Check out our @royalsociety.org Philosophical Transactions B theme issue, "The role of hippocampal prediction: bridging perception and memory." Thanks to all our fabulous authors, and my co-editors @peterkok.bsky.social and @mariamaly.bsky.social who dreamed it up and kept the train on the tracks.

Peter Kok@peterkok.bsky.social · 4w ago

The hippocampus sits at the interface of perception & memory, allowing us to link past, present, & future through its role in generating predictions. Excited to share this theme issue in @royalsociety.org's Philosophical Transactions B, co-edited with @barense.bsky.social & @mariamaly.bsky.social

On Wed (S6A, HNE RM 035), I will present the first data from my postdoc with @barense.bsky.social: we localized language networks in two individuals with non-speaking autism. I’m fortunate to get to share findings made possible by our amazing non-speaking volunteers.

I enjoyed the cheerful reunions & new connections made at #TAMeG2026 Congrats award winners @catalinayang.bsky.social @michellehirsch.bsky.social & Bailey Agard! Grateful to keynote @aliprestonphd.bsky.social & panelists Ike Ikafor, @efriskouw.bsky.social & @barense.bsky.social & the org committee

Really enjoyed giving yesterday's #TAMeG2026 keynote & joining @barense.bsky.social, @efriskouw.bsky.social & Ike Okafor on the mentorship panel. Things that have stuck with me: 🪟 Mentorship needs transparency 📣 It needs advocacy beyond advice 🔁 Mentors learn from mentees too

Very excited to have this officially published: A neural state space for episodic memories A brief thread... #neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪 @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

A neural state space for episodic memories

Episodic memories are highly dynamic and change in nonlinear ways over time. This dynamism is not captured by existing systems consolidation theories …

sciencedirect.com

Excited to share the publication of our work which explores the application of LLMs in event segmentation and memory research. For researchers interested in applying these validated methods, an open-source module is available on GitHub (github.com/ryanapanela/EventRecall).

GitHub - ryanapanela/EventRecall

Contribute to ryanapanela/EventRecall development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Communications Psychology@commspsychol.nature.com · 8mo ago

Large language models automate event segmentation & recall scoring with human-level accuracy. LLMs identify event boundaries more consistently than humans, while semantic embeddings enable scalable memory assessments. @ryanapanela.bsky.social @bjherrmann.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Our graduate student @catalinayang.bsky.social shows that prediction errors only destabilize weakly reactivated memories. Strong memories? They are more impervious to surprise. Check out our #preprint with @barense.bsky.social to learn more osf.io/preprints/ps... #UofT #Psychology

Catalina Yang@catalinayang.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Super excited to share my first preprint with Katherine Duncan and Morgan Barense (@barense.bsky.social) -- "Memory strength at reactivation, not memory age, governs prediction error driven updating of naturalistic event memory"! 🧠🎉https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/q9rkn_v1

Super excited to share my first preprint with Katherine Duncan and Morgan Barense (@barense.bsky.social) -- "Memory strength at reactivation, not memory age, governs prediction error driven updating of naturalistic event memory"! 🧠🎉https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/q9rkn_v1

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

Deadline approaching for Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience Travel Fellowship

Brad Postle@bradpostle.bsky.social · last yr.

2026 @jocn.bsky.social Travel Fellowship @jocn.bsky.social and Cog. Neurosci. Soc. to offer a stipend of $3000, plus waived conf. reg. and waived poster submission fee to attend www.cogneurosociety.org/annual-meeti... , to one trainee based at an institution located in each of five regions:

2026 @jocn.bsky.social Travel Fellowship @jocn.bsky.social and Cog. Neurosci. Soc. to offer a stipend of $3000, plus waived conf. reg. and waived poster submission fee to attend www.cogneurosociety.org/annual-meeti... , to one trainee based at an institution located in each of five regions:

Annual Meeting - Cognitive Neuroscience Society

March 7 – 10, 2026 Submit a Symposium Submit a Poster CNS 2026 Annual Meeting – March 7 – March 10, 2026 We invite you to join us at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) 2026 Annual Meeting, March...

cogneurosociety.org

Graduate students who have an offer to study in the US but are reconsidering or have been denied entry or current grad students who want to leave, then consider coming to Western University in Canada. Our University just launched a US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Program : grad.uwo.ca/finances/wes...

US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Award

Western University, in vibrant London, Ontario, delivers an academic and student experience second to none.

grad.uwo.ca

Proud to share the first preprint of my PhD w/ @barense.bsky.social & Mursal Jahed: “Putting the testing effect to the test in the wild: Retrieval enhances real-world memories and promotes their semantic integration while preserving episodic integrity” See thread! 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

CIFAR invites applications for senior PhD and postdocs to participate in the Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School, held in Montebello, Canada Dec 10-12, 2025. The Winter School is hosted by members of CIFAR’s Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program. Please repost. cifar.ca/next-generat... 🧠🧪

If you are in Toronto on Tuesday next week, please consider coming to see a FREE public lecture on memory, delivered by the amazing @sjo09.bsky.social and @barense.bsky.social . Tix at this link can-acn.org/meeting-2025... Please repost and hope to see you there!

"Autism doesn’t erase potential. It reshapes it. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s nonlinear. Always, it’s human."

An Open Letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who Thinks My Daughter is a Tragedy

Dear Mr. RFK Jr., (The “dear” is tradition. Don’t mistake it for affection.) You said autistic children are a burden. That they ruin families. That...

buff.ly

Gut wrenching essay about trainees by Daphna Shohamy (Director of Columbia's Zuckerman Neuroscience Institute). "let’s be clear: It isn’t institutions that are being punished. It’s the researchers who are the future of science in this country ..." 💔 www.statnews.com/2025/05/07/u...

What am I supposed to say to this generation of young scientists?

Undermining the future of American science is not a path to accountability — it’s a path to decline.

statnews.com

Looking for a Master’s or PhD trainee interested in a f/t lab manager role. Funding for this position is secured longterm. It is a great opportunity for someone interested in making sig contributions to #cogneuro #aging & #womensbrainhealth in 🇨🇦 Solid salary with full benefits! #neurojobs

Want to learn more about smartphone-based studies on memory? Check out our #CNS2025 press release "How Dreams, Novelty, and Emotions Can Shape Memories: Lessons from Smartphone Studies," featuring the work of @evgoldfarb.bsky.social @barense.bsky.social @liladavachi.bsky.social:

How Dreams, Novelty, and Emotions Can Shape Memories: Lessons from Smartphone Studies

At CNS 2025, researchers will share smartphone-based studies about how a range of actions can build stronger, more detailed memories.

cogneurosociety.org

If you're at #CNS2025 come check out our lab's Sunday line-up of posters from @catalinayang.bsky.social, @bryanhong.bsky.social, @nellymatorina.bsky.social, and @laurenhomann.bsky.social.

"Small changes, like taking a different route during your daily walk, can have a significant impact on memory and mood," says @uoft.bsky.social Prof. @barense.bsky.social. 🧠 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/one-new...

One new experience a day boosts memory and mood: Study

Researchers at the University of Toronto have found that doing just one new thing each day can significantly improve mood, memory and overall well-being.

psych.utoronto.ca

📣 Across the U.S., cuts to federal funding for health research are projected to cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs. How will YOUR area be impacted? Excited to share SCIMaP, a website that our team has created to communicate the impact of funding cuts. #PsychSciSky #MedicalSky scienceimpacts.org

In my ongoing quest to publish as many academic papers with Arnold Schwazenegger movies as part of the title, I give you…..Total Recall….out today and free to read www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Total recall: Detecting autobiographical memory retrieval in the absence of behaviour

Functional neuroimaging has fundamentally changed our understanding of disorders of consciousness (DoC). While many DoC patients exhibit minimal to no…

sciencedirect.com

I very much enjoyed this fascinating real world memory paper-- congrats @barense.bsky.social and team! Makes me rethink my use of the term "naturalistic memory" when I'm actually referring to (fictional) movies and narratives 😂! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unique events improve episodic richness, enhance mood, and alter the perception of time during isolation - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Unique events improve episodic richness, enhance mood, and alter the perception of time during isolation

nature.com

My understanding is that the end goal of this resource is to track more than research and to capture all we have lost as a result of the GOP’s dismantling of the federal government. They’re relying on information from communities impacted, so please share widely theresearchwelost.com

The Research We Lost

Archiving the Science that Could Have Been

theresearchwelost.com

Rachael Sirianni, PhD@docsirianni.bsky.social · last yr.

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

#TAMeG2025 is coming (our 10th anniversary!) May 27 feat keynote @charan-neuro.bsky.social and panel on SciCom & Disinformation, with Carrie Boyce of RCIScience, @schalllab.bsky.social & @barense.bsky.social (chair) Call for presentations is open for GTA and southern ON trainees 👉 tameg.ca!

New Preprint 🚨 This research with @bjherrmann.bsky.social, @alexbarnett.bsky.social, and @barense.bsky.social extends previous work exploring how LLMs can simulate human event segmentation, with applications for automated recall assessments. arxiv.org/abs/2502.13349

Event Segmentation Applications in Large Language Model Enabled Automated Recall Assessments

Understanding how individuals perceive and recall information in their natural environments is critical to understanding potential failures in perception (e.g., sensory loss) and memory (e.g., dementi...

arxiv.org

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

View from Canada: the IDC rate for research intensive unis is about 20%, and it's killing us. International student fees subsidize research, our deferred maintenance burden is out of control and buildings are substandard (some are dangerous), support for common equipment / cores is pratically nil.

"I want my mouth to say what I am thinking, But it rarely does." - Isaiah Grewal The latest issue of U of T Magazine features Prof. @barense.bsky.social's work with non-speaking autistic people that aims to better understand their brains & experiences. 🔗 magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ide...