Ali Mohebi
@mohebial.bsky.social
Loves stories. Behavioral Neurobiologist. Dopamine. Science. Technology. Reason. Photography. Baking. Films. Roger's Pink Floyd.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, UW-Madison
http://mohebi-associates.org/
Assistant Professor of Psychology, UW-Madison
http://mohebi-associates.org/
Pinned
Ali Mohebi
@mohebial.bsky.social
· May 1
There’s plenty to gripe about in academia these days, but one thing I’ll never take for granted: the chance to dive into deep conversations about cognition and neuroscience with brilliant minds every semester. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
:: Final session for our Psych 711 class
:: Final session for our Psych 711 class
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Thank you for the great summary, @thetransmitter.bsky.social, and the shout-outs from scientists we admire. There is so much we don’t know about how sex hormones modulate behavior and we’ll keep exploring!
“It’s giving mechanistic insight into how estrogen modulates reinforcement learning—all the way down to the molecular mechanism,” says Ilana Witten.
By @avaskham.bsky.social
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...
By @avaskham.bsky.social
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...
Sex hormone boosts female rats’ sensitivity to unexpected rewards
During the high-estradiol stages of their estrus cycle, female rats learn faster than they do during other stages—and than male rats overall—thanks to a boost in their dopaminergic response to reward…
www.thetransmitter.org
November 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Thank you for the great summary, @thetransmitter.bsky.social, and the shout-outs from scientists we admire. There is so much we don’t know about how sex hormones modulate behavior and we’ll keep exploring!
I am revising our 'expectations document' in which I'm listing what I expect from lab members (at various stages of their career) and what they should expect from me. I would appreciate it if you could share yours with me. I will eventually share mine once completed.
November 23, 2025 at 8:01 PM
I am revising our 'expectations document' in which I'm listing what I expect from lab members (at various stages of their career) and what they should expect from me. I would appreciate it if you could share yours with me. I will eventually share mine once completed.
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
As the Neuroscience 2025 meeting comes to a close, it's time for us to think about the future. Do you want to help us shape neuroscience research and future @sfn.org meetings? Consider nominating yourself or colleagues: www.sfn.org/about/volunt...
Call for Nominations
www.sfn.org
November 21, 2025 at 12:16 AM
As the Neuroscience 2025 meeting comes to a close, it's time for us to think about the future. Do you want to help us shape neuroscience research and future @sfn.org meetings? Consider nominating yourself or colleagues: www.sfn.org/about/volunt...
Goodbye to the beautiful friends I made and met again at #SfN2025. Community is everything. You are everything. Go back home and spread kindness, share a laughter with a friend and smile. Smile big. That's all that remains. All other glories will wash away, like your posters... Smiles will prevail.
November 20, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Goodbye to the beautiful friends I made and met again at #SfN2025. Community is everything. You are everything. Go back home and spread kindness, share a laughter with a friend and smile. Smile big. That's all that remains. All other glories will wash away, like your posters... Smiles will prevail.
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
when I was young, i used to wonder how people like this would fare in life, as they didn't seem suited for gainful employment. it turns out, the internet allowed them to accumulate a massive audience of similar idiots, enriching them and turning them into a presidential advisor
November 20, 2025 at 12:58 AM
when I was young, i used to wonder how people like this would fare in life, as they didn't seem suited for gainful employment. it turns out, the internet allowed them to accumulate a massive audience of similar idiots, enriching them and turning them into a presidential advisor
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
🚨I am looking for a POSTDOC, LAB MANAGER/TECH and GRAD STUDENTS to join my new lab in beautiful Madison, WI.
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
November 17, 2025 at 9:43 PM
🚨I am looking for a POSTDOC, LAB MANAGER/TECH and GRAD STUDENTS to join my new lab in beautiful Madison, WI.
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
If you want to figure out what this poster says (or discover the secret of life) come and hang out at the dopamine dinner.
Tomorrow Sunday 8pm-End. Waterfront bar & grill. Share with friends, even serotonin people will feel welcome.
Tomorrow Sunday 8pm-End. Waterfront bar & grill. Share with friends, even serotonin people will feel welcome.
November 16, 2025 at 1:19 AM
If you want to figure out what this poster says (or discover the secret of life) come and hang out at the dopamine dinner.
Tomorrow Sunday 8pm-End. Waterfront bar & grill. Share with friends, even serotonin people will feel welcome.
Tomorrow Sunday 8pm-End. Waterfront bar & grill. Share with friends, even serotonin people will feel welcome.
SfN opening lecture: wine tasting as the most comprehensive cognitive workout at the age of digital content. Oh yeah?
As the friend sitting next to me rightfully said: you can replace wine with cheese as the argument wouldn't change a bit.
As the friend sitting next to me rightfully said: you can replace wine with cheese as the argument wouldn't change a bit.
November 15, 2025 at 6:43 PM
SfN opening lecture: wine tasting as the most comprehensive cognitive workout at the age of digital content. Oh yeah?
As the friend sitting next to me rightfully said: you can replace wine with cheese as the argument wouldn't change a bit.
As the friend sitting next to me rightfully said: you can replace wine with cheese as the argument wouldn't change a bit.
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Thought now was as good a time as ever to join bsky - Excited to share a big part of my PhD work is finally published- 7+ years of experiments from a great team of people. Wishing I could be at #sfn2025 to celebrate with you guys! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Cocaine seeking and consumption are oppositely regulated by mesolimbic dopamine in male rats - Nature Communications
Here authors demonstrate how opposing trajectories of dopamine transmission underlie changes in drug seeking and taking over chronic drug use. Increased dopamine to drug cues elevates craving, whereas...
www.nature.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Thought now was as good a time as ever to join bsky - Excited to share a big part of my PhD work is finally published- 7+ years of experiments from a great team of people. Wishing I could be at #sfn2025 to celebrate with you guys! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Delighted to see this finally out: rdcu.be/eO9oW
We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.
We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.
Subsecond dopamine fluctuations do not specify the vigor of ongoing actions
Nature Neuroscience - Liu and colleagues show that the vigor (that is, speed and amplitude) of dexterous movements is not controlled by ongoing fluctuations in extracellular dopamine within the...
rdcu.be
November 10, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Delighted to see this finally out: rdcu.be/eO9oW
We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.
We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
How do VTA DA neurons sculpt downstream representations to reinforce actions? VERY excited about our new preprint (by Alex Pan Vazquez & @czimmerman.bsky.social )
VTA dopamine neuron activity produces spatially organized value representations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.04.685995v1
November 7, 2025 at 8:46 PM
How do VTA DA neurons sculpt downstream representations to reinforce actions? VERY excited about our new preprint (by Alex Pan Vazquez & @czimmerman.bsky.social )
Friedman once famously wrote: "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits", which arguably changed the way most Americans started thinking about business...
So I'm asking Cornell and others, what do you think the social responsibility of universities are?
So I'm asking Cornell and others, what do you think the social responsibility of universities are?
November 7, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Friedman once famously wrote: "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits", which arguably changed the way most Americans started thinking about business...
So I'm asking Cornell and others, what do you think the social responsibility of universities are?
So I'm asking Cornell and others, what do you think the social responsibility of universities are?
What a great TV show...
November 7, 2025 at 5:44 PM
What a great TV show...
Somehow missed this one. It appears to be yet another important study from the Kaeser group: "GRAB signals aren't pure; there is always cross-talk, and sometimes the cross-talks become problematic. And no, HEK cell measurements don't immediately translate in vivo..."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Innervation density governs crosstalk of GPCR-based norepinephrine and dopamine sensors
GPCR-based fluorescent sensors are widely used to correlate neuromodulatory signaling with brain function. While experiments in transfected cells often reveal selectivity for individual neurotransmitt...
www.biorxiv.org
November 6, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Somehow missed this one. It appears to be yet another important study from the Kaeser group: "GRAB signals aren't pure; there is always cross-talk, and sometimes the cross-talks become problematic. And no, HEK cell measurements don't immediately translate in vivo..."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Your job is not to protect the institution. You have it backwards: it's the institution's job to protect you.
November 6, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Your job is not to protect the institution. You have it backwards: it's the institution's job to protect you.
Nice! The newest version of my favorite figure-editing/poster-making software is now free! Give it a chance, shift+delete Adobe.
www.affinity.studio
(I don't know how to feel about the Canva acquisition thing going on. My gut feeling: I don't trust it, but I will give them a chance)
www.affinity.studio
(I don't know how to feel about the Canva acquisition thing going on. My gut feeling: I don't trust it, but I will give them a chance)
October 30, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Nice! The newest version of my favorite figure-editing/poster-making software is now free! Give it a chance, shift+delete Adobe.
www.affinity.studio
(I don't know how to feel about the Canva acquisition thing going on. My gut feeling: I don't trust it, but I will give them a chance)
www.affinity.studio
(I don't know how to feel about the Canva acquisition thing going on. My gut feeling: I don't trust it, but I will give them a chance)
This is the end. Gotham is falling. Ra's al Ghul has won. Sad day for our democracy, if I may say so.
Talk about an in-flight meal.
For the first time, researchers have captured rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Jqldmn
For the first time, researchers have captured rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Jqldmn
October 27, 2025 at 11:24 PM
This is the end. Gotham is falling. Ra's al Ghul has won. Sad day for our democracy, if I may say so.
All canonical views are wrong, but some are useful.
October 27, 2025 at 1:48 PM
All canonical views are wrong, but some are useful.
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
The Cummings Lab is hiring a postdoc to work in the areas of reward and addiction! Please see the ad below:
October 23, 2025 at 6:22 PM
The Cummings Lab is hiring a postdoc to work in the areas of reward and addiction! Please see the ad below:
Nature manuscript adviser. Not too bad, I uploaded one of my previously published manuscripts and got some good feedback. I suppose it's just GPT, further trained on a corpus of manuscript peer reviews that Nature owns...
October 22, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Nature manuscript adviser. Not too bad, I uploaded one of my previously published manuscripts and got some good feedback. I suppose it's just GPT, further trained on a corpus of manuscript peer reviews that Nature owns...
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Thanks all for the feedback. Some slight updates on this version, along with some further explanation on my neglected Medium page here: medium.com/metascientif...
October 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Thanks all for the feedback. Some slight updates on this version, along with some further explanation on my neglected Medium page here: medium.com/metascientif...
Powerful essay by Byung-chul Han:
From a pathological standpoint, the incipient 21 century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons...
From a pathological standpoint, the incipient 21 century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons...
October 20, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Powerful essay by Byung-chul Han:
From a pathological standpoint, the incipient 21 century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons...
From a pathological standpoint, the incipient 21 century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons...
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Out today at Neuron, our experiments show that frontal cortical representation of economic variables is jointly determined by spatial organization and downstream
connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
October 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Out today at Neuron, our experiments show that frontal cortical representation of economic variables is jointly determined by spatial organization and downstream
connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
Reposted by Ali Mohebi
Nice preprint from Veronica Alvarez's group on cortically-evoked DA mediated by ACh! I We observed something quite similar in birds, and interesting to see the sensory/prefrontal distinction
Cholinergic-dependent dopamine signals in mouse dorsal striatum are regulated by frontal but not sensory cortices
Everyday decisions depend on linking sensory stimuli with actions and outcomes. The striatum supports these sensorimotor associations through dopamine-dependent plasticity. Thus, the timing and magnit...
www.biorxiv.org
October 14, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Nice preprint from Veronica Alvarez's group on cortically-evoked DA mediated by ACh! I We observed something quite similar in birds, and interesting to see the sensory/prefrontal distinction
Goodbye ChatGPT wrappers. Hello, ChatGPT!
October 7, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Goodbye ChatGPT wrappers. Hello, ChatGPT!