Where does curiosity come from? Neuroscientist @jenbussell.bsky.social wants to know. She found that mice, like us, seek information with no external benefit. Her new Nature Neuroscience research links this desire for knowledge to cells in the brain's orbitofrontal cortex. See tinyurl.com/3xjt8e5c

How does the brain represent the value of knowledge? In our paper--out now at Nature Neuroscience--we identify a representation of intrinsic information value within neural population structures in the orbitofrontal cortex in mice. www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02377-y #neuroskyence 🧠🧪 (1/8)

Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience

Mice are motivated to seek information of no extrinsic value. Recording neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex reveals a representation of the value of information that is distinct from the value of ...

nature.com

After a long break, I’m back to long-form blogging! The first population atlas of the human vagus gives us an extraordinary wiring map. But what do the wires actually do? I connect it to new mouse psychophysics, organ-targeted ultrasound and our human findings. www.the-ecg.org/2026/07/29/v...

The vagus has a map. Interoception still needs a model.

The first population-level atlas of the human vagus nerve has arrived. But a map of the wiring does not tell you what the wires are saying -- on va...

the-ecg.org

If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Climbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellum

Neurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...

biorxiv.org

Cellular mechanisms of serotonergic psychedelics - apical hypercontextualisation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Cellular mechanisms of serotonergic psychedelics - apical hypercontextualisation

Classical serotonergic psychedelics primarily exert their profound effects through agonism at the serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor, which is abundantly …

sciencedirect.com

It was a big deal for my identity when I finally developed the confidence to write in a book. It felt like a taboo, a special privilege for Real, Serious Thinkers. Every time I do it now it’s a tiny reminder that I can engage with any thinker, anywhere, across time and space.

“We humans tend to overestimate how special we are” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/s...

Monkeys Understand Shapes in Almost the Same Way as Humans (Gift Article)

Our geometric intuition, long considered something that sets us apart, seems to be shared with other primates.

nytimes.com

This is a really interesting and important study: www.nature.com/articles/s41... However, isn't it concerning that sweeping conclusions about functional organization of cortex are being reached on the basis of a single task?

Rarely categorical, highly separable representations along the cortical hierarchy - Nature

Cortical circuits prioritize diversity over categorical structure, supporting a computational regime geared towards high-dimensional, highly separable neural representations.

nature.com

How do people build new ideas from existing knowledge? By tracking Wikipedia searches, we found that novel ideas emerged when people balanced exploration with exploitation—alternating between distant topics and deep dives into related information.

Stars2Cells: Astrometric Tracking of Neurons Across Imaging Sessions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.03.736144v1

Is organization close to saddle-node bifurcations a generic principle underlying neural computations? 🧠 To know more, give a read to our recent effort in this regard👀

@koseskalab.bsky.social · last mo.

New preprint! RNNs solving an interval timing task self-organize near bifurcations, where structured slow transients drive computation. These slow scaffolds predict generalization to unseen intervals and are alone sufficient for timing! @mpinb.mpg.de www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🌟 Research Assistant opportunity 🌟 I'm looking for an RA to support research at The Centre for Human Brain Health (CHBH) on social information seeking and decision making, including fMRI and MEG 🧠 tinyurl.com/uob-chbh-ra Deadline: 19th July, 23:59 UK time ⏳ Start: 7th September 🗓️ Please share 🔁

Research Associate - School of Psychology - 104433 - Grade 6

We welcome applications for a Research Associate / Lab Manager in the Centre for Human Brain Health (CHBH). The CHBH is a friendly, productive, and supportive environment where all colleagues can thri...

tinyurl.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...

Dimensionality reduction is how the brain acquires knowledge. Cool new paper from the late, great, Mark Stokes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience

Learning shapes neural geometry in the primate prefrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience

Learning transforms prefrontal cortex activity from flexible, high-dimensional representations into compact, task-relevant and abstract codes, enabling efficient generalization of learned rules to new...

nature.com

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 · 4mo ago

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

I had a great time chatting on Utah Public Radio with Matthew Laplante all about the psychology and neuroscience of time. It felt less like an interview and more like a great discussion. If interested, here's a link! 🧠🧪 www.upr.org/show/undisci...

UnDisciplined: The psychology of time

It’s a question psychologists have been wrestling with for decades: What exactly is time?Not the time kept by clocks or calendars, but the time we actually experience. Why do some moments stretch and ...

upr.org

"the first validated, large-scale framework for judging the quality of life science papers independently of venue, identity, and prestige...Blinded domain-expert professors sided with score three times more often than with journal rank" the-one-percent.qedscience.com 1/n

Excited to share that I’ll be joining Columbia's Zuckerman Institute as an assistant professor of neuroscience, starting in September! 🧵

Exclusive: The National Science Foundation is trimming this year’s budgets for hundreds of its traditional basic science programs by roughly 20% to 30%, even though its overall budget is down just 3%. https://scim.ag/4xY2KCm

Exclusive: NSF slashes research programs to support new tech initiative, insiders say

Unexpected shift in funds has meant sharp drop in grants this fiscal year

science.org

Fun to write about this cool recent paper from Emily Sylwestrak's lab in @currentbiology.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

Neuroscience: Habenula neurons help learn from loss

Adjusting expectations is key for thriving in a dynamic environment. A new study suggests that a specific set of neurons in the habenula contributes to this process by specifically signaling worse tha...

cell.com

Second preprint, with Elizabeth Bonawitz, one of my favorite studies children search the hypothesis space more broadly and variably than adults. osf.io/preprints/ps...

📝 New preprint (co-led with Hannah Hamling as her NYU honors thesis!) 📝 🧠 Do adolescents learn differently in volatile versus stable environments? 🧠 Yes, and they seem to adapt their learning computations to a greater extent than adults! 😮 🤔 Preprint for deets (+ 👁️ data) osf.io/preprints/ps...

We're excited to share our latest profile! Dr. Suzanne Haber studies the circuits underlying reward-based learning & decision making, and how those circuits can be therapeutically targeted to treat disease. Follow the link below to learn more! #WomenInNeuro www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

Dr. Suzanne Haber — Stories of WiN

studies the circuits underlying reward-based learning and decision making, and how those circuits can be therapeutically targeted to treat disease

storiesofwin.org

How do we predict what’s going to happen next? In a new paper, we @arikahn.bsky.social @licezhang.bsky.social @nathanieldaw.bsky.social @catehartley.bsky.social ask how kids, teens, and adults solve this problem. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Developmental Change in Structure Learning Reflects a Shift From Recency‐Based to Relational Prediction

Children are adept statistical learners, capable of parsing streams of structured input into meaningful units, but the cognitive processes they engage during learning may differ from those of adults...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Neuropixels + Optogenetics = Neuropixels Opto Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics. 960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors. Today in @natmethods.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... Thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @alleninstitute.org, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social & team.

A few years back we started a collaboration to try to work out the mechanisms engaged by DBS for depression. Published today we found that it changes functional networks (expected) but also remodels specific white matter tracts (unexpected). Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Deep brain stimulation induces white matter remodeling and functional changes to brain-wide networks - Nature Neuroscience

In a nonhuman primate model, Fujimoto et al. show that deep brain stimulation promotes white matter remodeling and reorganizes brain-wide functional networks, detailing a mechanism through which this ...

nature.com

BREAKING: New proposed OMB regulation, applying to all federal grants, requiring grant reviews by senior political appointees and re-emphasizes that "peer review remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion". #standupforscience public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-10817.pdf

A new proposed rule on federal grantmaking — across agencies, this is much broader than research awards — just dropped. Screenshot from page 48 public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-10817.pdf

1/ 🚨🚨Preprint alert! "Perfect" isn't always smart 🧠. Anyone can tell apart two stimuli (including our mice). But how do we extract rules that apply to new stimuli? 🧵 biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @marius10p.bsky.social @computingnature.bsky.social #neuroAI #neuroscience #AI

Prefrontal mechanisms of goal progress inference and monitoring in macaque monkeys https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.19.726190v1