Disrupting the pathological synchronous firing patterns of neurons with high frequency stimulation is a common treatment for Parkinsonian symptoms and epileptic seizures when pharmaceutical drugs fail. In this paper, our goal is to design a desynchronization strategy for large networks of spiking neurons such that the neuronal activity of the network remains in the desynchronized […]

Can teaching students about brain plasticity improve their grades? A recent large, national experiment (Yeager et al.) found that a brief growth mindset intervention improved lower-achieving adolescents’ grades by 0.10 points. Debate about interpreting the study’s findings illustrates the need to consider effect heterogeneity and contextual factors when evaluating effect sizes. Read Full Article (External […]

The computational framework of reinforcement learning (RL) has allowed us to both understand biological brains and build successful artificial agents. However, in this opinion, we highlight open challenges for RL as a model of animal behaviour in natural environments. We ask how the external reward function is designed for biological systems, and how we can […]