Andrew MacAskill

Andrew MacAskill

@macaskillaf.bsky.social

UCL neuroscientist investigating the neural basis of contextual decision making. Views are my own. Prof @uclnpp lab website: www.macaskilllab.com UCL profile: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/5194 also @macaskillaf@fediscience.org

2.3K followers1.9K following167 posts

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Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Huge congrats to @karyna-mi.bsky.social for her paper published today in Science! She found that the hippocampus is really important for a key strategy we use to make decisions called hidden state inference! 🧪 🧠https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq5874 1/7

science.orgHidden state inference requires abstract contextual representations in the ventral hippocampusThe ability to use subjective, latent contextual representations to influence decision-making is crucial for everyday life. The hippocampus is hypothesized to bind together otherwise abstract combinat...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Jim Heys
@jim-heys.bsky.social

I’m very excited to share our new paper, led by the very talented Jack Bowler, a postdoc in the lab! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We all know that the way we learn something matters. But how does a training curriculum actually shape how the brain learns to solve a problem? a 🧵 1/N

nature.comStructured experience shapes strategy learning and neural dynamics in the medial entorhinal cortex - Nature NeuroscienceThe authors use recurrent neural networks to predict how structured prior experience shapes neural dynamics as mice learn flexible timing strategies during complex context-dependent behavior.
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

i've got to that heady stage where my youtube feed is almost entirely tec house mixes, interspersed with ads for nature family journals and minus 80 freezers 🧪🧠📈🎧 is this old age?

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Congrats @jespass.bsky.social on her new paper! PFC is widely thought to talk to HPC via nucleus reuniens - but no one has tested if this actual connectivity exists. Turns out it's wired to block it: PFC inputs to reuniens contact only neurons projecting back to PFC, not ones projecting to HPC. 🧪🧠📈

biorxiv.orgNucleus reuniens is organised as parallel circuits rather than a prefrontal-hippocampal relayInteractions between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HPC) are crucial for flexible and memory guided behaviour. Because there are no direct projections from PFC to HPC, it is widely presu...
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Congrats to @soyonhonglab.bsky.social and ger! Very happy to have played a small part in this!

Soyon Hong@soyonhonglab.bsky.social

This was a truly interdisciplinary team effort w/ expertise across neuroscience, immunology & NDD. Huge thanks to everyone involved including our collaborators in labs of Menna Clatworthy, @lignanilab.bsky.social, Tarja Malm, Victor Tybulewicz, @macaskillaf.bsky.social & @movahedilab.bsky.social

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

A fantastic opportunity for a computational neuroscience lab. Come and join our amazing department! You’ll be surrounded by outstanding systems, cellular and molecular neuroscientists tackling fundamental questions about how the brain works. 🧠📈🧪

UCL Neuroscience@uclnpp.bsky.social

Only two days left to apply to the best neuroscience department! #NeuroSkyence 🧠📈🧪 Computational neuroscience, systems, synapses and molecules, all under one roof. Come join an amazing collaborative group!

Andrew MacAskill reposted

UCL Neuroscience
@uclnpp.bsky.social

Only two days left to apply to the best neuroscience department! #NeuroSkyence 🧠📈🧪 Computational neuroscience, systems, synapses and molecules, all under one roof. Come join an amazing collaborative group!

Isaac Bianco@isaacbianco.bsky.social

Calling all computational neuroscientists! Our department is recruiting two new lecturers/associate profs. Application deadline 10th July. tinyurl.com/4wnzvjc2 #sciencejobs @uclnpp.bsky.social

tinyurl.comUCL – University College LondonUCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Stéphanie C Koch
@skochlab.bsky.social

Our paper is out! Work by Christopher Black in collaboration with Liam Browne, Rob Brownstone, and Marco Beato. Here, we describe the unique kinematic signatures of multi-limb coordination in freely climbing mice and show how these flexibly adapt to changing environments. tinyurl.com/4bnw88wk

tinyurl.comNaturalistic climbing reveals adaptive strategies for interlimb coordination in freely moving miceMulti-limb coordination is vital for mammalian locomotion. While coordination requires reliable organization of limb movements, it also requires flexibility to adapt to environmental demands. In natur...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Prof Rick Adams
@drrickadams.bsky.social

📢PhD job alert! A exciting PhD project that involves using MEG and biophysical modelling to try to predict effects of a glutamatergic treatment for psychosis... plus you can develop your own side project. Join our great team! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

ucl.ac.ukUCL – University College LondonUCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Andrew MacAskill reposted

European Research Council (ERC)
@erc.europa.eu

NEWS: The ERC Scientific Council has listened to the concerns from members of the research community about changes to the re-submission rules, intended to manage the surge in demand for grants. The Scientific Council will readjust some of the changes: link.europa.eu/TBqRQJ

link.europa.euERC Scientific Council readjusts rules for reapplicationThe ERC Scientific Council has listened to the concerns from members of the research community about the recent announcement on changes to the re-submission rules. The changes, intended to manage the ...
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

we were really motivated by the amazing arguments around the idea that the hippocampus might be a relational learning system - led by people like Rudy and Sutherland, and John Pearce - which was never really resolved, even though it has come back into favour more recently.

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

we were really motivated by the amazing arguments around the idea that the hippocampus might be a relational learning system - led by people like Rudy and Sutherland, and John Pearce - which was never really resolved, even though it has come back into favour more recently.

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Izumi Fukunaga
@ifukunaga.bsky.social

We are recruiting a post-doc to study olfactory processing and decision-making in rodents, combining quantitative behavior with neurophysiology. www.oist.jp/careers/post... Please share with interested colleagues and trainees 🙏

oist.jpPost-doctoral Researcher - Sensory and Behavioural Neuroscience UnitPost-doctoral positions are available in the Sensory and Behavioural Neuroscience Unit (https://www.oist.jp/research/research-units/sbn) at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate Univers...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Dr Ino Agrafioti
@inoagrafioti.bsky.social

I don’t know if you saw the MASSIVE news announced by @erc.europa.eu today: from now on, if you get a B at step 1 you are eligible to apply at N+3(!!!) years. Say you got a B in STG2026 step 1, you thought you could apply in STG2028, but no: only in STG2029! erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

erc.europa.euApplying for an ERC grant in the 2027 competitions: what you need to knowThe ERC plans to launch the grant competitions under its 2027 Work Programme between July 2026 and June 2027, with the calls for proposals introducing several changes to the eligibility rules for appl...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Brad Wyble
@bwyble.bsky.social

Random neuroscience trainee tip: If you struggle to keep track of rostral vs caudal, remember that rostral rhymes with nostril.

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Jes Pass
@jespass.bsky.social

Super excited to see the first paper from my PhD out! 🐭 Very satisfying to get to build an interpretable model of how the brain does a thing. A nice palette cleanser in the current sea of LLMs and deep ML.

Andrew MacAskill@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Huge congratulations to Jes (not on Bsky) for her paper in @plos.org Computational Biology! A really elegant modelling study on how the brain discovers hidden structure and uses it to guide behaviour. @uclnpp.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social 🧪 📈 🧠 journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

journals.plos.orgContextual inference through flexible integration of environmental features and behavioural outcomesAuthor summary To behave flexibly, animals must determine which situation or context they are in, even when the information that defines that context is incomplete or no longer visible. This problem, ...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Dan Levenstein
@dlevenstein.bsky.social

This is the most insider shade ever and I’m here for it. #wormFly4pres2026🪱🪰

John Tuthill@tuthill.bsky.social

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

She asked: how do we figure out what “situation” we’re in when it isn’t obvious? Answer: The brain has to infer hidden context from incomplete or noisy information — and use that to decide what to do next.

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

The cool thing is she found that this works best by combining two signals: what we 'see' (features of the environment) and what 'happens' (outcomes of our actions). Together, these allow stable context inference and flexible behaviour even when information is weak or ambiguous!

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Helen Barron
@helencbarron.bsky.social

*** New paper from the lab in Nature Comms !! *** “Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map” by the amazing @reneecabbage.bsky.social in collab. w labs of Jill O’Reilly, Will Clarke, and modeling from Prakriti Parthasarathy and @tpvogels.bsky.social, see below!

Renée Koolschijn@reneecabbage.bsky.social

Very pleased to share that our study “Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map” is out in @natcomms.nature.com (my final PhD paper, only 3.5 years post PhD! 🙃) Find the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comNoradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map - Nature CommunicationsWhen forming a cognitive map, a trade-off exists between facilitating novel inferences and storing veridical copies of past experience. Here the authors show that the neuromodulator noradrenaline sets...
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Big changes - wording is a bit ambiguous as to whether these will be peer reviewed..? Hopefully! - experimental medicine and discovery science considered together and funded from the same 'bucket' is a touch scary for the discovery types!

Willem van Schaik@wvschaik.bsky.social

MRC curiosity-driven research reopens with new approach www.ukri.org/news/mrc-cur... MRC applicant-led funding opportunities reopen 7 Apr, experimental medicine opportunities opening 30 Apr Complete change in selection of project: no boards, shortlisted applicants -> in-person panel interview.

ukri.orgMRC curiosity-driven research reopens with new approachThe Medical Research Council (MRC) unpauses curiosity driven research funding and improves the funding process.
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Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Early life isolation reduces excitability in the vH→PFC pathway and disrupts dimension-based learning. A hierarchical reinforcement learning model captures these behavioural differences, and a human analogue of the task shows comparable effects. Come by and chat!

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

We use a tweaked version of the mouse attentional set-shifting task that highlights dimension learning and generalisation. Mice learn which abstract stimulus dimension (odours/textures) predicts reward across multiple exemplars, and we probe this by asking how they adapt when the dimension changes.

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Even though transition statistics are flat, hippocampal population activity reflects the underlying community structure, and this representation emerges over learning. Come by the poster if you’re interested in structure learning, hippocampus, or latent state representations! #neuroskyence 🧪 🧠 📈

Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

Super cool paper on human hippocampus in a non spatial planning task - congrats!

Hugo Spiers@hugospiers.bsky.social

Human hippocampal theta–gamma coupling coordinates sequential planning during navigation Impressive study from Dan Bush's Lab at UCL: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Paul Anastasiades
@panastasiades.bsky.social

New preprint from the lab on synapse development in the nascent neocortical hierarchy! Using mice that label MAGUK proteins developed by Seth Grant we find key differences in the laminar maturation of association and sensory motor cortices, including delayed, cortex-wide maturation of L1 synapses.

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Dan Bose
@danbose.bsky.social

I'm a bit late with this, but awesome to see it out in the wild! A real tour de force from @dozenoaks.bsky.social @timcraggs.bsky.social An amazing example of why we need to think more about flexibility in our biological questions! www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

cell.comKinesin-1 is highly flexible and adopts an open conformation in the absence of cargoKinesin-1 is an essential anterograde microtubule motor protein. The core kinesin motor is a homodimer of two heavy chains; N-terminal motor domains hydrolyse ATP and walk along microtubules, whilst a...
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

I really hope at the very least they let unsuccessful applications this round reapply...!

Rob Fagan@robfagan.bsky.social

They've separately said: Our transition to new ways of working also means we unfortunately expect to make a reduced number of awards to applications currently being assessed by our four research boards and developmental pathway funding scheme. www.ukri.org/blog/mrc-fun...

ukri.orgMRC funding updateAn update on MRC funding during UKRI’s transition, what’s changing, and the next steps for paused opportunities and reopening timelines.
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

hmm. not much reassurance here - other than the full new system will be up by the '2027 to 2028 financial period' and 'To repeat the point: levels of funding for curiosity-driven research will remain stable across this SR period and are reflective of recent years'. lets hope we can hold out...

ukri.orgOpen letter from Ian Chapman to research and innovation communityUKRI Chief Executive outlines changes to UKRI investment approach, addressing concerns about research funding and the financial position of STFC.
Andrew MacAskill
@macaskillaf.bsky.social

we already know that LMB and crick are covered - i just hope there is some left for the rest of us. i think we need to shout louder that these places dont do anything that much better than universities, despite having tons more cash

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Giorgio Gilestro
@giorgio.gilest.ro

I think we should make a bigger fuss about this. It is as existential as Trump's cuts and could not come at a worst moment for UK science, beaten by Brexit through visa costs, fewer students, and inflation. Plus: these top-down approaches NEVER WORK. NEVER. Haven't they learned anything?

Mark A. Hanson@hansonmark.bsky.social

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate). Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating. Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

researchprofessionalnews.comMRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional NewsBoards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls

Andrew MacAskill reposted

Mark A. Hanson
@hansonmark.bsky.social

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate). Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating. Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

researchprofessionalnews.comMRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional NewsBoards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls