Jim Heys
Prof @UUNeurobiology. Father, scientist. Lover of music, ethereal landscapes, and getting lost in both. He/him 🇨🇦
- Reposted by Jim HeysI had the wonderful opportunity to be part of Rising Stars Symposium this year and it was amazing! Great science, great people and a great place!! It was one of my highlights of this year! If you are a neuro grad student, I highly encourage you to apply! ✨
- Neuro grad students! Applications for the 6th annual - Rising Stars in Neuroscience - due Jan 9! Don’t miss this chance to present research, sharpen science communication skills and connect with peers & faculty. Plus you’ll get to experience stunning Utah! medicine.utah.edu/neurobiology...
- Reposted by Jim HeysNew preprint from the lab! A frontal motor circuit for economic decisions and actions: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We use a novel task in mice, cortex-wide imaging and optogenetics, NPX recording and modelling to reveal a circuit mechanism that transforms abstract decisions to spatial actions.
- Neuro grad students! Applications for the 6th annual - Rising Stars in Neuroscience - due Jan 9! Don’t miss this chance to present research, sharpen science communication skills and connect with peers & faculty. Plus you’ll get to experience stunning Utah! medicine.utah.edu/neurobiology...
- Reposted by Jim Heys“Our findings challenge the conventional focus on low-dimensional coding subspaces as a sufficient framework for understanding neural computations, demonstrating that dimensions previously considered task-irrelevant and accounting for little variance can have a critical role in driving behavior.”
- Highly recommend checking out Thomas’ lab! Perfect for students and postdocs looking for rigorous training and a chance to help shape the next wave of the field.
- My colleague, office mate and friend Thomas Luo (@thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social) has just left to start his own lab (theluolab.org). If you are looking to join a lab in neuro. and/or machine learning, you could not hope for a better mentor. Congrats to @utah.edu for the great hire! Please share!
- That’s a wrap on #SfN2025 for our lab. Feeling grateful to do neuroscience with such an outstanding group — and to catch up with friends and colleagues across the community. SfN always reminds me how lucky we are to be part of this field.
- Today’s the day—our lab presents this afternoon at #SfN2025! Stop by and check out the new work.
- Excited to share new work from our lab at #SfN2025! @sfn.org Posters on how the brain learns about time and space—from foraging and MEC dynamics, to RNN + hippocampus in curriculum learning, to MTL vs striatal activity across learning, and cognitive aging in social isolation stress. Check them out!
- Reposted by Jim Heysthanks for speaking out @markhisted.org
- Federal workers are speaking out on how the Trump regime is harming Americans: "We stand here today at a moment of the greatest assault of our lifetimes on our freedoms. The US Constitution is being shredded... We are here to call on Congress to stand up and stop it." youtu.be/uw1KwIBgrCw?...
- Reposted by Jim HeysHow does the brain decide? 🧠 Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc. After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up. rdcu.be/eGUrv
- Congratulations to the Rising Stars in Neuroscience – Class of 2025! This is one of my favorite events each year, and this year was no exception. Keep an eye on this incredible group of scientists—they’re doing amazing things!
- Heading to #COSYNE2025? Don't miss our latest work, led by Jack Bowler, on curriculum learning! We've uncovered how recurrent networks in the entorhinal cortex and RNNs develop specific dynamical mechanisms for abstract learning, depending on how they are trained. Poster #1-058| Thursday Eve
- Perfect day on the mountain with my little shredder! ❄️⛷️ Fresh snow, big smiles, and a well-earned après—hot chocolate for him, a beer for me. #DadLife #ApresSki
- Just spent 30 hours reviewing for an NIH study section set for Thursday—now postponed indefinitely. 20 other scientists did the same. This is happening across multiple sections. A huge waste of time, resources, and funding, with real costs for science and economy. Trump admin is bad for everyone.
- Being a scientist in the U.S. feels especially stressful right now. Here’s a bit of early morning backcountry ski zen to share with you.
- @james-gagnon.bsky.social for the video credit
