📄: nature.com/articles/s41...
Our answer in @nature.com this week: Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavor representations in the amygdala.
📄: nature.com/articles/s41...
A neural mechanism for learning from delayed postingestive feedback - Nature
Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavour representations in the amygdala to support learning from delayed postingestive feedback.
www.nature.com
April 3, 2025 at 6:34 PM
How do we associate the flavors we experience during a meal 🍽️😋 with postingestive effects like food poisoning 🤢🤮 that arise much later?
Our answer in @nature.com this week: Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavor representations in the amygdala.
📄: nature.com/articles/s41...
Our answer in @nature.com this week: Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavor representations in the amygdala.
📄: nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Many of us use 2p scopes to image 3D volumes of brain. But then we analyze the data plane by plane, resulting in duplicated neurons, missed neurons, and low s/n. Let's go 3D!
Suite3D: Volumetric cell detection for two-photon microscopy
by @haydari.bsky.social & team.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Suite3D: Volumetric cell detection for two-photon microscopy
by @haydari.bsky.social & team.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
April 1, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Many of us use 2p scopes to image 3D volumes of brain. But then we analyze the data plane by plane, resulting in duplicated neurons, missed neurons, and low s/n. Let's go 3D!
Suite3D: Volumetric cell detection for two-photon microscopy
by @haydari.bsky.social & team.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Suite3D: Volumetric cell detection for two-photon microscopy
by @haydari.bsky.social & team.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Maxime Beau
First off, Bombcell is a MATLAB package (python version coming) developed by @juliefabre.bsky.social. It uses several metrics, like waveform shape, spike amplitudes and drift, to determine whether a detected unit is noise, multi-unit activity, axonal or a single neuron.
github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
GitHub - Julie-Fabre/bombcell: Automated quality control, curation and neuron classification of spike-sorted electrophysiology data
Automated quality control, curation and neuron classification of spike-sorted electrophysiology data - Julie-Fabre/bombcell
github.com
March 27, 2025 at 10:38 AM
First off, Bombcell is a MATLAB package (python version coming) developed by @juliefabre.bsky.social. It uses several metrics, like waveform shape, spike amplitudes and drift, to determine whether a detected unit is noise, multi-unit activity, axonal or a single neuron.
github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
github.com/Julie-Fabre/...
It was an honour, thank you @rezashadmehr.bsky.social for organizing this great seminar series!
Talk link: m.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0v...
Talk link: m.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0v...
March 25, 2025 at 7:54 PM
It was an honour, thank you @rezashadmehr.bsky.social for organizing this great seminar series!
Talk link: m.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0v...
Talk link: m.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0v...
Reposted by Maxime Beau
1/7 Our paper on individual variability in decision-making is finally out in @nature.com! Inspired by the classic work by Mante and Sussillo, we trained many rats to solve context-dependent decision-making, and we found that different brains use different neural mechanisms to solve the same task!
Individual variability of neural computations underlying flexible decisions - Nature
Behavioural experiments to study decision-making in response to context-dependent accumulation of evidence provide testable models that are consistent with the heterogeneity in neural signatures among...
www.nature.com
March 21, 2025 at 1:29 PM
1/7 Our paper on individual variability in decision-making is finally out in @nature.com! Inspired by the classic work by Mante and Sussillo, we trained many rats to solve context-dependent decision-making, and we found that different brains use different neural mechanisms to solve the same task!
Reposted by Maxime Beau
control is a complimentary approach to alignment.
its really sensible, practical and can be done now, even before systems are superintelligent.
youtu.be/6Unxqr50Kqg?...
its really sensible, practical and can be done now, even before systems are superintelligent.
youtu.be/6Unxqr50Kqg?...
Controlling powerful AI
YouTube video by Anthropic
youtu.be
March 18, 2025 at 3:22 PM
control is a complimentary approach to alignment.
its really sensible, practical and can be done now, even before systems are superintelligent.
youtu.be/6Unxqr50Kqg?...
its really sensible, practical and can be done now, even before systems are superintelligent.
youtu.be/6Unxqr50Kqg?...
Reposted by Maxime Beau
The International Brain Laboratory reproducibility platform paper is now published at eLife. An amazing effort by many different labs and individuals to understand and improve the reproducibility of electrophysiological measurements in mice. 🧠
March 17, 2025 at 3:22 PM
The International Brain Laboratory reproducibility platform paper is now published at eLife. An amazing effort by many different labs and individuals to understand and improve the reproducibility of electrophysiological measurements in mice. 🧠
Reposted by Maxime Beau
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
A 🧵👇 (1/9)
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
A 🧵👇 (1/9)
March 14, 2025 at 9:41 AM
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
A 🧵👇 (1/9)
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
A 🧵👇 (1/9)
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Standing up for science in Seattle - some lab members (Zhiwen, Nancy, Fabiola, and Jeremy) plus lab-friend Harsha @harshag.bsky.social. If only it seemed like there was the remotest chance anyone in the administration cared about our voices.
March 8, 2025 at 6:24 AM
Standing up for science in Seattle - some lab members (Zhiwen, Nancy, Fabiola, and Jeremy) plus lab-friend Harsha @harshag.bsky.social. If only it seemed like there was the remotest chance anyone in the administration cared about our voices.
Reposted by Maxime Beau
Marseille is ready to #StandUpForScience! #standupforscience2025
March 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Marseille is ready to #StandUpForScience! #standupforscience2025
Reposted by Maxime Beau
can you explain this 3 year gap in your resume?
yeah the paper was under review
yeah the paper was under review
March 7, 2025 at 1:58 PM
can you explain this 3 year gap in your resume?
yeah the paper was under review
yeah the paper was under review
Reposted by Maxime Beau
For general thoughts on short-term breakdown in democracy - and also longer-term fixes, sign up for long-form essays. Always free. samwang.substack.com
March 7, 2025 at 12:53 AM
For general thoughts on short-term breakdown in democracy - and also longer-term fixes, sign up for long-form essays. Always free. samwang.substack.com
Reposted by Maxime Beau
I am recruiting graduate students for my lab @mcgillu.bsky.social for admission in Fall 2025! Get in touch if you're interested in how brain circuits implement distributed computation, including dopamine-based distributed RL and probabilistic representations.
November 9, 2024 at 8:25 PM
I am recruiting graduate students for my lab @mcgillu.bsky.social for admission in Fall 2025! Get in touch if you're interested in how brain circuits implement distributed computation, including dopamine-based distributed RL and probabilistic representations.