https://catalystneuro.com/blog/ Software releases, technical writing, and news from the CatalystNeuro team. en Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neurodata-ai-summer-school-r25/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neurodata-ai-summer-school-r25/ Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT NINDS has awarded us a five-year R25 grant for the NeuroData AI Summer School. After running NeuroDataReHack on year-to-year funding since 2022, we can finally plan for the long term. The program continues as the NeuroData AI Summer School, with its own site at neurodata-ai.org and applications for 2027 open now. NeuroData AI Summer School NeuroDataReHack NIH R25 education NWB DANDI data reuse AI HHMI-Janelia https://catalystneuro.com/blog/cost-of-intelligence-drops-100x/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/cost-of-intelligence-drops-100x/ Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT A given level of LLM intelligence costs about a thirtieth of what it did a year ago, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Using Artificial Analysis's measured cost per task, this post traces the falling price of each capability level, explains why cheaper intelligence leads to more spending on it, not less (Jevons paradox), and considers what changes when the drop reaches 100x. LLM Pareto frontier cost per task Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index model pricing AI economics Jevons paradox https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neuroconv-0100-release/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neuroconv-0100-release/ Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT NeuroConv 0.10.0 writes events as the NWBEP001 event tables, grows fiber photometry from one supported format to five, introduces metadata templates and annotation guides for optical physiology, and ships new session-wide converters and formats. NeuroConv NWB neurophysiology data conversion fiber photometry events NWBEP001 optical physiology metadata release https://catalystneuro.com/blog/dandi-semantic-atlas/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/dandi-semantic-atlas/ Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT The DANDI Semantic Atlas places every Dandiset on a rotatable map built from sentence embeddings of its metadata, so datasets that describe similar science end up near one another. It rebuilds itself nightly from the DANDI API. DANDI NWB semantic search embeddings Qwen3 UMAP HDBSCAN BERTopic metadata data discovery neurophysiology https://catalystneuro.com/blog/remfile-cpp-streaming-hdf5-from-cpp/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/remfile-cpp-streaming-hdf5-from-cpp/ Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT A new HDF5 virtual file driver that streams remote NWB files over HTTP with adaptive caching. It opens files several times faster than ROS3, works with any HDF5 build, and is now integrated into AqNWB. NWB HDF5 C++ remfile AqNWB DANDI cloud computing ROS3 streaming neurophysiology https://catalystneuro.com/blog/introducing-zarr-matlab/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/introducing-zarr-matlab/ Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT zarr-matlab is a free, open-source, pure-MATLAB implementation of the Zarr v3 specification, bringing chunked, compressed, cloud-friendly N-dimensional arrays to MATLAB with interoperability tested against zarr-python on every commit. zarr-matlab Zarr MATLAB NWB cloud computing scientific data open source hdmf-zarr matzarr https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2026-south-of-france/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2026-south-of-france/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT Once a year the distributed CatalystNeuro team gets into the same building. This spring that building was a villa in the hills above Nice, for a week of team-led talks, Côte d'Azur evenings, and the unstructured time that turns coworkers into a team. CatalystNeuro company retreat South of France Nice team building open neuroscience NWB https://catalystneuro.com/blog/s-index-challenge-honorable-mention/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/s-index-challenge-honorable-mention/ Sat, 30 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT Our team earned an honorable mention in the NIH Data Sharing Index (S-index) Challenge for the FAIR-Enhanced Data Sharing Index, a metric that rewards both the rigor and the reuse impact of shared datasets. S-index NIH data sharing FAIR open science NWB data reuse metrics https://catalystneuro.com/blog/virtual-data-standards/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/virtual-data-standards/ Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT Scientific data standardization is at a crossroads. This article presents virtual datasets as a third way to make data accessible across programming languages and computing environments while preserving original files. NWB Zarr data standardization virtual datasets Kerchunk LINDI neurophysiology cloud computing https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neuroconv-090-release/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/neuroconv-090-release/ Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT NeuroConv 0.9.0 introduces redesigned TIFF and Miniscope converters, new behavioral data documentation, NWB repacking functionality, and SpikeGLX improvements. NeuroConv NWB neurophysiology data conversion TIFF Miniscope SpikeGLX release https://catalystneuro.com/blog/teaching-open-neuroscience-abds/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/teaching-open-neuroscience-abds/ Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:00:00 GMT Reflections on teaching open neuroscience tools and practices at the African Brain Data Science Academy neuroscience education Africa ABDS open science data science https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2024-montecatini-italy/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2024-montecatini-italy/ Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:00:00 GMT The CatalystNeuro team gathered in the beautiful Tuscan town of Montecatini for a retreat combining strategic planning with cultural experiences and team bonding. CatalystNeuro company retreat Montecatini Italy team building Tuscany https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2023-catalonia-spain/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2023-catalonia-spain/ Sun, 01 Oct 2023 12:00:00 GMT The CatalystNeuro team gathered in a historic Catalan villa for a week of strategic planning, cultural experiences, and team bonding in the beautiful Costa Brava region. CatalystNeuro company retreat Catalonia Spain team building Costa Brava https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2022-douro-portugal/ https://catalystneuro.com/blog/retreat-2022-douro-portugal/ Fri, 14 Oct 2022 12:00:00 GMT After months of remote work, the CatalystNeuro team gathered in Portugal's historic Douro Valley for their first post-lockdown retreat, combining strategic planning with cultural immersion. CatalystNeuro company retreat Douro Valley Portugal team building