De Schutter Erik

Neurologist turned into Computational Neuroscientist

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

OCNC is back! So nice after two COVID cancellations.
https://t.co/xvFm1Nx55r

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is back!
Shorter 2022 edition will take place June 13-29 preceding the Neuro2022 meeting in Okinawa.
https://t.co/xvFm1NOGu1

[De Schutter OIST Lab @DeschutterOIST]

New editorial by Giorgio Ascoli, David Kennedy and me explaining that Springer-Nature decided not to renew our Editor-in Chief contract for Neuroinformatics. Farewell by the founding editors, wishing the best for the journal with an unclear future…
https://t.co/WkuZuSLQ78

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Springer Nature dumps Neuroinformatics Founding Editors-in -Chief.
Our response: https://t.co/XDYXbSHo8I

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Springer Nature wanted Neuroinformatics to accept a much higher fraction of submissions, including low quality incremental papers ('0.0x% improved early detection of disease Y in neuroimaging'). Editors-in-Chief refused to dilute manuscript quality and were therefore replaced...

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Neuroinformatics & other niche journals have become commodities, to be sold by gross weight. No person or university buys subscription to 1 journal, access is sold for large packages containing 100s of journals. Makes editorial policy of single journals commercially irrelevant.

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Springer Nature dumps Neuroinformatics Editors-in-Chief. Giorgio Ascoli and I were told that our contracts would not be renewed in 2022, "to bring in (undefined) new leadership to the journal". Shows that editorial independence is an illusion in a world of mega-publishers...

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

More international funding in Belgium (Grants 4). Example of innovative and risky research based on software development. Was supported by HFSP, no interest at University of Antwerp or Flemish funding agencies for this type of theoretical work. Time to leave for Okinawa...

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

International funding in Belgium (Grants 3). During the 15 years I was a PI in Belgium I obtained €4.6 million national or local funding + €4 million international funding (EU, HFSP, NIH). Only the latter supported our innovative computational work and software development!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

My Belgium experience end (Grants 2). Difficult to find good experts to replace Bart Vos✝︎. Finally Soon-Lim Shin got the experimental lab running again resulting in 2 nice papers (also "Dynamic Synchronization of Purkinje Cell Simple Spikes", J. Neurophysiology 2006).

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

My Belgium experience (Grants 1): easy to get national or local grants for experimental research, for which I am not qualified. Completely dependent on experts like Dr. Bart Vos✝︎. Funding to build in vivo recording setup from scratch.

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Disfunctions of granting agencies and scientific journals. In the following tweets I want to revisit an issue I raised in my "Fallacies of mice experiments" editorial: the role of granting agencies and scientific journals in promoting irrelevant research topics.

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Cerebellum research less succesful (Stanford rankings 8). Nobody in top 1000. Many of younger generation not on the list at all, despite several Nature or Science papers... Caused by isolation of cerebellum field and obsession with old questions (eyeblink)? Need to reach out...

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Top 32 computational/theoretical/machine learning neuroscientists (Stanford rankings 7). 10% of top 1000 neuroscientists are from this list. Basically everybody I know who is > 40 years (many more lower ranked). Surprisingly many cellular modelers... CNS rocks!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Karl Friston at the top (Stanford rankings 6). I know Karl as co-member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin. He is such a nice and modest person. Glad to see a theoretical neuroscientist among 5 top neuroscientists!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Caltech buddies made the list (Stanford rankings 5). Mike Hasselmo rocks at the top! Matt Wilson also doing well and my office mate Upi Bhalla made name from remote Bangalore, India. Jim Bower supervised us all. I am at the bottom, but will improve!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

All my mentors are on the list (Stanford rankings 4). In chronological order: J.J. Martin who supervised me during neurology training, R. Calabrese who supervised first modeling work (leech) and my postdoc supervisor J. Bower. Proudly following in your steps!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Younger scientists can make the list (Stanford rankings 3). One worry is that the list reflects mostly age. About half of the list are in their 60ies or older. But anybody in their 40ies or 50ies can make it... It is easier for multidisciplinary scientists than monodisciplinary.

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

Complete OIST rankings (Stanford rankings 2). Now all OIST scientists making the 2% with their percentile added (blue). I computed the percentile assuming last entry #159684 of complete ist is exactly 2%. Note I am actually top 0.8% and Kenji Doya rocks at top 0.2%!

[De Schutter Erik @erik_deschutter]

A nice science surprise (Stanford rankings 1)! Till recently I considered myself a reasonably successful scientist, but not really top level. I never published in Nature or Science and my h-factor of 40 is not overwhelming. Then I received this message...