BRAIN PEOPLE! 🧠 Activating my network! My unbelievably excellent postdoc, @aliekhlasi.bsky.social will finish with me next August (grant runs out). He's a brilliant expert in all things neuroimaging & computational analysis, ...
Alireza Karami | علیرضا کرمی
@alirezakr.bsky.social
Cognitive neuroscientist | AI 🤖 × Neuroscience 🧠 | NeuroSpin • CIMeC • SUT https://linktr.ee/alirezakr
A new method for translating functional brain responses between species - Spatiotemporal Hyperalignment projects shared information into a common representational space Led by @kbraunlich.bsky.social Marianne Duyck with @bevilconway.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Translating functional brain activity between humans and monkeys
Comparing brain responses across species is essential for identifying models of human cognition and testing theories of brain evolution, but differences in brain size, measurement techniques, and sign...
biorxiv.org
🌏 Come and spend some time with us in Sydney! 🇦🇺 The @marcsinstitute.bsky.social is offering International Visiting Scholarships for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers for 2027. If you're in cogneuro and motivated, get in touch via DM or email. Apps due: 1 Nov 2026 Please share widely!
📖 New review out today in @natrevneuro.nature.com: Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition 🧠🧪 Full-text link to the paper is here: rdcu.be/9YK3mF7dYhFa
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
mathandai.org
New paper, co-authored with Justin Wood, in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social: The Nativist-Empiricist Debate Is Broken We argue that radical nativism and radical empiricism are compatible and, in some cases, both plausibly true. So something is wrong. 🧵 Author share link here, valid til Oct 31:
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authors.elsevier.com
Trends in Cognitive Sciences@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 4w agoOnline Now: The nativist–empiricist debate is broken
Graduate students enter cognitive science from diverse disciplines, bringing different levels of mathematical training. 🧶 This semester, we built a #Maths_Training course website for cognitive science students, with Basic and Advanced tracks: 💡 maths-training-dec.github.io/cogmaster-ma...
Neural activity is often summarized as a small number of shared patterns (low-dimensional structure). sliceTCA offers a more complete and efficient way to uncover meaningful structure in large-scale brain recordings. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience
Dimensionality reduction beyond neural subspaces with slice tensor component analysis - Nature Neuroscience
Neural activity does not always lie in a low-dimensional subspace. The authors extend this classic view to show that task-relevant information is distributed across multiple covariability classes and ...
nature.com
Terence Tao says AI companies are harming mathematics by dropping new results without engaging with academia. “These companies are dumping carcasses of raw meat onto our table and saying ‘here you go, I solved your food problem’ and then they just leave." www.newscientist.com/article/2588...
Terence Tao: AI companies are harming mathematics | New Scientist
AI companies are making new mathematical discoveries at a rapid pace but not sticking around to help unpick the new proofs. That is not the way to advance our understanding, says mathematician Terence...
newscientist.com
If you thought "everything is everywhere" in the brain: inactivations reveal a clear distinction of labor. Sensory areas sense, colliculus promotes eligible actions (!), and prefrontal cortex integrates. The role of superior colliculus in a logistic decision www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
pyGCSS: a pure-Python implementation of the Group-Constrained Subject-Specific (GCSS) method for fMRI — define ROIs that are functionally consistent across subjects, no MATLAB/SPM needed. github.com/alireza-kr/p...
GitHub - alireza-kr/pyGCSS: A Python implementation of the Group-Constrained Subject-Specific (GCSS) method
A Python implementation of the Group-Constrained Subject-Specific (GCSS) method - alireza-kr/pyGCSS
github.com
🤖🧠NEW PAPER🧠🤖 (The result of an 8-year project!) LLMs seem very different from symbolic systems. Yet LLMs excel in symbolic domains (e.g., language/code/math). How do they do it? Our finding: LLM representations have implicit symbolic structure! Link in thread ⬇️ 1/n
![Overview of the paper.
Title: The Emergent Symbolic Structure of Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Tom McCoy, Paul Soulos, Tal Linzen, Paul Smolensky
Left: Neural networks encode information in vectors (there is then an image of a vector), yet they excel at tasks long thought to require symbolic structure (there is then an image of a symbolic representation, specifically a syntax tree). How do LLMs do it?
Right: We find that LLM representations can be closely approximated with symbolic structures. This approximation lets us edit the structure of an LLM’s output by editing the structure of its internal representations, as shown. There is then an image of two edits to LLMs. In the first one, the original input is 3 + 6 * 8, with an answer of 51. But if we swap the positions of the 3 and the 6, the output becomes 30. In the second one, the original input is a Python command repeating the list [Z, U] three times, producing [Z, U, Z, U, Z, U]. But if we edit the input in a way that adds a Q at the end of the input, the output becomes [Z, U, Q, Z, U, Q, Z, U, Q].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bcsvlv7ubeagj5virdvatadd/bafkreic3zm2rpc4vtqrz2t3y4vcl3t2owp2sxay42vuh5zm5zkg4jhr64e)
Only a few days left to apply for the 2nd call for the PhD Programme in Cognitive and Brain Sciences at the University of Trento. ⏰Deadline: 2 September 2026 Full details: phd.unitn.it/drcimec/116/...
How can we design experiments that make computational models disagree? One section of our new @natrevneuro.nature.com Review with @kriegeskorte.bsky.social and @heikoschuett.bsky.social examines studies that used stimulus sets designed to elicit distinct predictions from competing models. 1/16
Come join our team!
Neuromatch@neuromatch.bsky.social · 2mo agoNeuromatch is looking to hire a remote, full-time Program Coordinator for Neuromatch Academy. 🤓 Coordinating volunteers & logistics, administrative support, and data analysis. ➡️ Learn about the role & apply before 2 Sept: neuromatch.io/careers/ #RemoteWork #RemoteJob #DataAnalysis
New preprint just dropped! With the unstoppable @norabradford.bsky.social at the helm and support from Tomàs Ortega and Brian Maniscalco: osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
@arthurpr4t.bsky.social has a new preprint with important results on a famous psychophysical law (Weber's law). It isn't, in fact, a law, because it can be broken. A more fundamental principle (efficient coding) shows when and why Weber's law holds true. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Efficient coding makes and breaks Weber's law
Weber's law is a rare quantitative regularity in psychology, yet its origins remain debated. Here we provide causal evidence that it arises from the more fundamental principle of efficient coding. Thi...
biorxiv.org
It has been painfully clear since Fall’24 that US science funding would tank, universities would be targeted, and any assertions about a new “gold standard” disingenuous. The question has not been “will it be that bad,” but “how bad will it be.”
Nicole Rust@nicolecrust.bsky.social · 2mo agoUS scientists: Going into fall 26, how are you thinking about things? Following Fall 24 events and a tumultuous spring 25, I remember a convo with a colleague in which we agreed we just needed to wait things out until fall 25 and we'd have some clarity about the landscape (eg for funding). /1
I'm recruiting two postdocs (or potentially PhD students) to work on projects at the intersection of cognition, neuroscience, and AI (with a particular emphasis on mechanistic interpretability). Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... and please share!
docs.google.com
Next in the Glushko Dissertation Prize Symposium, Alireza Karami @alirezakr.bsky.social explores ‘The Representation of Numerosity in the Human Brain and Machines’, comparing how humans and AI systems perceive and represent quantity. #CogSci2026
Very interesting work by @benhayden.bsky.social, @hanlin-zhu.bsky.social, and colleagues. Below are my thoughts on some of the findings and claims. 👇
Ben Hayden@benhayden.bsky.social · 3mo agoNew preprint from the lab! “A number simplex in the human medial temporal lobe” led by @hanlin-zhu.bsky.social 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I am *thrilled* to share this review in @currentbiology.bsky.social out today, by yours truly, @myoo.bsky.social, @michalk.bsky.social, Taro Toyoizumi, @tyrellturing.bsky.social, @taylorwwebb.bsky.social, & @hakwan.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧵👇
Looking to the brain to improve energy efficiency of AI
Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems have achieved remarkable capabilities, but at an extraordinary energy cost. Training and running large-sca…
sciencedirect.com
Great paper! could someone please point me to a paper or two that has seriously pushed for ideas that would be in contradiction with this decoder? I know @benhayden.bsky.social, @pessoabrain.bsky.social et al have done that on bluesky but an actual research paper? Feels like a total straw man
Shahab Bakhtiari@shahabbakht.bsky.social · 3mo agoImportant paper: "The response profiles of neurons in different brain regions differ enough that a decoder can determine the region to which a particular neuron belongs." Sounds like the perfect antidote to the "everything is everywhere" view.
🧠 Hiring! UNICOG/NeuroSpin (Paris-Saclay) seeks a Research Assistant for "Math-O-Meter," studying how kids (7–17) learn math across the school years, combining behavioral testing + fMRI. 2-year position, starts Oct–Dec 2026. Fluent French required. 🔗 unicog.org/we-are-hirin...
Research Assistant Open Position – the “Math-O-Meter” project – Unicog_2025
unicog.org
"There won’t be more discoveries, and we’ll just stop at what we already know." @cantlonlab.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/c...
She Studied Ways to Make People Smarter. Then Her Grant Was Cut.
Jessica Cantlon had a grant with the U.S. Navy to explore whether people could improve spatial problem-solving skills through training. Then the program was cut.
nytimes.com
Indicators -- especially theory-derived ones -- of consciousness simply aren't enough. Signatures aren't enough either. We need a whole new evidential and inferential framework. My group is building one. Sneak peak roadmap paper, currently in revision so stay tuned for v2: osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
Stanislas Dehaene@standehaene.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe global neuronal workspace (GNW) is currently the best documented neuroscience mechanism by which conscious processing arises in the human brain — and now Anthropic researchers have discovered a similar workspace inside their large language model ! www.anthropic.com/research/glo...
❗3x scholar-at-risk positions (2 post MSc, 1 postdoc) at Uni Trento (several departments incl. CIMeC)❗ 1 year + possibility of 1 year extension. Must hold asylum seeker / refuge or SAR status. Please contact me for more info. Please share!
Missed my talk at #MCLS2026? Here's a brief thread on our work combining fMRI, MEG, and representational similarity analysis (RSA) to investigate how numerosity (the number of items in a set) is represented across space and time in the human brain. @mcls-official.bsky.social
Alireza Karami | علیرضا کرمی@alirezakr.bsky.social · 4mo agoBack in Italy after two years for my talk at @mcls-official.bsky.social , “How Our Brain Sees Number.” The first day was already inspiring, with fascinating talks by David Burr, @gvallortigara.bsky.social , and Marco Zorzi.
Back in Italy after two years for my talk at @mcls-official.bsky.social , “How Our Brain Sees Number.” The first day was already inspiring, with fascinating talks by David Burr, @gvallortigara.bsky.social , and Marco Zorzi.
