Ali Mohebi
@mohebial
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Dopamine. Science. Technology. Reason. Photography. Baking. Films. Psych Prof @UWpsych
Madison, WI
Joined August 2010
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My final postdoc paper is 'finally' out and published in NatNeu. I consider this the best work I have been involved in. Here, we present evidence of a systematic change in how the striatal dopamine signal integrates reward time horizons.
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Dude is my little brother, a 2nd year resident at Mt.Sinai pulling long hours taking care of Corona patients.
Trump can call Iranians names and ban us from US entry. We respond with unconditional kindness and care. We are all in this together and we will survive.
Dude is my hero
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I am psyched. I am moving to Madison!
I could not have asked for a better environment to thrive. I will have more updates, still stoked. For now, I promise not to let the power structure in academia change me. I have long chosen which side I am on. I will remain on 'your' side ❤️
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Fiber photometry is a great technique. Given its infancy, there are not established methods for running the experiments. One issue is how to pick excitation powers for LEDs. Here, I am sharing some thoughts in my latest blog.
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I am more than thrilled to share with you all the results of what I have been working on and thinking about for the past few years. This is an invitation that 'forces a rethink of dopamine regulation', to borrow Margaret Rice's words
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I'm talking about the part of the task where rats work for 10% chance of getting rewards...
Stranger PI- I don't get it, at those odds why don't you give up?
Me- because I'm a postdoc looking for academic jobs and you are a PI seeking grants with 10% payline?
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I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that multi-million dollar equipment available only to select labs are a more serious financial barrier to reproducible science, compared to the $250/yr MATLAB license. Rejecting a paper based on the choice of software used is preposterous
It is an interesting question. Is it ok to push back on non-reproducible (for the non-rich) computational research? Does it make the paper less useful from a code-reuse perspective? If this becomes a standard in atmospheric science, should it become a standard in neuro?
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Happy postdoc appreciation week. Are you a PI and wanna really appreciate your PDs? Advocate for above poverty line ($82k in SF) salaries and COLA. Don't brush it off saying 'they are just trainees'. PDs produce labor that runs our science labs. Call them scientists, not trainees
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Here's a new dopamine idea we have been cooking for a while now. I think it's palatable now: Striatal dopamine pulses follow a temporal discounting spectrum. I will try to explain a few chirps, but to get the full story read our preprint. 1/n
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I'm considering recruiting psychology/neuroscience graduate students for the lab in the Fall of 2024. If you're interested, pleeease apply! Deadline: Dec 1st.
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Thank you for speaking up friends. As a former H1-B beneficiary I relate to the stress and psychological torture this brings upon my colleagues. But please, please.
Defend us because we are human beings, not just stats contributing to the economy.
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Folks. I need to correct myself. Read the details below in a great thread by Nic. Briefly, results in Fig.1 of our recent paper (mohebi . eLife 2023) are confounded by photoswitching artifact. 1/n
Are you using the red dopamine (DA) sensor RdLight1 in combination with blue light for dual-color optogenetics/photometry? If so, read on...
1/n
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Folks- I have a preprint update on our
#dopamine
quest:
"Cholinergic Interneurons Drive Motivation by Promoting Dopamine Release in the Nucleus Accumbens". I will try to summarize it here:
1/9
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I am very excited about this. A primer on fiber photometry that came out of a fun fun collaboration with some of my favourite neuroscientists... I am gonna miss our 6:30am meetings :)
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[Contains personal news] How do neuromodulators affect cortical activity during high cognitive tasks? Having graduated(?) from striatal DA, I am crawling upstream(?) to PFC.I am grateful to NIMH for their support of this effort and to
@berke_lab
and
@sohallab
for their mentorship
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Stop! There is a RdLight ahead. Of course, dLight is amazing, but RdLight is doubly fun. I am so happy that we got to collaborate on the characterization of this amazing tool with
@tpatriarchi
@LinTianLab
and co...
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Out here for a job interview and the universe is sending a message? I will promise not to 'ever' grow up. Ok?
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It is time. I am looking for a faculty position to start an independent research program. If you are looking for a colleague who studies the neuromodulation of cognitive processes in rodents, let me know. I now even have a website that you can browse! 1/n
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In out first preprint from Berke lab, we show that dopamine release is not a passive readout of dopamine cell firing. I will try to summarize a few key takeaway points in the following thread...
Forebrain dopamine value signals arise independently from midbrain dopamine cell firing.
#bioRxiv
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What's going on in your head? I wish I knew. All I am doing is sitting here and keep staring at these dopamine traces, mesmerized.
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Some personal news. I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted an offer from a bio/tech startup backed by Peter Thiel. I am leaving science and you all behind. It was nice meeting you and indeed fun while it lasted. See you on the other side?
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Over the next year, I will ask my friends here to help me find equipment for the lab. I will compile them in a publicly available list to pay back your kind assistance. You can find the list here:
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Wow. I woke up to an email invitation to the huberman lab show. We are discussing dopamine fasting, motivation, and cognitive control. I may disagree with some of his viewpoints,but I will not miss the opportunity to use his platform to promote my own brand. Send me your Qs 4 him
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Last mouse surgery at UCSF: ✅
Resignation form submission: ✅
I'm ready my lord.
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My dopamine was so ramping up in expectation for
#GRCBG2020
. But with high expectations, comes the risk of huge negative RPE.
Will be missing you all good old friends and new friendships that I did not get to build and all the cool science that won’t get expressed. Stay safe.
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I am spending my in between jobs unemployment time in Tehran. How do we cope with a looming threat of war between Israel and Iran? We drink tea, go to museums, and try to enjoy the fragile moments while they last...
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True story: a few months back a colleague asked me if the paper gets accepted at a journal and gets picked for a "news and views", who do I like to author that piece. I said Margaret Rice. My wish came true today, read this well-summarized piece
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nAChRs on fire!
@XOanAxon
@KhaliqLab
did it again. I heard the story fresh from the man himself, cannot wait to dig in for more details...
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Final day at UCSF ✅
I left and it started raining. Time and rain will wash everything off.
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My time has come. Last sunset in SF. Thank you for all the love and all the ups and downs. I will miss you all. Parts of my heart will ALWAYS remain there.
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It occurred to me this morning that Edward Hopper (my all-time favorite painter) knew about this social distancing thing long before us...
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This was a real conference: as I am leaving I am 1) jet-lagged and 2) eager to go back to the lab and do a thousand new experiments and write a million papers and 3) missing my friends already 😢
@VidaConference
Thank you to Ben
@cellularscale
@lindsaypcameron
@christineliuart
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@DrNadiaChaudhri
We will meet again. Perhaps somewhere near this beautiful place where tectonic plates meet ❤️❤️
Thanks for being an amazing soul.
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Loren Frank is one of the best science speakers I have seen. I would love to hear his tips on how (one way) to give a good science talk.
Join us next week for a fun conversation with Loren. This event is free and open to public. Invite your friends too!
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Signed the dotted lines, surrounded by love. So, thank you for being...
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Here's an updated version of our latest thoughts on dopamine. More data, more analyses, more words, same spirit. Will you check it out and let me know what you think?
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I shared some recent thoughts on the academic job application journey in this blog post. These are all just my personal views. There are some great compiled resources out there (some I added as a reference).
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This Science paper is science at its best. I cannot express on how many levels I am happy to see it receiving the recognition it deserves. The DA paper of 2022. It goes directly to the 'must read' folder of anyone interested in neuroscience. Congrats to Vijay and Huijeong.
Very excited to post our lab’s first paper where we propose a new theory of learning and dopamine function . Here’s a few folks in our lab being taught by my daughter to dance to a “dopamine” song to celebrate 1/30
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I am told as an immigrant that I should respect my host country and shut-up.I call BS. I like this country for a number of reasons,among them:I can express my views w/o the fear of prosecution (or at least have an illusion of that). I will not give in to injustice. No one should.
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This is a must read. A thorough review of the existing knowledge and a blueprint for future discoveries... Big thanks and kudos to
@MariRSosa
and
@lisa_giocomo
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GRC BG is the best. Thank you all, safe trip home, and see you soon!
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Accumbens DA is so pacific... I keep staring at these traces and DLS keeps staring back at me
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:: This is a pledge statement. I urge all my colleagues to join me here. 1/n
I have worked on so many weekends and after hours (on my own volition). It was not until recently that I realized we are all victims of a toxic work culture. All of us, PIs, PDs, GSs, lab techs et al.
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Ask not what your dopamine can do for you – ask what you can do for more dopamine.
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Happy new year everybody!
2019 was a lucky year for me. I got my main postdoc paper published and my travel restrictions got relieved so I could go back home to visit the family.
May the new year be full of blessings for you all and the new decade a kinder one to all of us.
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This is one of my all time favourite photos: women's March (in opposition to the religious suppression), Tehran 1979/1980, photographer unknown. Glory to all women and their allies in this good fight. I am with you.
#InternationalWomensDay
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This thanksgiving I'm going home (after 10 f** years) in part to celebrate the old man's 70th birthday. I feel emotionally numb after all these years but I suppose I should start making up for the lost time. If u see a man dancing/weepin at the terminals, that's me.
#HOMECOMING
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This is not acceptable. What changed since a month ago that made the leadership to change their decision? These concerns in the statement were valid 3 months ago. And now canceling after the advance registration deadline is not ok. Full Refund, including the membership $$$
The Society for Neuroscience will hold
#SfN21
as a fully virtual experience, eliminating all in-person options that had been planned for McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.
See our October 8 statement for more details.
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I would say that the best way to 'optimize' your dopamine content is to eat 1 kg of banana peels everyday. Dozens of science-adjacent studies recommend that in pursuit of happiness, one should go bananas.
The key thing to optimizing dopamine is to be sure that the reward you experience is scaled with the effort involved to obtain it. It’s also a good idea to just randomly delete the reward every once in a while. Effort for efforts sake is truly (& positively) transformative.
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"If I am to choose what I can have in the afterlife, I will pick friends and you can have all the other heavenly gifts"
It was such a bliss to catch up with the old ones and meet new ones
#grccatecholamines23
. I love you all, even if I missed the chance to take a selfie...
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Bay area friends. I will be co-organizing a fun! seminar series with the wonderful Amin Saberi. For the next 10 weeks, we will get together every Thursday evening on the Stanford campus to talk about the interface of neuro/computer science. Join us for the inaugural talk! RT plz?
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For various reasons, I cannot care less about most traditions and I’m not a politician, so I don’t have to pretend that I do.
But this year and on the first day of spring, I am going to celebrate
#Nowruz
. May we all feel the blessing that nature has to offer ❤️ نوروز به شادی
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A few weeks back when the idea of a virtual DA meeting sparked, I would not have guessed that we will have more than 1000 registrations, a line-up of distinguished speakers, and such quality poster abstracts. Thank u to all who donated their time generously. See u
@VidaConference
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And used to think I am good at multitasking.
@christineliuart
either has a time-turner or has come here from a different planet. She was hosting a webinar and responding to emails and Twitter and webinar chats and slack and DMs and you name it. Hats off
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Latest from my bff and one of the kindest and brightest neuroscientists I have ever met (
@TimAmosK
) on
#dopamine
ramps and their meaning as rats navigate on a hex maze, in pursuit of probabilistic rewards...
This was a massive project and Tim delivered single-handed, from A to Z
Dual credit assignment processes underliedopamine signals in a complex spatialenvironment.
#biorxiv_neursci
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Cheers to PIs who align the mechanics of their research program with the mental health of their lab members. Salut to those who pick mental health over mechanics when the two are in conflict.
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For 1 open position in the bay area this year, we had over 800 applicants.That's where the problem persistently 's not CNS v. biorxiv. Maybe the single PI system doesn't work. But no one seems to care about modernizing the structure of academic recruitment.
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Do you also miss catching up with old friends and meeting new ones at the annual neuroscience meeting? We sure do.
@MariRSosa
@Kurt_Fraser
and I are hosting a cross-institutional presidential picnic party at the Golden Gate park.Invite ur friends n Join us!
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Cables? Any sort of cables that trainees use to record signals with? The more expensive the more reinforcing. Not easily replaceable? Even better. GS spent two nights soldering the cable? They LOVE it. They will do anything, jump through any hoop to get to that delish cable...
Hey behavioral neuroscience peeps... What treat do mice like to eat most? I need something highly reinforcing that they're willing to run a simple maze for. Preferably a treat they can eat within 5 min in a goal box.
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noob Q. What's the kosher way of doing chemogenetic silencing these days? hM4Di and not CNO (what then?) or KORDs and SalB?
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I truly appreciate
@NicTritsch
for rigorously examining this effect and kindly discussing it with us. This is a great example of how science will collectively progress. Thank you for your service and collegiality , Nic. 3/n
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ok, CA imaging is fine and maybe fun and I will do it too, but stuff like this scares the hell out of me and makes me more certain not to let go of good old ePhys. Yes, it takes longer and more work, but spikes are spikes...
"under conditions typical of population imaging studies only a minority of 1AP and 2AP events were detected (often <10% and ~20-30%, respectively), emphasizing the limits of AP detection under more realistic imaging conditions."
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If you are also stuck at home and need to get work done on your laptop, get a mouse and stop using your trackpad. It will boost your productivity from 1.2% to perhaps 2% to so. Every little bit counts. You are welcome
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Look. Let's admit it. Most of us scientists were bookworms. We LOVED to read shit. Do you and your labmates also often complain about how little time you have to read cuz you're running experiments all the time? If so, how is this ok? Is it part of adulthood? Are we broken?
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Cannot be more excited about the 2nd installation of ViDA with this amaZing lineup of speakers. Thank you to all for accepting the invitation and generously donating their time. Thank you.
See you all soon!
Join the second star-spangled ViDA conference! Submit an abstract to present a poster or be selected for a short talk.
Short talk abstract deadline: May 14th
Poster abstract deadline: June 1st
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"Your first few years may be stressful. New job, duties, funding, etc. You want to ensure you don't dump your pressure and stress on your students. Keep calm, smile, and carry on. You are not a startup CEO, don't act like one".
-Solicited advice from a friend/mentor.
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Our schedule is finalized. Submit an abstract today to present a poster and be considered for a short talk! Amazing lineup of speakers. Three dayz of DopeTalks. Join the conversations
We've finalized our schedule! Some of the sessions will not be recorded, so make sure to tune in live.
Today is the last day to submit an abstract to present your research! Register now!
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@KathaSchmack
Thank you for saying this. This is one of my worries as well as “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.”
The solution, as you laid out, is being proactive in seeking feedbacks, self reflection, and having honest friends.
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This, I also learned painfully. There is always someone who has published more in higher IF journals than you and has won more awards etc.
My solution: 1) do the science that you enjoy not the one that brings you awards and recognition. Then you won't ever lose. 1/2
But here's what I've learned, slowly and painfully: there is always someone who achieves more than you at something. Thanks to social media and the award & journal prestige culture in science, its pretty easy to find people who, in the short or long term, have "more" than you. 3/
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Amin and I are delighted to host
@GaryMarcus
at our weekly seminar series: Learning and reasoning in carbon and silicon. Today's lecture is open to the public. Join us today for a livestream on youtube.
Thursday, April 21st, 16:30 PST
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Visiting SF for the holidays? Here's a list of things you can do.
Day 1: Golden Gate Park. Grab your morning coffee either at Flywheel or Snowbird and head inside. Pass by Hippie Hill and visit the National AIDS memorial grove. Then pass by the Rideout Fountain to get to 1/n
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Of course, I'm here to record those cells.
I'm sure that's what dinosaurs did 65M years ago. They woke up one day, sky was like this and T-rex was like, fuck I have work to do. It's not like I can change anything. I will try to enjoy it while it lasts... We are the T-rex
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Last week, I had a vaccine breakthrough, showed symptoms, and tested (+) for COVID. 12/12 people who were in close prolonged contact with me prior to symptoms emerging (including my brother who lives with me) tested (-)
Vaccines work and help curb the spread of this pandemic.
The euphemistic term "vaccine hesitancy" is becoming seriously misleading. It is value-neutral, even carries a faint connotation of deliberation and thoughtfulness. But that's not what has happened with the COVID vaccines. Anti-vax feeling in the US was induced, incited.
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DA friends and enthusiasts: Mark your calendars for a one-day full of DA talks.
PIs: Encourage your postdocs to apply.
PDs: Consider applying for a future of Dopamine talk.
[If there is DA in basal ganglia and you study BG, you are also encouraged to apply, DA is inclusive]
RT
Hey old friends. We haven't talked for a while. ViDA is now back for an exciting one-day event in November. We are delighted to present and showcase the work of future leaders of the dopamine field. If you are an advanced postdoc with a full-length story to tell, please apply!
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Last week, I visited my old city after 10 years of being away. The city had changed and so had I. But we could still talk after all these years, sometimes hug each other or yell at each other but often exchanged prolonged gazes. Here are some of the gazes:
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After doing this for many years, I still get stressed out and anxious before giving a talk and then once it's over I am so pumped and don't want to leave the (virtual) room. I'm the last person who goes to bed.
Thank u to the audience who care, attend, listen and ask questions.
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I’m in tears (with a smile on my face). I am irreversibly damaged by the xenophobic policies that he enforced (backed by SCOTUS).
I only live once and the damage is done, but oh well life goes on. I don’t want to hear about him anymore (unless it’s news coming from SDNY).
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RPe-like signals in GPe. Cool new study from my old friend and mentor, Michael Farries of
@berke_lab
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I have decided to start my day by reading work-related books (and not original research papers). Started reading and enjoying
@samljwilkinson
's intro to the philosophy of psychiatry. A must read topic for all my behavioral neuroscientist colleagues.
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Unsolicited advice I received: you are not negotiating with your future colleagues. They are always on your team. You are negotiating with a bureaucratic machine called university admin. Ask for ALL you need to launch your research program, in writing.
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Got back home from GRC. It felt surreal to meet old friends and make new ones.Kindness was flowing in the air. One example: I was presenting a poster. Before starting a new walk through,I asked if I can run to get some water.Water cooler was empty and I came back disappointed 1/2
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@yael_niv
@ashleyruba
All due respect, but with this logic, almost everyone is a trainee. Assistant professors? They are learning in the job. Associate Profs?Them too. CEOs? Might as well. Presidents? Of course. Call postdocs what they are: scientists. Then maybe institutions start 'appreciating' them
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Let me try to summarize this story. So apparently dopamine is important. Very important.
@kanyewest
level important. And we all have heard that it's related to reward. But how exactly? Dopamine is important to 'learn' from rewards and the 'motivation' to work for more rewards.
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Amin and I are delighted to host Josh
@berke_lab
this Thursday at 4:30pm to have a fun discussion about my favourite molecule, dopamine, and the role it plays in multi-scale learning (in carbon! which may inspire learning in Silicon?). Join us if you're around n bring ur friends!
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#ViDA2020
Slack channel is on 🔥
Q&A from the morning sessions is continued online. Thank you to
@naoshigeuchida
and
@jesseGlab
for following up with the rest of the questions and the amazing talks this morning! We had ~2100 cumulative attendees this morning
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Folks. If you have an AAV-delivered tool that has verified expression in mice, can you assume that it reliably works in rats? If not, who would you blame? AAV Serotype? Promoter? Tool (opsin/indicator etc?). Thanks!
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I have seen PIs reacting furiously about this saying that they got their job without having a CNS paper.That's not the point. mplicit in the postdoc community's frustration is the broken pipeline of faculty recruitment in academia.Odds of getting a paper accepted in Nature is 8%
Job Market: If someone tells you that "yo do not need a CNS paper for a faculty position" it is a lie. Today job market is that you will compete against senior PI, people with 2-3 CNS papers or 50 first author for a junior faculty position. This is the market today.
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Lots of things are banned/unavailable in Iran. Someone asked what will be the first thing I will do when I move to US: "I will buy a Kindle". I purchased this machine in 2010 and has been loyal since. Hats off to an electronic gadget that remains functional after 12 years...
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