https://www.kellybclancy.com/blog-1 daily 0.75 2016-04-25 https://www.kellybclancy.com/blog-1/2015/7/25/stop-asking-women-to-change monthly 0.5 2019-08-09 https://www.kellybclancy.com/about daily 0.75 2024-11-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/dd11a0fa-6d85-44d2-a441-df1b1e979b8c/kclancy-twitter.jpg About https://www.kellybclancy.com/essays daily 0.75 2024-02-08 https://www.kellybclancy.com/soldiers daily 0.75 2022-02-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1432562711630-H5DJCP9DSG7PWI9K1X63/cover1-kc.jpg Soldiers of God https://www.kellybclancy.com/science daily 0.75 2024-02-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1569704978421-5QMM1J6B15FFWZ9BR3A6/tweetimage1+copy.jpg Science The sensory representation of causally controlled objects The experience of agency is integral to our sense of self and responsibility, and its dysfunction in a number of psychopathologies can have devastating social effects. Representations are fundamental to the idea of computation, and presumably underpin how the brain performs the seemingly alchemical transformation from ionic impulse to meaning. In this paper, we investigated the interplay of agency with sensory representations in the brain. The cortex transforms a series of representations of the sensory world in building sensory percepts. Only recently have scientists been able to study how an animal’s internal states, goals and actions feed back to shape this sensory simulcra, but little is known about how having a sense of control over an outside object affects how it is perceived. The ability to exert intentional control over external objects is informed by our sensory experience of them, in a continuous dialogue between action and perception. To investigate how control is represented at the sensory level, we devised an optical brain machine interface (BMI) task that enabled mice to guide a visual cursor to a target location for reward, using activity in brain areas recorded with widefield calcium imaging. Learn more on twitter, or read the paper here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1514066445392-C1SO5RI3C0SQJZCZBAMA/brains.jpg Science Mapping multi-scale cortical networks How do neurons in the cortex share information on local and global scales? The cortex is richly interconnected, and while fMRI studies have indicated that distant brain areas are fluidly coupled, we don't know how these dynamics are achieved at a cellular level over the static architecture of axonal projections. We recorded from individual neurons while imaging activity across the dorsal cortex to determine the functional coupling of individual neurons to activity in global cortical networks. This revealed that a change in behavioral state driven by locomotion reconfigures how individual neurons participate in distributed cortical ensembles. Read paper here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1514066619746-S85WCV9FWDEOAQK3WMW6/cover-ex.jpg Science The optical brain-machine interface How does a network control itself? Brain-machine interfaces are not only promising for neurological applications, but also powerful for investigating neuronal ensemble dynamics during learning. Optical readouts of brain activity enable us to non-invasively monitor the local network while animals learn a BMI task to understand how volitional control of a network is achieved. We trained mice to operantly control an auditory cursor using spike-related calcium signals recorded with two-photon imaging in motor and somatosensory cortex. Read paper, or see Nature Neuroscience News and Views https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1514066668026-QDXX7D5B16GENV7KT7HF/pain-mouse+brain+copy+copy.jpg Science Unlearning chronic pain The power of the brain lies in its ability to learn, and it retains this capacity throughout adulthood. Yet this very ability is the basis for many neurological diseases. Pathological states can be learned by the network: for example, elevated activity learned by various pain pathways result in chronic pain sensation, even in the absence of noxious stimuli. But what can be learned can be unlearned. This proposal of a novel therapy was awarded the Regeneron Prize for Innovation in Biomedicine for utilizing the brain’s endogenous capacity for learning to re-train healthy function in neuropathic pain disorders. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1514066640555-VCFRV6VQIF28QKY712DS/Clancy+cover+J+neuroscience+copy.jpg Science Sparse coding in somatosensory cortex Neurons fall along a spectrum of responsiveness, but what factors determine a neurons’ participation in network activity? We found that stimulus-evoked response probability correlated strongly with spontaneous firing rate, but weakly with tuning properties, indicating a spectrum of inherent responsiveness across pyramidal cells. Neurons projecting to higher cortical areas differed in whisker tuning and responsiveness, and carried different amounts of stimulus information. Read more here and here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/1515097692649-Z8O7XQN6ZDALFGY45GVP/ave-IK5-d1+copy.jpg Science Optical blood oxygenation monitor Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is a devastating risk for seizure sufferers, and the leading cause of death in patients with refractory epilepsy. While there is no single underlying cause in all SUDEP cases, hypoxia is of particular interest, and this intervention has implications for a wide range of disorders. Read more here and here. https://www.kellybclancy.com/playing-with-reality daily 1.0 2026-03-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55624163e4b0ef2fa3ba7201/06cf56a3-e51a-46d7-bc61-474aac0cdf4c/71wOacUsxpL._SL1500_.jpg Playing with Reality Named a Best Book of the year: The New Yorker | The Economist | The Guardian | Prospect Magazine | Behavioral Scientist Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and Zócalo Book Prize Order here | See my Royal Society talk here ‘Fascinating and brilliant’ —Steven Poole, Daily Telegraph ‘A wide-ranging survey of how games shape reality. By turns philosophical and polemical, this is a provocative and fascinating book’ —Economist, Books of the Year With the blazing mind of a scientist and the keen eye of a poet, Clancy emerges as one of the most important new writers of her generation. —David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford, NYT bestselling author Incognito and Livewired