🚨 8 months after, this paper found its home at Science Advances. We came up with a generative brain network model based on game theory and found that the human brain is suboptimal both in terms of wiring cost and communication efficiency. Here's why: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Kayson Fakhar@kayson.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚨new work with the dream team @danakarca.bsky.social @loopyluppi.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @stuartoldham.bsky.social @duncanastle.bsky.social We use game theory and show the brain is not optimally wired for communication and there’s more to its story: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My main PhD paper is finally out in Nature Human Behaviour! The question: what cognitive strategies do people use when they teach, and can we nudge them toward a better one? Work with my PhD mentors @yaelniv.bsky.social, @markkho.bsky.social and @cocoscilab.bsky.social. 1/5

Nature Human Behaviour@nathumbehav.nature.com · last mo.

Mentalizing and heuristics as distinct cognitive strategies in human teaching

I am happy to share some good news: my lab has received an NSF CAREER award and an NIH R01 this summer, supporting our work on how the brain handles uncertainty during learning. We will be hiring postdocs and PhD students in the coming year, so please get by email in touch if you are interested.

Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.

Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience

This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...

nature.com

How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Why does dopamine ramp up during approach to predictable rewards? In this preprint with Luke Priestley, we explore the idea that dopamine ramps occur when reward predictions inferred using a world-model are used to train striatal cached values.

Dopamine ramps as a normative consequence of dual-process control

Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to implement a temporal difference (TD) reward prediction error (RPE) that updates cached values stored in striatum. This has been challenged by evidence that dop...

biorxiv.org

How do brains plan actions towards goals? To get at this question we studied mice navigating complex mazes as goals changed on every trial 🧵 Work with @thomasakam.bsky.social @behrenstimb.bsky.social @kristorpjensen.bsky.social now on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This project builds on work establishing the behaviour done at Champalimaud in Lisbon with @michaelfsp.bsky.social, Beatriz Godinho, Christian Machens, and @ruimcosta.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Flexible route planning and rapid structure learning by mice in complex environments

Action selection using predictive models of the environment plays a fundamental role in human and animal behaviour, yet is poorly understood at circuit and algorithmic levels. Spatial navigation is an...

biorxiv.org

1/11 Happy to share our TICS paper on using the flexibility of one of the most basic cognitive functions, perception, to understand one of the most complex cognitive dysfunctions, psychiatric conditions (also my first formal work in computational psychiatry 🎉) 📄: www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🧵 : 👇

Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions

Perceptual multistability, observed across species and sensory modalities, offers valuable insights into numerous cognitive functions and dysfunctions. For instance, differences in temporal dynamics a...

cell.com

Trends in Cognitive Sciences@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Online Now: Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions

Looking forward to it!

Sepehr Razavi@srazavi.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Coming up next week at the SoCR lab talk series is @alimahmoodi.bsky.social, who will be discussing his recent thought-provoking perspective, which advocates for a computational view of neural mechanisms of social cognition (contra an anatomical one).

My undergraduate thesis, "Distinct patterns of social contagion under risk and ambiguity", is now published online at @commspsychol.nature.com Deeply grateful for the guidance and constant support of Dr. Qingtian Mi, Prof. Jian Li, and Prof. Lusha Zhu.

Communications Psychology@commspsychol.nature.com · 5mo ago

Two experiments show that observing others shifts both risk and ambiguity preferences. Risk contagion is asymmetric, with stronger alignment toward risk-averse others, whereas ambiguity contagion is more symmetric. www.nature.com/articles/s44... @dengpan.bsky.social @qingtianmi.bsky.social

New Annual Review with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social: “Planning in the Brain: It's Not What You Think It Is.” We argue that the brain's 'planning' machinery is mostly used for learning from simulated experience, and that thinking prospectively at decision time is just one special case of this process.

Planning in the Brain: It's Not What You Think It Is

The neuroscience of planning has long been analogized to search algorithms in artificial intelligence (AI), which simulate future actions to guide immediate choices. We argue that advances in both neu...

annualreviews.org

Excited that my paper on metacontrol in humans and neural networks with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social and @lhuntneuro.bsky.social is out in PNAS! We examine the way that predictive representations of control enable behavioral adaptation across settings, and pathologies: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our work on how neural circuits in the cerebellum encode prior probabilities led by Julius Koppen is out now in Nature Neuroscience www.nature.com/articles/s41... Big thanks to Julius Koppen & the whole team! And dedicated to all of us who found inspiration in Bayesian theories of the brain!

Neural circuits encode prior knowledge of temporal statistics - Nature Neuroscience

This study shows that cerebellar circuits learn and encode prior probabilities of event timing. Cell-type-specific neural activity reflects environmental statistics and guides predictive motor behavio...

nature.com

Categorization is ‘baked’ into the brain — a Perspective by Lisa Feldman Barrett & Earl K. Miller @lisafeldmanbarrett.com @earlkmiller.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Categorization is ‘baked’ into the brain - Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Categorization, the grouping of objects, living organisms, actions or events into equivalence clusters, is fundamental to adaptive behaviour. In this Perspective, Barrett and Miller discuss evidence t...

nature.com

🔔PREPRINT: Sleep ripples drive single-neuron reactivation for human memory consolidation 1/9: How does sleep support human memory consolidation? To test this, we recorded hundreds of neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) across learning, wakefulness, and sleep. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Using non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation to boost threat extinction. Finally able to causally unravel amygdala computations in healthy humans. I’ve been dreaming about these capabilities for years and it still feels magical. Pinch me, I can hardly believe how strong these effects are.

Sjoerd Meijer@sjoerdmeijer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🧠 What makes threat memories so hard to forget? 🐍😱 Using focused ultrasound we provide causal evidence that the human amygdala drives rapid threat learning 🐍⚡ and determines how resistant those memories become to subsequent extinction 🐍🚫 🆕📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Clarifying the conceptual dimensions of representation in neuroscience — a Perspective by Stephan Pohl, Edgar Y. Walker, David L. Barack, Jennifer Lee, Rachel N. Denison, Ned Block, Florent Meyniel & Wei Ji Ma www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Clarifying the conceptual dimensions of representation in neuroscience - Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Appeals to representation are widespread, despite neuroscientists’ uncertainty about what kind of findings count as evidence for such claims. In this Perspective, Pohl and colleagues develop a unified...

nature.com

To accommodate applicants and PIs attending Cosyne, we’ve extended the MCN application deadline to Sunday, Mar 22. Please repost.

Roozbeh Kiani@roozbehkiani.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Join us in Woods Hole for Methods in Computational Neuroscience (MCN) at MBL (July 24–Aug 21). Four weeks of computational + systems neuroscience, hands-on training, and close interaction with an exceptional faculty.

Check out our new preprint! We directly tested a common assumption in neuroimaging: Is resting-state the best estimate of intrinsic organization? Spoiler: Across datasets and brain systems, multi-task fMRI did better. 👇

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Multi-task fMRI outperforms resting-state fMRI for revealing task-invariant organization of the human brain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.09.710558v1

We review studies showing that when brain areas face similar computational demands in social and non-social context, they perform the same computations. We argue that exaptation (repurposing of traits for new functions) played a key role in brain evolution.

Nature Reviews Neuroscience@natrevneuro.nature.com · 8mo ago

Computational origins of cortical brain circuits for social cognition — a Perspective article by Ali Mahmoodi & Matthew F. S. Rushworth @alimahmoodi.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Amazing work.

Vijay Mohan K Namboodiri@vijay-mkn.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Very excited to post our paper led by @daburke.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... where we uncover a simple mathematical rule underlying how brains learn that a cue predicts a reward. 1/26

Neural population geometry and optimal coding of tasks with shared latent structure www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neural population geometry and optimal coding of tasks with shared latent structure - Nature Neuroscience

The authors analytically determine how neuronal correlations and geometry collectively determine readout generalization across tasks and show how these geometric features follow distinct trajectories ...

nature.com

🧵 New paper in @NatureComms Feedback-induced attitudinal changes in risk preferences Nasioulas, Potier, Cerrotti, Lebreton & me (2026) Does feedback really improve risky decision-making? Short answer: no! it changes attitudes, not learning. 👇 rdcu.be/e0VcO

Feedback-induced attitudinal changes in risk preferences

Nature Communications - Normative theory predicts that feedback should not affect decisions under risk, but past findings disagree. Here, the authors show that feedback shifts risk-taking by...

rdcu.be

Wanna compare dynamics across neural data, RNNs, or dynamical systems? We got a fast and furious method🏎️ The 1st preprint of my PhD 🥳 fast dynamical similarity analysis (fastDSA): 📜: arxiv.org/abs/2511.22828 💻: github.com/CMC-lab/fast... I’ll be @cosynemeeting.bsky.social - happy to chat 😉

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advance…

sciencedirect.com

🚨new work with the dream team @danakarca.bsky.social @loopyluppi.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @stuartoldham.bsky.social @duncanastle.bsky.social We use game theory and show the brain is not optimally wired for communication and there’s more to its story: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Building compositional tasks with shared neural subspaces www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Building compositional tasks with shared neural subspaces - Nature

The brain can flexibly perform multiple tasks by compositionally combining task-relevant neural representations.

nature.com

Exciting research position in Germany (Freiburg) with Carsten Mehring uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004.... Carsten was my PhD supervisor. He is of the best scientists I have seen.

🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉 We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience. It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic. Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif