Liz Siefert

@lizsiefert.bsky.social

PhD candidate UPenn | memory, sleep, and neuroethics | Brown '19 🧠 | She/Her

New preprint! Posterior cingulate is often linked to memory in humans but decisions in monkeys yet there's little consensus about its functional neuroanatomy. We recorded LFPs+single units in humans during matched value and memory based decisions, finding convergence in dorsal, but not ventral, PCC.

biorxiv.org

📣New paper! How does the sleeping brain help us to integrate new experiences while managing memories from the past? For his PhD work, @sabbaspoor.bsky.social recorded hippocampal ensembles in freely moving monkeys and found something unexpected. 🧵1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🧠📈👩‍🔬#OpenAccess

Experience reorganizes content-specific memory traces in macaques - Nature Neuroscience

In macaques, old memories, relative to new ones, are supported by more stable and interconnected cell assemblies. New-biased and old-biased assemblies reactivate during overnight sleep and can sometim...

nature.com

Out today! Our (w/ @annaschapiro.bsky.social) review of the alignment between the C-HORSE model and the hippocampal structure learning literature. We find strong congruence with the model's key principles and propose several avenues for future investigation!

Evidence for complementary learning systems within the hippocampus

Abstract. Decades of research have established the hippocampus as central to episodic memory, but growing evidence suggests that it also contributes to str

royalsocietypublishing.org

"Ripple occurrence consistently tracked low arousal: rates were maximal in NREM sleep, small-pupil wake states, and slow heart rate periods across sleep and wake... ripple-like activity outside the hippocampus showed an opposite modulation, increasing with high arousal."

Arousal state modulates human hippocampal ripples

Hippocampal ripples are transient, high-frequency oscillations linked to memory replay and consolidation. Ripples are well-characterized in rodents to occur during periods of behavioral inactivity (i....

biorxiv.org

New preprint! We show low arousal states promote hippocampal ripple genesis in sleep and wake. This bridges rodent work, where ripples predominate during sleep, with human studies reporting ripples during active behavior, identifying low arousal as a common mechanism www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Arousal state modulates human hippocampal ripples

Hippocampal ripples are transient, high-frequency oscillations linked to memory replay and consolidation. Ripples are well-characterized in rodents to occur during periods of behavioral inactivity (i....

biorxiv.org

We’ve got an exciting new thing to share! We have causal evidence (using TMR) that memory reactivation during sleep promotes abstract understanding of underlying structure, allowing transfer learning in a new domain with zero superficial feature overlap with the learned one.

Sarah Solomon@sarahsolomon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Super excited to share this preprint! How do we disentangle underlying structure from the particular features of a learning episode to benefit future learning? We find that memory reactivation during sleep promotes this structure abstraction process. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Still pumped up from yesterday's international sleep replay workshop! Provocative talks, engaging discussion groups & enthusiastic engagement by all attendees from undergrads to full professors. Stay tuned for info on the next one. And now, on to @cnsmtg.bsky.social. Check out our lab's posters!

Isrw group photo

starting fall 2026 i'll be an assistant professor at @upenn.edu 🥳 my lab will develop scalable models/theories of human behavior, focused on memory and perception currently recruiting PhD students in psychology, neuroscience, & computer science! reach out if you're interested 😊

a red building on UPENN's campus photographed during the fallthe Philadelphia skyline, with clear skies and autumn trees

I'm recruiting a lab manager for my soon-to-be-launched lab at Ohio State! If you know of any recent grads who may be interested both in helping to build the lab and in developing skills in the cognitive neuroscience of memory, please share! osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/OSUCar...

Research Associate

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osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

Excited to share a new preprint w/ @annaschapiro.bsky.social! Why are there gradients of plasticity and sparsity along the neocortex–hippocampus hierarchy? We show that brain-like organization of these properties emerges in ANNs that meta-learn layer-wise plasticity and sparsity. bit.ly/4kB1yg5

A gradient of complementary learning systems emerges through meta-learning

Long-term learning and memory in the primate brain rely on a series of hierarchically organized subsystems extending from early sensory neocortical areas to the hippocampus. The components differ in t...

bit.ly

Incredibly excited and grateful to share that I’ll be starting a lab at The Ohio State University this(!) fall! My lab will study human learning and memory, with related interests in sleep, stress, and time perception. More info soon, but do get in touch if you’re interested in joining!

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preprint alert 🚨 1/ Can we accurately detect sequential replay in humans using Temporally Delayed Linear Modelling (#TDLM)? In our recent study, we could not find any replay and decided to dig deeper by running a hybrid simulation with surprising results. Link to preprint & details below 👇

📣 It's official: I'm super excited to share that I'll be joining Rice University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences! Lab will launch in Summer 2026— I'll be recruiting over the next year, so please spread the word! Short thread ⤵️

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I had so much fun writing this summary of awesome work done by @lizsiefert.bsky.social @annaschapiro.bsky.social and co.! Learn about how your brain transforms memory during sleep (and at least one reason getting sleep is so important!): www.upennglia.com/briefs/bib-m... #neuroskyence #SciComm 🧪

How does the brain transform our memories during sleep? — GLIA

Or technically, Memory reactivation during sleep does not act holistically on object memory [See original abstract on Pubmed]

upennglia.com

Brains in Briefs @brainsinbriefs.bsky.social · last yr.

And next, NGG student Liz Siefert @lizsiefert.bsky.social tested whether reactivating certain memories during sleep in humans can help with their recall later. Current NGG student Catrina Hacker @catrinahacker.bsky.social breaks it down. www.upennglia.com/briefs/bib-m...