Rui Ponte Costa

Pleased to say that our story of how a theory of self-supervised learning in cortical layers accounts for several experimental observations is now out 🎉 nature.com/articles/s4146…

After a year of review, our paper is now out in @NatureComms ! I really think our model/theory offers one of the most promising frameworks yet for learning in neocortical circuits - perhaps not in its final form, but the core principle of ssl feels right. Hoping experimentalists…

Our study on the impact of altered serotonin (5-HT) signalling on developing sensory cortex is now live @NatureComms We use longitudinal in vivo imaging of 5-HT & neural activity to show that this neuromodulator is buffered in early life to promote bottom-up instruction.

Sharing this very cool drawing of our paper that @kevin_nejad generated using AI systems that have themselves been trained via self-supervision, which seems very fitting :) nature.com/articles/s4146…… @OxfordDPAG

Closing soon! Register by July 1st for UK Neural Computation 2025 neuralcomputation.uk ECR day: 9 July - careers, grants, starting a lab Main meeting: 10-11 July - 13 speakers, 70+ posters, sandpit Hosted by @imperialcollege Sponsors @ARIA_research @TheCrick

Our preprint is finally out! How can we understand the role of Behavioral Timescale Synaptic Plasticity in credit assignment? Does it fit into existing supervised and unsupervised learning frameworks? What theoretical gaps are still left unexplained? biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Hello World: My team at FAIR / @metaai (AI Research Agent) is looking to hire contractors across software engineering and ML. If you are interested and based in the UK, please fill in the following short EoI form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

We will be hosting a public kick-off for the data collection phase of the OpenScope Predictive processing community project. All are welcome to join! Tuesday, May 6, 2025 from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM (PST) 🧵

I'm looking for 2 Research Assistants for 1-year positions to investigate biophysical mechanisms of learning (finally the formal procedures are open for applications)

Reminder that deadline for applying for our Encode: AI for (neuro)Science fellowship is coming up (30th!) encode.pillar.vc/apply

Our new paper is out in Science. What is the synaptic plasticity rule in the brain, we asked. It turns out there are multiple, even within individual neurons. Congrats Jake! science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Lots of people are interested in leveraging the Encode: AI for Science fellowship to start a startup. Next week we’ll have a virtual info session on how we’ll help fellows start leading companies. Join us!

Registration is open for UK Neural Computation 2025 @Imperial, London! neuralcomputation.uk/registration.h… ECR day: 9 July, ~30 free places Main meeting: 10-11 July Pls share! Sponsors @ARIA_research (@JacquesCarolan) @TheCrick Organisers: @DanAkarca @neuralreckoning & me

How does our brain predict the future? Our review of predictive processing + research program is now on arXiv arxiv.org/abs/2504.09614 50+ neuroscientists distributed across the world worked together to create this unique community project.

Encode: AI for Science projects range neural decoding, AI scientists, materials design, plant engineering, human cognition... Lots of people have been reaching out to learn more. Come hear from our academic advisors directly! We'll be hosting live Q&A every day next week.

Are you training self-supervised/foundation models, and worried if they are learning good representations? We got you covered! 💪 🦖Introducing Reptrix, a #Python library to evaluate representation quality metrics for neural nets: github.com/BARL-SSL/reptr… 🧵👇[1/6] #DeepLearning

Science is under threat in the US. @elife have commissioned a series of articles discussing the implications and what we can do. The first three articles are now live. More to follow: elifesciences.org/articles/106702 elifesciences.org/articles/106704 elifesciences.org/articles/106710

Looking for an exciting fellowship in neuroAI, with competitive salary (~£100k)? Our group is hiring for a project on AI for Systems-Behavioral Neuroscience, more info here: encode.pillar.vc/projects/behav… #compneuro #neuroai #neuroscience #ai

The @ClopathLab has a fully funded PhD position open for Oct in Computational Neuroscience at Imperial College London. If you are interested, just send us an informal e-mail!

🚀 Fellowship applications are OPEN for Encode: AI for Science. What if you could use AI to - Design shape-shifting robots - See through solid materials - Decode language of the brain - Create advanced materials