Max Shinn's Homepage

Neuroscience research

The brain is perhaps the most complicated and fascinating object in existence. How is it that, in a fraction of a second, this 1kg piece of meat can accomplish feats unattainable by the world’s most powerful supercomputers?

My research investigates the simplest building blocks that lead to these complicated behaviours. I study the low-level computations the brain uses during vision and decision-making. This includes identifying these basic computations and determining the brain anatomy that implements them. I specialise in the impact of the passage of time (on the scale of seconds or less) and on the role of microcircuitry.

To do this, I create new experimental and statistics techniques, and use them to look at single neurons, individual genes, local brain circuits, and patterns of brain-wide activity.

Technical keywords: electrophysiology, transcriptomics, theoretical neuroscience, two-photon imaging, V1, phantom oscillations, generalized drift-diffusion model, resting state fMRI, connectomics

List of publications

Talks available online:

I am currently a research fellow with Kenneth Harris and Matteo Carandini at UCL. I did my PhD in neuroscience with John Murray and Daeyeol Lee at Yale, my master’s in medical science with Ed Bullmore at Cambridge, and my undergrad in mathematics at the University of Minnesota.

Scientific software

Other software

Also see my Github. All software listed here is available under the GNU GPLv3 unless otherwise specified.

Music

I compose music, primarily for theatre. I previously studied under Carol Barnett for 5 years. Audio files and instrumental parts are available upon request. All music is available under the Creative Commons BY-SA.

Blog

I have a blog where I do fun data analyses. A few of my favourite posts are:

Other

What’s with the domain name?

It’s a pun.

Contact

Email

I extend an open invitation to email me, and I will try to respond promptly. I especially love talking to people who use my software, as well as receiving questions, comments, and constructive criticism about my work. We can meet in person if you are in the London area. (Idea blatantly stolen from Hillel Wayne and Simon Willison.)

Alternatively, you can send me an anonymous message.