Kayson Fakhar

🚨 The actual paper is now out on @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... In this opinion piece, @duncanastle.bsky.social and I explore the human brain through the lens of optimality and Pareto-optimality theory.

A new model of synaptic plasticity: "neurons adjust synaptic strengths to minimize the mismatch between somatic and dendritic activity" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Heavy-tailed connections support robust neural communication https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.21.760834v1

Cambridge locals: we’re starting our seminars. Come hang out!

Folks, quick reminder that this is happening this Thursday at 10:00 UK time so don’t forget to register. If you know Caio you know but if you don’t, he’s very talented at giving pedagogic talks so I’m sure there’s something for everyone in there.

Incredible paper - critically important for those of us studying #interoception. Congratulations and major thanks to Joey Charbonneau, @eblissmoreau.bsky.social, and co-authors !

It’s less than 10 days until we start reviewing applications for our postdoc position @mpicybernetics.bsky.social, if you’re interested in cross-species studies of adaptive decision-making, make sure to submit your applications by Oct 30. The deadline for our PhD position is also approaching!

🚨 New preprint! 🧵 Brain regions 🧠 integrate information over different timescales ⏱️: short in sensorimotor cortex, long in association cortex. But do regions change their timescales when we engage in a task? And how does that flexibility develop? 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to announce our project on intracranial ephys artifacts is finally out 🙈 doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0295-26.2026 It all began with an observation, are neurons across an entire array synchronizing at 1/30 ms resolution in cortex? Identical waveforms? Revolutionary if true, but... Blueprint!🧵

🚨 We're starting this term's Making Connections Seminar Series with Caio Seguin on neural communication in C. elegans. Mind the unusual timing: it'll be on Thursday, Oct 29th, but at 10:00 UK time. You can find the registration link and our lineup of this term here: sites.google.com/view/makingc...

Out now in PNAS! We show that a simple developmental spatial gradient captures a surprising amount of the final brain network structure. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

So excited to share that I will be starting my research group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology! 🥳 My lab will study curiosity and exploration across biological (and artificial) minds. I will recruit a PhD, a postdoc and an RA in the coming months, so please spread the word!

Mapping the Trade-Offs That Shape Mammalian Brain Network Architecture https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.07.757032v1

Whole-brain receptor markers and hub excitabilities determine acute and long-term outcomes in stroke https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.04.755271v1

Mass production has hit mathematics. Science is next. Back in July this article made some predictions for how AI will transform science research. So far, it seems about on track. www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...

𝗛𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 New preprint with Andrea Gambarotto. Neuroscience often treats control as a hierarchy: the structures behind a behavior hold a stable rank. We argue this mistakes a configuration for an architecture. 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2610.04643 #neuroskyence

Thank you to everyone sharing in this moment! I’m so grateful to all my trainees & collaborators… dlab.stanford.edu/group-members (pic: Peter and I together in 2017) Reading for all those asking: for technical details: dlab.stanford.edu for everyone: deisseroth.org/projections

I hope this year’s Nobel prize has the same effect on optogenetics and brain manipulation as it had on place and grid cells after the Mosers. I think we need a lot more of these type of research. We should be able to scale it to multiple sites at the same time. Let’s goooooooo the time is now.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

What are the dynamics underlying sequence working memory? To found out, we develop and analyse RNNs fitted to multi-session single-unit data of macaques. See my talk Wed 12:00, at @bernsteinneuro.bsky.social. With @jakhmack.bsky.social @mackelab.bsky.social Data from Chen et al., Neuron 2024.

Your favorite website for illustrations of almost all organisms is looking for donations to help cover its running costs! Please consider donating to help keep this open-source platform running: www.phylopic.org/images

Check out this awesome work by @goliashf.bsky.social -- now out in PLOS Biology -- showing that development of intrinsic neural timescale aligns with the cortical hierarchy defined by the S-A axis in multiple datasets.

How do intrinsic timescales, which reflect the temporal window of neural processing, mature during development? This study by @goliashf.bsky.social @ted-satterthwaite.bsky.social &co identifies a hierarchical trajectory, from sensorimotor to association cortices. 🧪 #NeuroSky plos.io/46RzqRG

We are thrilled 🥳 to share that we’re joining forces with @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social to establish a joint research unit, @cmc-unit.bsky.social integrating natural and embodied decision making across species! We also have open PhD and postdoc positions (check below for more info) 🎉

Train your model on a task, or fit it to biological data? And once it's optimized, what does it tell us about the brain? 🧠 In our #BernsteinConference satellite workshop, we'll discuss these questions through the lenses of different optimization methods. Check it out in Room 3.104! 🤓😉

netneurotools: a trainee-oriented approach to network neuroscience | doi.org/10.1038/s415... Our lab’s internal toolkit for accomplishing everyday tasks in brain imaging @natprot.nature.com ⤵️

Spatial organization of AQP4 water channel expression in the human brain | doi.org/10.1126/scia... Aquaporins are a key component of the glymphatic system. How are they distributed + how do they relate to brain function and dysfunction? ⤵️

How do internal states shape foraging, decisions, and adaptation in a changing world? 🧠🌍 @clairesturgill.bsky.social and I are organizing a #BernsteinConference satellite workshop bringing together lab and wild perspectives on adaptive behavior. Join us 😉

Are virtual flies playing Beat Saber? SM64? Doom? No. The new fly connectome is an incredible achievement! Less is going on in the sim videos than it seems. I'm stoked to see people engage with neuroscience though. My breakdown: www.neuroai.science/p/are-flies-...

Leveraging perturbations to infer the population dynamics of human rhinovirus and interaction of influenza A virus journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

As it is a new term, try out (free) planyourscience.com which helps make sure that scientific projects end up awesome.

Heterogeneity of Brain Dynamics in Genetic and Psychiatric Conditions | bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

First person in my bloodline to read this combination of words “Slop Jihad”. I think it’s actually a perfect name for a post-rock band.

Recommended reading for all neuroscientists (Also, Amen to this!)

🚨 8 months after, this paper found its home at Science Advances. We came up with a generative brain network model based on game theory and found that the human brain is suboptimal both in terms of wiring cost and communication efficiency. Here's why: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New opinion paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution on “Evolutionary spandrels in collective animal behaviour”: authors.elsevier.com/a/1nffxcZ3X7...

Happy to see this out! @mtschiersch.bsky.social shows PFC hemispheres can flexiblely switch between two different WM storage strategies: redundant vs specialized storage systems👇🏻

Not sure how to visualise your connectome data? Check our latest led by @m-gajwani.bsky.social & C Adamson on NeuroMarvl: an open source web-based platform for visualising and sharing connectomes! Paper: tinyurl.com/2t7ftu9d Software: tinyurl.com/yrv3xja3 @nsb-lab.bsky.social

🧵1/ How damaging is zero-sum thinking? Shaun Hargreaves Heap and I revisit the Nash vs maximin discussion We show that for every Nash equilibrium, there is a strategically equivalent game in which each player’s maximin strategy guarantees their Nash-equilibrium payoff

"A synergetic perspective of analysing phase space dynamics: the crucial role of recurrence" – links Haken's synergetics with #recurrence_plot analysis, revealing order-chaos transitions in phase-space dynamics and ties to machine learning for predictive modelling. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🔥🔥New paper alert! Super excited to share our paper, out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the wonderful Dr. Nofar Mizrachi! nature.com/articles/s41... To me, this finding fundamentally changes how we should think about the relationship between cognition and immune regulation:

📣Algorithmic Grammar of Flexible Cognition: A Walk through Latent Operations osf.io/preprints/ps... Flexible behavior moves adaptively btwn cognitive modes. But units of analysis remain representations & few operations. Proposal: formalize open-ended cognition as walk over latent operations 1/n