Mathematical Neuroscientist. Biologically Inclined. Postdoctoral Researcher @ NeuroPsi (CNRS, Paris-Saclay). Modelling psychedelic- and stimulation-induced shifts in consciousness. Theorising about computation, causation, information, and emergence.
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🚨 New preprint 🚨 "Immersive NREM dreaming preserves subjective sleep depth against declining sleep pressure." We analyzed 1,024 awakenings collected across 196 nights with high-density EEG (256 ch.) to explore the relationship between dreaming and subjective sleep depth. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Throwing this one into the virtual void in the hope there are a few hapless souls interested: Would anyone like to participate in an #Information #Geometry reading/journal/study club? Preferably in person, if you're in Paris. But, would consider doing an online one *for sure*.
But it does, however, look exactly like the long black coffee ;-)
Brighton feels as good as I remember it.
🧠 New preprint! 🧠 As part of a forthcoming book on consciousness, we wrote a chapter on: Spontaneous thoughts and experiences across wakefulness and sleep osf.io/preprints/ps... with @parboulakis.bsky.social @ademertzi.bsky.social and @jdsitt.bsky.social A brief 🧵!
This really does sound amazing. I'll be looking into this. Also, I absolutely love the colour pallette. :-) Congratulations!
The first major output of the @templetonworld.bsky.social @arc-intrepid.bsky.social adversarial collaboration testing IIT & predictive processing theories of consciousness is out now arxiv.org/abs/2509.00555
📜 ¡New preprint! 📜 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧪🧠 With amazing alumni from @mesec-community.bsky.social and including: @zefanzheng.bsky.social @robertchisciure.bsky.social @jaanaru.bsky.social @bechir-jarraya.bsky.social
Thank you so much for having me!! I always have a blast chatting with @bethfisher.bsky.social and this time was no different! 💕 Also I loved your reflections in the end and how both of you have change your mind perhaps a bit through sharing your experiences with each other. So cool and precious!
The rise of the machines or the age of digital-infantilism? I tried a thing.. Here I write on the current digital-situation we find ourselves in. With an optimistic view on our future, with wider-reaching - and hopefully biologically-centred - aspirations. It's fun, general, and personal writing
If #emergence is your thing, and, even if it isn't, here is a great annual workshop -- now on its third iteration(!) -- where you will get to hear some great presenters, of which, I am the least interesting. Really looking forward to it!! @sussexcogs.bsky.social
Today, Eric Schmidt and Selina Xu write in the @nytimes.com on the necessity for a deflation of idolising #AGI. Great piece.
Agree! I think the challenge, and the secret, lies in the *degree* of 'similar-enough' 🤗
So wait, they are or they aren't important? If they enable specific processes, doesn't that imply they are important?
Precisely my question, what criteria of biological naturalism do others think is necessary, sufficient, or even just interesting to explore..(?) 🤓
Would this by a biologically-centred position you’d be willing to buy into? Nothing magical—just something specific to only biology (as we currently know it), but does not need to remain so.
Haha, no, not necessarily. Doesn’t have to be qualified with ‘special’. 😊 Let’s say, there are biomechanisms that are engineer-able. But that you don’t get with current systems. Those engineer-able mechanisms might be precisely those that operate in systems like us—wet packets of biochemistry.
What about rather than life itself, it is rather some #features of life processes that are also core ingredients for the soup of consciousness? And, I’d be interested to hear what would be a good argument #for biocentrism—as I do agree, we should avoid just replacing one magic, with another..
Interested in Network hubs, cortical hierarchies, and gradients? Ever wonder where they come from? Check our latest review, where we cover different approaches to mapping hubs, models for their evolution, and mechanisms for how they develop: osf.io/preprints/os...
Great article by @markdhumphries.bsky.social here. Humphries’ work had a significant impact on my thinking. This is precisely what we attempt to do in our recent preprint, and in previous published neural modelling work. I’m sympathetic to the focus on dynamics in coarse graining.
The post Rick Bretzel reposts is one I am enamoured by as I currently read the paper myself. I completely agree with Rick that slow, and thoughtful science is the way forward. Not everything, everywhere, all at once. It reminds me that in a world levelled by noise, the quiet resounds furthest
Are you interested in our work on complex physical systems and applications (to neural systems)? Wanna join us in Sydney? 🐨 🦘 We have two open positions: 1. Postdoc position: usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/USYD_EXTERNA... 2. Fully-funded PhD position: www.sydney.edu.au/scholarships...
Interested in cortical wave dynamics? Check out our new preprint led by J Cruddas with @jchrispang.bsky.social where review the physics and physiology of cortical waves and their implications for psychological function: osf.io/preprints/ps... @nsb-lab.bsky.social
If you are in Paris on October 1-3 : we are organizing a fantastic cognitive neuroscience conference at Collège de France, on topics ranging from language to math, education and consciousness, with many of my favorite scientists ! Full program here: www.unicog.org/seeing-the-m...
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This caution, to me, includes measures of emergence and my own work, as well. They are, like all complexity measures not exempt from it. So maybe, like what I find in my results--that more emergence doesn't equate to more consciousness: same for complexity. Very happy to discuss all of this more!
To add, I don't even know if I believe that 'higher' consciousness is actually a thing. A rule I live by is that: conscious of more *does not equal* more conscious. It has helped me on my path thus far. 😅
I do agree however that measures of LZ for example do peak with randomness (though there is a really cool old paper showing that this might not be the case, if I find it I will link it here). Measures are only as good as their utility, so one should always be cautious with what we infer from them.
Lenore! Thanks so much! I'm glad you find this interesting, it a pleasure to hear that from someone like you. As a general short answer, no, I think it is important to disambiguate emergence measures and measures of neural complexity, or algorithmic complexity (signal diversity).
@thomasandrillon.bsky.social puts it brilliantly here. Maybe indeed, less, rather than more, is more.
The pleasure remains mine. 🤗
I'm not sure what you mean, but please feel free. 🤗
Don't walk in front of me, for I may not follow. Don't want behind me, for I may not lead. Walk beside me, and be my friend. A.C. 17/n
Without @anilseth.bsky.social , @thomasandrillon.bsky.social , Lionel Barnett, and Olivia Carter, this work is not possible. So, as a little emotional ending to this thread I'd like to paraphrase someone much wiser than I.. 16/n
This was an incredible journey, with, for me, far-reaching implications. But none of it would’ve been possible without the colleagues and friends who helped challenge, constrain, and co-create the science. Science remains a collective pursuit. 15/n
There is much more in the paper, that you'll just have to go and look at yourself. ;-) 14b /n
While #computers enforce clean separations—#hardware vs. #software, #micro vs. #macro—the brain doesn’t play along. Wakeful minds #entangle #scales. #Consciousness emerges *not* from separation, but from entwined, and #scale-#integrated dynamics. 14/n
It also tapped into a deeper theme: #Biological #brains break the rules we use to design #artificial #systems! And maybe that’s the point. 13/n
It gave us a #new #perspective on #neurophys #data and the relation to conscious states. Hopefully with some insight into how neural dynamics, across scales, relate to up-keeping wakeful states. And in turn, how a specific type of #fragmentation occurs under anaesthesia. 12/n
Anaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness, by contrast, breaks this vertical tether: macroscopic dynamics proliferate and become fragmented, producing an explosion of the number of closed macros discovered on each scale that never consolidate into structured and dominant dynamics 11/n
I realised that this paradox dissolves if we recognise that conscious experience depends on integration across spatiotemp. scales of brain activity. Here, the wakeful brain sits at a sweet-spot where macroscopic dynamics remain tightly interwoven with their micro-level 10/n
Our results flipped the script on the old intuition that more emergence means more consciousness. And just like that (light bulb moment 💡) 9/n
Contrasting this with #wake, and to a lesser extent the #dream-like #ketamine anaesthetic state, which display *lower* overall emergence but a far more structured emergence landscape! It was crazy wild! But it took time to grasp the deeper insight behind it. 8/n
Getting into the nitty gritty, we found drug specific effects. First, propofol and xenon both *elevate* emergence while fragmenting the emergent landscape across the #multiscale #heterarchy. 7/n
The results overturn an intuitive assumption that richer #consciousness should coincide with greater #emergence. Instead, we show that loss of consc. is characterised by higher emergence (meaning stronger cross-scale decoupling) yet the emergent landscape becomes fragmented 6/n
We applied DI to source-reconstructed EEG recorded while participants were awake and while consciousness was suppressed by propofol, xenon or ketamine. What we found was confronting, exciting, and completely reshaped how I think about emergence in the brain. 5/n
Simply: how do different anaesthetic agents reshape the #dynamical #landscape of neural activity across emergent, macroscopic scales? We finally had a way to measure it. So, why not be bold enough to test some of our deepest intuitions? 4/n
Enter: #Dynamical #Closure. What I was really after was how closed macroscopic scales are from their micro-level generators. And, how this closure might relate to neural dynamics underlying conscious states, and if it is modulated during unresponsiveness. 3/n
The starting intuition is that measures of #emergence shouldn’t just quantify how much emergence there is, but also reveal how the resulting emergent #dynamical #landscape is structured and organised. The real challenge? Figuring out how to do this across scales. 2/n
📜🪇[PUBLISHED]: NEW PREPRINT!🪇📜 I am incredibly excited to announce that we have published our paper on how "Dynamical independence reveals anaesthetic specific fragmentation of emergent structure in neural dynamics" w@thomasandrillon.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social Barnett, Carter Strap in! 1/n
Was a pleasure to present!! 🎉🤓
1/ Today at @assc28.bsky.social from the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science and friends: 9:50am, Kalokainouri Hall, @neuromorphicboki.bsky.social "Unfolding Sleep’s Emergent Dynamical Organisation in the Temporal and Spectral Domains"
Today, on our closing day, we begin with the cohesive and clear work of Carmen Miguel. Here she is providing us with a model of chasing movement of pairs of fish. Going beyond just toy examples of collective dynamics!
..After which.. we have the wonderful #synch.live active scientifico-movement-performance!
Yesterday was closed by my own 3hr tutorial in which I dived into #Dynamical #Closure and #Autonomy as a particular perspective on emergent processes. I introduced a broad theoretical framework and then went in depth about #Dynamical #Independence with a #python #implementation!
Next up!.. Madalina Sas presenting a consilience between artistic and scientific methods in her practice to discover emergent phenomena. Fascinating! #EmbracingComplexity @ifisc.uib-csic.es
After an afternoon swim and a beautiful dinner yesterday we begin refreshed for the 4th day of the workshop with David Sanchez presenting on whether human coordination is embedded in social network structures. In the image is a fascinating analysis of the use of ‘bruh!’ Across the U.S., #bruh.
Our third day begins with a #Workshop #Tutorial, by the always-erudite Pedro Mediano. Making distinctions between the difference ‘faces’ of an #information-theorist he presents a clear starters guide to information in #complex #systems.
For the first #workshop of #EmbracingComplexity, Julia Mindlin explains how Takens embedding can be used to chatacterise time-series from climate-specific dynamical systems. With the addition, of measuring their complexity under particular criteria. Fascinating work!
Antonella Tramacere moves us towards not only thinking about the positives of emergentist thinking, but towards its limits as well. A talk that is proving powerful with its considered precision of thought.
Next, Leonardo Gollo highlighting a key notion of scales and the duality of whether a priviledged scale is a necessary assumption.
Today we kick off with @frosas.bsky.social, with an opening overview of the utility of maths when confronting challenges in philosophy, particularly ideas of emergence!
After lunch, we have begun with Lucas Lacasa (@wetuad.bsky.social) who is introducing the use of #federated #learning as implementable solutions for cross-institutional problems. Highlighting industry applications of quantifying #emergence. @ifisc.uib-csic.es
After lunch, we have begun with Lucas Lacasa (@wetuad.bsky.social) who is introducing the use of #federated #learning as implementable solutions for cross-institutional problems. Highlighting industry applications of quantifying #emergence. @ifisc.uib-csic.es
Next, @canalesjohnson.bsky.social showing that shifts between temporal integration and segregation in sound phenomenology is concomitant with information exchange of neural dynamics between Frontal and Posterior regions prior to report. Super cool!
We kick off #EmbracingComplexity with the inimitable @laurennross.bsky.social explaining two key aspects of emergence that cause philosophical and scientific challenges. Challenges we hope to tackle! @ifisc.uib-csic.es @rherzoga.bsky.social
We're looking forward to welcoming everyone to #Mallorca tomorrow at the @ifisc.uib-csic.es, for the #EmbracingComplexity: Principled and practical approaches to #emergence! It's going to be a stellar line-up, during what appears to be a few glorious summer days. See you tomorrow everyone! 🎉🎉
We need your help!!! 🧠🧪💤 If you are human, you fall asleep at least once a day! What happens in your mind then? Scientists know actually very little about this private moment. We propose a 20-min survey to get as much data as possible! Here is the link: redcap.link/DriftingMinds
📢Alain Destexhe and colleagues from @neuropsi.bsky.social introduce a computational framework to study how molecular changes impact brain activity. #compneurosky #Neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s43...
Great piece of work by a tech-master of EEG analysis.
A huge proponent of this way of thinking. It is to me an absolute, that academia and ideas are at a complete loss without extended periods of mindwandering. Something I have always valued artist friends who were able to retain it, but better than us academics.
The belief that artificial consciousness is coming crucially depends on the assumption that consciousness is a computation. In this new paper, we'll try to convince you that consciousness cannot be a computation w Albert Gidon and M.Larkum www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu... #neuroAI #consci
Finally, I think editors and reviewers get a lot of flack. But, to be honest, the review process here was incredibly stimulating and made the work much more complete. Without it, it would not be the work you see before you today. I'd like to thank the reviewers for there care and effort! 8/n
Fascinating results (for us anyway!!), that made us wonder about the #scale-integrated nature of #emergent #dynamics in neural systems. This has far reaching consequences for the way we understand brains and minds in humans and machines. And further, how they are structured. 7/n
We show that this dynamical structure is #maximally organised, but #minimally emergent at balanced points of #integration and #segregation, and otherwise, at the extremes of both of these dynamical forces. That is, the macros are maximally emergent, but minimally organised, i.e., fragmented. 6/n
Beyond the thread accompanying the preprint, the main take away should be restated, i.e., this dual aspect of our research program: We want to go #beyond #emergence and capture the dynamical structure of said emergent dynamics. 5/n
An aspect we felt was key to any new method---and often missing---is a *really* transparent, self-contained, and complete example of how to use it. This was our attempt at providing that. 4/n
The key is that we *very* systematically show how our Dynamical Independence framework works on simple synthetic data. Serving as a step-by-step tutorial on what you can do with it! 3/n
There is already a greater starter thread accompanying the preprint here: bsky.app/profile/neur... But there are a few things we vamped up. 2/n
🎉 FINALLY PUBLISHED! 🎉 We outline how to capture the #emergent dynamical structure in #biophysical neural models. coauthored with a team dear to my heart; @thomasandrillon.bsky.social, @anilseth.bsky.social, Lionel Barnett, and Olivia Carter. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Thank you 😊
How does one register?
With immense pleasure, here is our #TICS opinion paper on "mind blanking"! @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social **Where is my mind?** A neurocognitive investigation of mind blanking www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... With Jenny Windt, @antoinelutz.bsky.social and @ademertzi.bsky.social
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Use OneTab! :-) best extension ever.
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To go fast, one must go slow.
So, let’s probe consciousness, from all perspectives! 🫀 4/4
I’m incredibly humbled by the position. It will allow me to continue developing #complexity and #emergence measures *and* develop principled models of pharmacological and tES actions on brain dynamics and their benefits for therapeutic intervention. What more could a nerd like me ask for?! 🤓🤓 3/4
Here—with Alain’s incredible team—I will be developing multiscale neural models of psychedelic- and electrophysiologically-induced fluctuations of global brain states in the hope to understand the actions governing alterations in consciousness. 2/4
📣LIFE UPDATE📣 I’m incredibly excited to finally announce that I’ll be beginning a postdoctoral position at the Institut des Neurosciences (@neuropsi.bsky.social), CNRS (@cnrs.fr), with Alain Destexhe. 🥰🥳🍾 1/4
Just finished. This is a great piece.. along the right lines of thought!
Whether IIT's axiomatic framework is useful or not I think can be debated. I have wavered on this myself at times. But I don't think axiomatisation itself is unscientific. In fact this is the exact debate that occurred in post WWII mathematical research in the U.S. History repeats I suppose.
Often, domains of inquiry were well developed before being axiomatised. But I commend the effort. Also as @neuralreckoning.bsky.social suggested there is pre-Hilbert notion of axioms (a la Aristotle) and post-Hilbert notion of axioms, which differ slightly, but crucially.
But, FEP isn't axiomatic at all. To add, there is a lot to say about axiomatisation of formal systems both, historically and pragmatically. All axioms are assumptions and *not* proven facts. The only critique one can give axiomatisation in consciousness science is that it happened prematurely.
E-fields doing their thing. Just sayin’..
Love stumbling across gems. Noise, is not just noise, lets stratify this notion more often:
Heresy! LLMs are nothing like biological systems. #watchthisspace They do come with a separate set of issues indeed if taken too literally, I agree.
Agreed. I think the problem is the syntax and semantics. I’m for letting go of mind-first definitions (a la W. James)—attention, consciousness, etc.— for a more brain-first definition of function (a la Buzsaki). I think mapping from this inverse direction might yield nifty results.
What is a causal process?