kwitschas @kwitschas@social.cleverlibre.org

Hey neuromatch people! I just switched to this server in part because I wanted to have more conversations about metascience. So, I read the essay A Vision of Metascience

(https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html?s=09)

and I have some questions / would love to get pointed in the right direction towards people I can have more conversations with about this stuff.

I liked a lot of the content in this essay, and I really appreciate their effort to stimulate conversations about what alternative social structures for doing science could look like, and to make a plug for diversity in structure that could accommodate/empower, in principle, a broader range of people pursuing a broader range of scientific inquiries. That said, I'm a bit concerned that some of their proposed interventions (which to their credit they don't state would work or would necessarily be societally desirable) would exacerbate rich-get-richer dynamics. (Who do you think would get funding for moonshot proposals?) Much like the crypto/defi movement which partly inspired this essay, without substantial safeguards, I see a small group of currently already influential people (and some possible fraudsters) using new funding opportunities to further consolidate their power, all while touting that they're dismantling the old power structure. But maybe I'm just overly cynical ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Wouldn't a simple way to improve creativity/innovation and boost productivity be to move towards a less hierarchical, more egalitarian distribution of resources in science? My understanding is that there is a fairly sound literature (but correct me if I'm wrong) on how happiness boosts creativity, how equal societies are happier on average, and how diversity in leadership may actually support innovation and boost productivity (and isn't *just* morally desirable). I guess I don't see scientists and would-be scientists as having such huge variance in underlying abilities that it could possibly justify the way resources are allocated today. So, I'm wondering if adopting a more egalitarian approach would not only lead to better life outcomes for those of us that love and want to pursue science, but would also enhance and diversify scientific output.

Are there any reviews in the field of metascience that you could recommend that talk more about these types of issues? I just was a bit discouraged that this essay, which was being used to recruit more people into metascience, focused so much on selecting the "right people" to give huge sums of money to, when I believe (perhaps erroneously, but I sincerely hope not) there isn't that much variance in scientists' inherent ability to do good work, just in the extent to which they receive support to pursue that work.

Hello Mastodon! Thank you to everyone who has built this community.

Here is a brief #Introduction. I am a biophysicist. I am best known for:
- my research on liquid-liquid phase separation in biological and model membranes (https://www.biophysics.org/bps-bulletin/society-names-2021-fellows), and
- my advice to choose a research field with the fewest assholes (https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.5.20210607a/full/)

I am looking forward to learning more about all of you at this site.

New researcher position in my lab at Berkeley.

https://jobrxiv.org/job/lawrence-berkeley-national-laboratory-27778-postdoctoral-fellow-enigma-project/

The Kitten has commandeered The Kid's hamper and the cuteness level is off the charts 🥰 #catsOfMastodon

It's a bit older but it was new to me; I really enjoyed this article about a patient whose insights guided science.
https://www.propublica.org/article/muscular-dystrophy-patient-olympic-medalist-same-genetic-mutation

“The apparent exodus is a shock to the academic system that some researchers didn’t see coming but that others say has been palpable for quite some time — and is a trend only set to continue. ‘The majority of senior academics still don’t understand how fast this is coming,’ says Daniel MacArthur, a population geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia.

“Early-career scientists are not missing a beat, however.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02088-4

"There is one obvious way in which human neurons and their dendrites are different from dendrites in, say, cats or rats: they are bigger. However, are these anatomical differences, which alone could change the signal processing capabilities of dendrites [2.,3.], also accompanied by differences in functional properties?"

#Neuroscience #Evolution

https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(20)30069-3

When are we justified in calling mental disorders “brain disorders”?

I discuss Anneli Jefferson's excellent philosophical work on answering this question and offer some thoughts.

#psychiatry #philosophy #psychology #neuroscience

https://awaisaftab.substack.com/p/when-are-we-justified-in-calling

Kudos to Pam Belluck at the NYT for this opening paragraph - this is the right way to report on a story like lecanemab:

"The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a new #Alzheimer’s drug that may modestly slow the pace of cognitive decline early in the disease, but also carries risks of swelling and bleeding in the brain."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/health/alzheimers-drug-leqembi-lecanemab.html

The PhD is cool and all but it can take a serious toll on your mental health for some.

#academia #PhD #phdlife #science #xp @OpenAcademics @AcademicChatter

Good Morning Mastodonians. 🖖🙇🏻‍♂️⛩

Neuronal oscillations: early biomarkers of psychiatric disease?

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.1038981/full

This year will be the year of the rabbit 🐇

The Okazaki Shrine, also known as the Rabbit Shrine is a Shinto Shrine in Kyoto that is dedicated to the kami Susano-no-Mikoto and Kushinadahime-no-Mikoto from Japanese mythology. They had many children, five sons, and three daughters so the shrine is known for prosperity and childbirth, especially for those who are trying to conceive. The rabbits surrounding the shrine are also seen as a sign of fertility.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻?

@laurentperrinet asked about the timing but processing it not sequential in the brain. A much better way of thinking about it is in terms of "mutliple waves" of activity flowing in parallel with lots of shortcuts such that latencies in frontal cortex can be shorter than in other parts actually.

I'll follow up in a thread.
🧶​
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This was the original post:
https://neuromatch.social/@laurentperrinet/109641976823077689

#neuroscience
@cogsci

What a fantastic post on "oscillation" in the brain:

A great PhD position in our group led by Daniel Schneider 🔬 Applications can be submitted until the 15th of February! Details 👇 https://twitter.com/schneiderd85/status/1610985096495996928?s=61&t=Ikg8HIGxSs3RefVB4pIY_w

Want to get your footing with the basics of neural signaling? Looking for a good learning resource for your ugrad neuroscience students?

I've written a chapter on Neurophysiology for an upcoming *free* and *open-source* intro to neuroscience textbook... NSF funded with a great team of illustrators!

Happy for any/all feedback:

https://rcalinjageman.github.io/an_introduction_to_neuroscience