NeuroLife 📎 Salyp Olga

Found cool paper about pseudoreplication by Lazic (2010) .

It addresses a simple question of what actually counts as an independent sample?

In neuroscience, we often collect many measurements from the same animal like cells recording from the slice, of behavioral trials, fields of view, etc. It can be tempting to treat all of them as independent n. But if they come from the same experimental unit, they are not independent biological replicates as they can influence on each other by ways we dont know/ dont see.

This matters because pseudoreplication can inflate the effective sample size, underestimate variability, and produce artificially small p-values, making an experiment appear more statistically accurate for hypothesis supporting than it really is.

The paper is important because this mistake often happens and it can quietly affect the entire study.

My big recommendation: Lazic, S. E. (2010). The Problem of Pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis?

#events@Sci_Neuro_Life

Meeting and school NeuralNet 2026, Paris, France

One of this meeting organizers, Arthur Leblois, was my teacher during masters degree. He send this:

Dear colleagues, 
We are pleased to announce the opening of registrations for NeuralNet 2026 Paris (Nov. 25th-27th, Odéon Campus of Université Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France)

The program will explore four broad themes — Neural Codes & Representations, Perception in Context, Learning, Memory & Adaptation, and Brain States & Network Dynamics — bringing together leading researchers working across systems and computational neuroscience. We also encourage the submission of contributed talks and posters. 

Participants are invited to join the famous spike sorting mini-school before the conference (23-25 November). The mini-school is free of charge but registration is required.
Info and registration on: https://neuralnet2026.sciencesconf.org/

We look forward to receiving your contributions and to welcoming you to Paris in November for three days of exciting science, discussion, and networking with the Systems and Computational Neuroscience community.

Best regards,
The NeuralNet 2026 Organizing Committee

I found a really cool tool for anyone interested in brain development.

I dived into the discussion with my colleges
about how gene expression changes across brain development in different animal models, and how it can affect the reproducibility and interpretation of studies investigating the same disease in different models. The topic led us to the comparison of the data made on the human brain and brain human-derived brain organoids.

So, at the end we found an online resource called HuMous, which is compiling transcriptional maps across embryonic development and neuronal differentiation. Basically, it compares gene expression in the developing human brain, mouse brain, and brain organoids.

So just pick a gene and see how its expression changes across development, and u do see where organoids actually resemble the human brain and where they don’t.

I think it is useful resource for thinking about how transferable our findings really are between model systems.

Website: https://www.humous.org/html/humous

Some pictures from today
I am starting my PhD, I can't believe it, but I should )

Paper cite Wikipedia. Is it okay?

I was reading the review about Focal Cortical Dysplasia by Mohsin et al. (2023) Cureus, and there is a ✨Wikipedia✨ page in citation 11. I had the Henry meme face for a moment like whaaaat

* review: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10601976/

The scientific review should include more "stable", in the sense of regularization, scientific statements with, for instance, peer-reviewed literature and with generally more reliable evidentiary basis. The WiKiPeDiA in the contrast is the a tertiary source,which content can be edited by anyone.

The citation #11 was supporting a relatively simple background statement, it was in the very beginning and after the relatively general information ... but still... WiKiPeDiA??
Yes yes, the Wikipedia itself may have been based on scientific literature, so cite THIS literature wtf guys 😂
#meme

Deutsch Amazon

I ordered some stuff to furnishing my room and some books too. I was expecting it today with a feeling of a child waiting for a Christmas present., like no joke i wanted something to heal after yesterday things.

But my room Amazon said that my packaged was “delivered” to the neighbore door, even tho i was at home the whole day, they just didnt find the right door lol. And the door that they found is an auto service! which is closed already 😭 oh my goooood i needed this retreat todaaay. Apparently it is a normal practice in Germany for some reason. My poor boooooks

Amazon : 1
Olga: emotionally destroyed.

It didn't work
This weird appointment system is apparently for “emergency residence matters.” Which is exactly what my situation

I explained that my PhD is about to start, and without visa/residence permit my salary and thus ability to survive in Germany is under the question. I need permission to work here asap. Apparently, none of this was qualified as the emergency?? I have questions about this system's justness

so i arrived before 5AM and waited till 11 to get this. oh man 6 hs of waiting... Instead of help, I was given the email of the “special team” handling work-related residence permits, the team I’ve already contacted twice, with no response

Meanwhile my lab called embassy and even directed email from Bonn University explaining the situation and asking to speed upy visa process. The response was unstructured something like we are not responsible for that, sorry not sorry

Damn, I will connect everyone in the embassy now, I need answers

5AM queue to immigration office

I still don't have visa 18d for my PhD contract. The program starts in 10 days, and without research visa, Univ refuses to start a contract with me

It is not possible to start the contract with french residence permit, I tried. So I decided to apply for German residence permit. Chances that it will work out even smaller but I will try

The immigration office did not have a single appointment for the Aug and Sept, so I am trying life queue option, where "you should arrive at 5 AM on every Thursday". So I am here, the queue is so loooong, and there is not enough seats, so I comfortably placed myself on metal beam of office reconstruction

I arrived on the bike bcz bus is too easy and other people who wanted to go to immigration early as me, would use it. So I arrived right before the queue started to double every 10 minutes, no joke I can't see the end of it

Thank Gods I forgot a book in my bag, the one I can't force myself to start, i have no choice now 😂
#Bonn@Sci_Neuro_Life

Going to Bonn

I still did not received 18d visa, and to my request about the date they answered that they don't know and that research visa is usually could be done in 3 months

I need to have a visa before the September first. There is no problem to start a contract later, but i need to start exactly at September bcz o need to pass the exam on animal experimentation, which is only once in a year for employed people

It was super fast decision to go to Germany. It was hard to leave the place that became a home for me, and my precious people. I don't know when I come back, as the path is long and expensive.

First time I took flixbus, and it is 17hs (!). I mean... It is still better than the same amount of time but changing train stations, stressing about German trains and carrying all the stuff