July 2025 - Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

The Best Illusions of 2024 and Launch of the 2025 Best Illusion of the Year Contest!

by smart＠neuralcorrelate.com

Dear Illusion Enthusiasts, Voters around the globe chose the Best Illusions of the Year from the Top 10 Finalists competing in the 2024 edition of <https://illusionoftheyear.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31742f75c7d963 97d9dee170b&id=318af74924&e=7e260e6cae> Best Illusion of the Year Contest (hosted by the Neural Correlate Society and sponsored by the Museum of Illusions <https://www.museumofillusions.com/> ). The TOP 3 winning illusions were revealed on Wednesday, July 2nd. First Prize and a $3,000 award went to "The Static Spin" by Saleeta Qadir and Bernhard Egger, Germany. Second Prize and a $2,000 award went to "Dollusion" by Duška Milosavljević, Serbia. Third Prize and a $1,000 award went to "Tri-form Prism" by Hiroaki Hamanaka, Ryohei Miki, Kyota Yamamoto, Japan. If you enjoyed the spectacular illusions that competed in 2024, please consider making a tax-deductible donation <https://www.paypal.com/webapps/shoppingcart?flowlogging_id=d2461f180023b&mf id=1607894519576_d2461f180023b#/checkout/openButton> to the Best Illusion of the year Contest. We rely on your generous help to continue to share the wonders of illusion with people of all ages and backgrounds, all over the world. We are now accepting submissions for the 2025 edition of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest! We invite you to submit your mind-bending illusions through September 20, 2025. Don't miss the opportunity to be part of next year's top illusions and compete for international recognition and cash prizes. Contestants are invited to submit 1-minute YouTube videos featuring novel illusions (unpublished or published no earlier than 2024) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) and/or cognitive nature. Novel variants of known illusions are welcome. The content of the 1-minute video presenting your illusion is solely up to you, and the only requirement is that it wows all viewers! Some examples include, but are not limited to: * A slide presentation, or succession of images, with a voice over (and/or written text, if you prefer) * A video of yourself describing your illusion * A video animation/theatrical performance of your illusion An international panel of impartial judges will rate all the videos and narrow them down to the Top 10. Then, online voters around the world will choose their favorite illusions from the Top 10 finalists. The Top 3 winners will receive cash prizes: $3,000 USD for first place; $2,000 USD for second place, and $1,000 USD for third place. The Judge Panel will rate illusions according to: * Significance to our understanding of the human mind and brain * Simplicity of the description * Sheer beauty * Counterintuitive quality * Spectacularity Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the Judge Panel. Only the Top 10 illusions will be posted online, to allow worldwide voting. Participation in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also presenting or submitting your work for publication elsewhere. By participating in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest you agree to have your illusion posted on the Contest website, if selected among the Top 10, and included in press releases and other promotional materials/fundraising initiatives for the Contest. You (and your co-authors, if appropriate) will retain the full copyright of your illusion and receive full credit as illusion creator(s). Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2025 Contest, as long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the Top 10 finalists in previous years. You can send your 1-minute video to Susana Martinez-Conde via email ( <mailto:smart@neuralcorrelate.com> smart(a)neuralcorrelate.com) until September 20th, 2025. On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Author, Champions of Illusion <x-msg://2/championsofillusionbook.com> and Sleights of Mind Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences University 450 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn NY 11203, USA Email: smart(a)neuralcorrelate.com <mailto:smart@neuralcorrelate.com> Phone: +1 718-270-4520 <tel:%2B1%20718-270-4520> http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com

July 20, 2025

Postdoc in human neuroscience: Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA

by Rozell, Christopher J

The Structured Information for Precision Neuroengineering (SIPLab)<https://siplab.gatech.edu/> at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA) is hiring a postdoctoal fellow to work with Drs. Christopher Rozell and Sankar Alagapan. We are seeking a postdoc with a background in human neuroscience who has finished (or is about to finish) a doctoral degree in Psychology, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, or related areas. The ideal candidate will have experience in conducting human subject studies with neural data acquisition (e.g., EEG, MEG, intracranial EEG, fMRI) and be proficient in analytical approaches for neural data analysis (e.g., artifact removal, time-frequency analysis, functional connectivity, etc.). Experience in cognitive neuroscience, brain stimulation, mobile EEG, other physiological data streams, or advanced machine learning approaches (e.g., dynamical systems modeling, deep learning) will be considered a plus. We are looking for a highly motivated and creative individual who enjoys working in an exciting interdisciplinary research environment. This role will build on our recent advances<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06541-3> in neurotechnology therapies for treatment resistant depression to further understand the circuit basis (and potential therapeutic approaches) for psychiatric disorders. In particular, this position will contribute to ongoing efforts<https://reporter.nih.gov/search/CNg6B0FeU0yAGojyUQpnYw/project-details/1104…> in studying brain-body relationships underlying effortful behavior in healthy individuals, individuals with depression, and individuals undergoing intracranial monitoring for epilepsy surgery planning. Training will include advanced machine learning approaches, brain stimulation, multimodal data acquisition, and analysis. The lab is committed to the professional development of the members, making it valuable preparation for people who are interested in academic, industrial or entrepreneurial careers. The position has no mandatory teaching or administrative duties, but the successful candidate will take an active role in mentoring students and further developing the research program. Excellent (written and oral) communication skills in English are required. The start date is flexible but ideally would be as soon as possible. The position is initially for 12 months with the possibility of renewal. Compensation will be commensurate with relevant experience and NIH standard scales. Georgia Tech has competitive benefits (including comprehensive medical insurance) and is an equal opportunity employer. Georgia Tech is a vibrant intellectual community, including the recently launched Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology & Society<https://neuro.gatech.edu/>. The campus is in the heart of midtown Atlanta, which is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas (and entrepreneurial communities) in the United States. Outside of work, Atlanta boasts a wide range of opportunities for recreation, culture, and easy access to domestic and international transportation. Candidates should send a CV, a statement of research experience and interests, expected date of availability, and the contact information for three references to Drs. Rozell (crozell -at- gatech -dot- edu) and Alagapan (sankar.alagapan -at- gatech.edu) with the subject line "SIPLab postdoc application". Applications are currently being reviewed and will continue until the position is filled.

July 16, 2025

[Newsletter RTAIM] 20th RTAIM Seminar | Workshop Mind and Cognition (w/ C. Craver, E. Jablonka, D. Walsh and H. Desmond) | 4th Inter. Conf. Ethics of AI (Attendance Registration) | Call for Papers (JAIC)

by steven gouveia

Dear All, You are welcome to attend the 20th rTAIM Online Seminar, with the participation of Diana Perez (Uni. Buenos Aires, Argentina), 16 July 2025, 3:00pm - 4:30pm (Lisbon Time) via Zoom with the title “Amplifying AI's problems in healthcare: the Case of Mental Health". Zoom info is available here: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/activities/seminar-20-rtaim We are also welcome to invite you to participate in the Workshop “Mind and Cognition”, with the in-person participation of: * Denis Walsh (Toronto University) * Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University) * Carl Craver (Washington University in St. Louis) * Hugh Desmond (Wageningen University) Registration is free (live stream will be available following this zoom info here: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/activities/workshop-mind-and-cognition) Moreover, registrations for Attending (non-speaker) for the 4th International Conference on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (4ICEAI) is now open. You can register following this procedure: * please go to https://www.letras.up.pt/si/subscriptions?event=118 and choose your registration (if Student or Professional); * After the payment, you should send us the proof of payment to interconfethicsofai(a)gmail.com; * Only the Online Segment (24/25 July) will be live streamed; the In-Person Segment (28-30 July) requires in-person participation; * Venue: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade Porto, Via Panorâmica Edgar Cardoso s / n, 4150-564 Porto. Online: Zoom Platform (only for those registered); * Final Program will be available here: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/activities/4-international-conference-ethics-ai. Finally, paper submissions for a special issue on AI, 4E and Consciousness at the Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness is available here (deadline: 31 August 2025): https://www.worldscientific.com/page/jaic/callforpapers02. Sincerely yours, RTAIM Team

July 15, 2025

Deep Math 2025 call for papers

by Ahmed El Hady

DeepMath 2025: Call for Abstracts We are pleased to announce *DeepMath 2025*: the 7th installment of the Conference for the Mathematical Theory of Deep Learning (www.deepmath-conference.com) This year DeepMath will be held at the *University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Michigan*. We have a stellar lineup of invited speakers including: * Laura Balzano (University of Michigan) * Rama Chellappa (Johns Hopkins University) * Jelena Diakonikolas (University of Wisconsin) * Surbhi Goel (University of Pennsylvania) * Thomas Icard (Stanford University) * Robert Nowak (University of Wisconsin) We are inviting researchers to present a poster during our poster session. Please submit your work no later than *August 31, 2025* on OpenReview using the following link: https://openreview.net/group?id=deepmath-conference.com/DeepMath/2025/Confe… <https://openreview.net/group?id=deepmath-conference.com/DeepMath/2025/Confe…> DeepMath is a highly interdisciplinary conference focused on understanding fundamental theory driving the success of Deep Learning. A principal goal of this conference is to bring together theoreticians working on deep learning from various disciplines and perspectives. We, therefore, encourage submissions from researchers from diverse disciplines including but not limited to * Statistics * Physics * Computer science * Neuroscience * Mathematics * Psychology * Engineering Topics may address any area of deep learning research such as: * Expressivity * Generalization * Optimization * Representations * Computation * Network architectures * Recurrent networks * Emergent abilities like in-context learning, reasoning To complement the many conferences with applications and theory the focus for DeepMath will be exclusively on the theoretical and mechanistic understanding of the underlying properties of neural networks. Abstracts will not be made public (i.e., no official proceedings), and will be doubly-blind reviewed and selected for quality. All poster submissions should be properly anonymized in order to allow for blind refereeing. *Submissions should be no more than 1 page* although a second page may be used for references. Authors should submit a pdf file prepared using the *Latex style file available **here* <https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-23451351/documents/5c90d93c12…>and should adopt all formatting, subject headings, font sizes, etc. defined therein. Submissions that fail to meet the format requirements will not be reviewed. The first author listed on the abstract is considered to be the presenting author. Each presenting author may submit only one abstract.

July 15, 2025

Postdoctoral Research Opportunity in the Institute of Machine Learning and Neural Computation at TU Graz

by Ozan Özdenizci

Dear all, We have an open postdoctoral researcher position in the Institute of Machine Learning and Neural Computation at Graz University of Technology, Austria. The project will be focused on developing energy-efficient solutions using spiking neural networks (SNNs) for wireless communication systems. The successful candidate will contribute to cutting-edge research at the intersection of neuromorphic computing and wireless technologies, in particular by designing novel learning algorithms for SNN-based energy-efficient neural receivers. Candidates are required to have a PhD degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, or similar. A strong background and research experience with spiking neural networks and deep learning are expected. The position will be jointly supervised by Ozan Özdenizci and Robert Legenstein, and it is fully-funded for 2 years in cooperation with Huawei Technologies Sweden AB. For details on how to apply: https://www.tugraz.at/institute/iml/institute/open-positions Best regards, Ozan Özdenizci -- Dr. Ozan Özdenizci Assistant Professor Institute of Machine Learning and Neural Computation Graz University of Technology Inffeldgasse 16b/I, 8010 Graz, Austria

July 15, 2025

JNS 2025 Satellite Symposium: Connecting Digital Brains Across the World: July 23, 2025, Niigata & Online

by Kenji Doya

We are organizing a Satellite Symposium of Japan Neuroscience Society meeting "Connecting Digital Brains Across the World” on July 23, 2025 at Toki Messe, Niigata, Japan: https://digitalbrainproject.github.io/home/JNS2025satellite.html On-site and online participation is free, not requiring a registration for the JNS main conference, but requires pre-registration from the above web site by July 18, 2025. Following short presentations, we will discuss what is a digital brain, how to build it, and how to use it. We welcome participants from wide fields including experimental/computational neuroscience and NeuroAI. Invited Speakers: Viktor Jirsa (Institut de Neurosciences des Systemes, France) Virtual Brain Twins for medicine Shinya Ito (Allen Institute, USA) Deep-learning-assisted simulation of a cortical circuit: integrating anatomy, physiology, and function Franco Pestilli (University of Texas at Austin, USA) Putting big data and AI to good use in neuroscience Sacha van Albada (Jülich Research Centre, Germany) Toward more standardized brain modeling to break the complexity barrier Saori Tanaka (ATR, Japan) A Brain Data Platform for the Digital Brain: Current Status and Future Directions Jason Ritt (Brown University, USA) Standardized Neuroscience Data Formats and Non-Standardized Scientists Charissa Poon (RIKEN CBS, Japan) A 3D transcriptomic and connectivity atlas of the adult marmoset brain Michael Denker (Jülich Research Centre, Germany) Kanso, Kaizen, Code: Three thoughts on finding Ikigai of digital brain science infrastructure Takuya Isomura (RIKEN CBS, Japan) Reverse engineering of generative models for predicting learning Organizers: Kenji Doya (OIST), Carlos Gutierrez (Softbank/OIST), Takuya Isomura (RIKEN CBS), Ken Nakae (Fukui University), Saori Tanaka (NAIST/ATR), Yukako Yamane (OIST) ---- Kenji Doya <doya(a)oist.jp> Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University 1919-1 Tancha, Onna, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan Phone: +81-98-966-8594; Fax: +81-98-966-2891 https://groups.oist.jp/ncu CAUTION: This email originated from outside the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

July 14, 2025

Open PhD position in project SHIFT: A Shift towards Dynamic Perception Analysis with Continuous Psychophysics

by Constantin Rothkopf

We have a fully funded open PhD position in the lab of Constantin Rothkopf (https://www.pip.tu-darmstadt.de/) at the Centre for Cognitive Science @ TU Darmstadt in a joint DFG-AEI project in collaboration with Joan López-Moliner (U. Barcelona) on continuous psychophysics. This exciting new experimental paradigm abandons the rigid trial structure involving binary responses and replaces it with continuous behavioral adjustments to dynamic stimuli: Bonnen, K., Burge, J., Yates, J., Pillow, J., & Cormack, L. K. (2015). Continuous psychophysics: Target-tracking to measure visual sensitivity. Journal of vision, 15(3), 14-14. https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2301260 Together with a computational analysis framework based on Bayesian inverse optimal control it is possible to not only recover the perceptual sensitivity but additionally estimate participants’ action variability, internal behavioral costs, and subjective beliefs about the experimental stimulus dynamics: Straub, D., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2022). Putting perception into action with inverse optimal control for continuous psychophysics. Elife, 11, e76635. https://elifesciences.org/articles/76635 In SHIFT, we want to validate, refine, and extend our analysis method for continuous psychophysics. Our group is part of the Centre for Cognitive Science (http://www.cogsci.tu-darmstadt.de/) and the AI Center at TU Darmstadt, which are home to an internationally outstanding group of PIs and junior researchers working in the areas of computational cognitive science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. We are part of several research consortia including two recently awarded Excellence Clusters (The Adaptive Mind & Reasonable AI), we are part of the Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience, and engage in multiple fruitful research collaborations. The lab has state of the art equipment for eye and body tracking, VR, naturalistic task monitoring, psychophysics and access to one of the most generous computing infrastructures in Germany. We foster an inclusive, supportive, and collaborative environment driven by scientific curiosity and mutual respect and we maintain close interactions with other research groups including joint lab meetings. Applicants may have a background in cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, psychology, engineering, or related fields. Don’t hesitate to contact me informally for more details if you have any questions. Please send an application including a CV, a two page cover letter explaining your research interests, motivation for joining the project, and contact information for 2-3 references in a single pdf file. Please include "SHIFT" in the subject of your mail. Applications will be reviewed on a continuing basis. The Frankfurt-Darmstadt metropolitan area is located in the heart of Europe and is one of the most international regions in Germany with a diverse community and rich culture repeatedly earning high rankings in worldwide surveys of quality of living. Frankfurt recently reached 7th place worldwide in a ranking of attractiveness by the Economist and Darmstadt has repeatedly ranked among the top innovation driving cities in Germany. All the best, Constantin Rothkopf -- Prof. Constantin A. Rothkopf, PhD Technical University of Darmstadt, Alexanderstr. 10, 64283 Darmstadt phone: +49 6151 16-23367 https://tu-darmstadt.zoom-x.de/my/crothkopf Psychology of Information Processing Group https://www.pip.tu-darmstadt.de/ Centre for Cognitive Science http://www.cogsci.tu-darmstadt.de/ Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence https://hessian.ai/ Institute of Psychology https://www.psychologie.tu-darmstadt.de/

July 14, 2025

Opportunity in Maastricht for a professor in computational neuroscience or AI in biology

by Jolivet, Renaud (MACSBIO)

The Dutch government has announced a scheme to attract excellent faculty from abroad (https://www.nu.nl/wetenschap/6362102/miljoenenfonds-om-wetenschappers-naar-…) My department (Systems Biology and Bioinformatics) already has 3 computational neuroscientists and one ERC Synergy Grant. We are interested in attracting one more faculty member. If you are already established and would like to move to Maastricht, please reach out to me ASAP. Renaud — Prof. Dr. Renaud B. Jolivet, FISC André Mischke YAE Prize for Science and Policy 2023 and MCAA Career Award 2022 Chair of Neural Engineering and Computation, MaCSBio, Maastricht University User Team Leader, ISOLDE, CERN ERA Forum Stakeholder Representative, European Commission Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, EBRAINS Polymath Fellow, GCSP +41798302129 (mobile) ‭+31433881741 (office)‬ r.jolivet(a)maastrichtuniversity.nl <mailto:renaud.jolivet@unige.ch> twitter.com/RenaudJolivet <https://twitter.com/RenaudJolivet> linkedin.com/in/renaud-jolivet-63b5534 <http://linkedin.com/in/renaud-jolivet-63b5534> scholar.google.ch/citations?user=9Ozwv7EAAAAJ <http://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=9Ozwv7EAAAAJ>

July 14, 2025

Call for Papers & Demos – NeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Foundation Models for the Brain and Body

by Nanda Harishankar Krishna

Hi everyone, We are organizing a workshop on “Foundation Models for the Brain and Body <https://brainbodyfm-workshop.github.io/>” at NeurIPS 2025. The workshop brings together researchers at the interface of biosignals and machine learning. We invite submissions of short papers on novel research in neuroscience, biosignal analysis, and machine learning, with a focus on foundation models and representation learning for neural, physiological, and behavioral data. We also invite interactive demo proposals that showcase novel methods, devices, or applications. We broadly define biosignals as any temporal signal directly or indirectly generated by the brain or body. This includes neural recordings (e.g., EEG, MEG, multi-electrode arrays), physiological signals (e.g., heart rate, respiration), and behavioral signals (e.g., pose extracted from video, gaze). Submissions may focus on methods, applications, or theoretical insights that enhance our understanding of neural and physiological signals in humans and animals. We particularly encourage submissions aligned with foundation model research: models that demonstrate scalability, generalization across tasks, subjects, or modalities. Relevant topics Include, but are not limited to: - Large-scale pretraining on neural or physiological signals - Scaling laws for biosignal foundation models - Brain-computer interfaces and neural decoding - Self-supervised learning for biosignals - Transfer learning across recording modalities - Wearable technology and real-world deployment - Cross-subject and cross-task generalization - Multimodal integration of biosignals - Robust models for noisy biosignal data - Applications to health and clinical diagnosis - Interpretability of biosignal representations - Few-shot, zero-shot, and continual learning in biosignal contexts - Synthetic data generation and augmentation for biosignals - Open datasets, benchmarks, and reproducible evaluation pipelines - Human-AI collaboration for signal interpretation and labeling - Modeling behavioral signals (e.g., pose, gaze) Important Dates - Paper Submission Deadline: August 22, 2025 (AoE) on OpenReview <https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2025/Workshop/BrainBodyFM> - Author Notification: September 22, 2025 (AoE) - Workshop Date: To be held during NeurIPS 2025 We have a great lineup of keynote speakers: - Hubert Banville, Meta - Juan Helen Zhou, National University of Singapore - Cuntai Guan, Nanyang Technological University - Guillermo Sapiro, Apple, Princeton University - Eva Dyer, University of Pennsylvania For more details, check out our website: https://brainbodyfm-workshop.github.io/ Best regards, Nanda H Krishna, on behalf of the organizers

July 11, 2025

School of Ideas in Neuroscience 2025, Warsaw, Sept 8-13

by Mateusz Kostecki

Hello! We are thrilled to announce the *School of Ideas in Neuroscience 2025*! How is knowledge in neuroscience accumulated? How can we make sense of the terabytes of empirical data collected every day? In our everyday work, we often forget that every scientific endeavor is embedded within a broader theoretical framework. At the same time, most courses and workshops in neuroscience focus on experimental techniques, providing us with more tools to gather more data—but rarely teaching us how to develop *ideas* and integrate our research with existing knowledge. We believe that theoretical thinking and idea development are skills that can be trained, just like learning new methodologies or data analysis tools. At our school, we aim to teach participants how to think theoretically—to collect data that makes sense and to make sense of the data collected. Come to Warsaw to discuss the most exciting *theories and ideas* with neuroscientists and philosophers! We provide beautiful surroundings, a great atmosphere, and plenty of time to talk and think together. The School will take place in *Warsaw, September 8–13, 2025*. The fee is *EUR 700*, but we offer *fee waivers* and *travel grants*. For more information and to apply, please visit: https://nenckiopenlab.org/the-school-of-ideas-in-neuroscience/school-of-ide… Best regards, The School of Ideas Team -- --- Mateusz Kostecki PhD Student Knapska Laboratory Nencki Institute 02-093 Warsaw, Pasteura 3, Poland https://twitter.com/mtkostecki https://evolvingbehavior.blog/

July 10, 2025