Research 
Brain Award for Methodological Excellence
This years postdoc Brain Award for Methodological Excellence has been won by Julliette Cheyne for her paper ‘Spontaneous activity drives local synaptic plasticity In Vivo’ which was published in Neuron. “Juliette Cheyne co-authored a study that observed spontaneous synaptic plasticity during development and discovered a simple plasticity rule, summarized as ‘out of sync, lose your link’. To observe this effect, the authors developed an impressive approach that combines whole-cell recordings with two-photon calcium imaging in neonatal mice,” said Lukas Kaptein, one of the jury members.
Brain Award for scientific excellence
For the first time this year, the postdoc Brain Award for scientific excellence was given to two scientists; Jeannette Lorteije and Ariel Zylberberg. They have received this award for their paper ‘The formation of hierarchical decisions in the visual cortex’ which was published in Neuron. Since the two authors contributed equally the members of the jury concluded that the award should be given to both Lorteije and Zylberberg. They both received a sculpture an each was given half the cash award.
