🚨 💫 💥 Interested in PhD / Postdoc opportunities in computational psychiatry / cognitive neuroscience? My lab at University College Dublin 🇮🇪 is currently accepting expressions of interest for internally funded PhD/Postdoc applications for positions starting in September 2027 (!). 1/
Marit Petzka
@maritpetzka.bsky.social
cognitive neuroscience: memory. learning. sleep. replay. postdoc: SchuckLab | Uni Hamburg
📖 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
New preprint from my PhD at MPI CBS 🧠, with @doellerlab.bsky.social and @andrejbicanski.bsky.social “A computational model of the two dentate gyrus blades” What mechanisms allow the two DG blades to support distinct coding regimes? (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...) 1/9
Thrilled to share this with the world! In this work led by Zihan Bai, we asked how episodic memory interacts with working memory and found evidence for a tight integration between the two systems. Zihan walks you through it in his thread 🧵🧠 🔥
Excited to share the first first-author preprint of my PhD at NYU with @s-michelmann.bsky.social andDaryl Fougnie. Using eye-tracking in a novel behavioral paradigm, we reveal the mechanisms by which episodic memory (EM) and working memory (WM) interact. 🧠 doi: doi.org/10.64898/202...
And we’re off! 🚀 Symposium submissions for ICOM7 are open! Can’t wait to see what ideas you’ll be bringing to Glasgow!!
Symposium submission is now open! The deadline is 2nd November, so please get your applications in on time. We welcome not just traditional formats but also encourage panel discussions or other creative formats! icom-memory.org/symposia-sub... #philsky #psychscisky #neuroskyence #cognition 🧪
Episodic memory forms through action: gaze shifts sequentially sample experience as it unfolds 👀🏞️ 🧠 But actions may also help organize how the brain reactivates episodic memories! 👀🧠💭 🏞️ Check out our new preprint 👇 doi.org/10.64898/202... 🎉 @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social & Aditya Chowdhury 👇🧵
doi.org
Check out our new paper! 🧠 Me, @xiongbowu.bsky.social and @fuentemilla.bsky.social review how reactivation at the end of events support memory formation and propose it serves multiple functions from preventing interference to helping preserve temporal continuity! ✨ www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Neural reactivation supports memory formation when events end
Memory routinely transforms continuous experience into discrete episodes that support flexible retrieval. We propose that these structured representations are established via rapid neural reactivation...
cell.com
Very happy to share our new paper, now published in @elife.bsky.social, together with @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social and @lindedomingo.bsky.social elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
Characterising semantic prioritisation in visual working memory
elifesciences.org
Summer Preprint Alert 🔥🚨 Breathing isn't just for oxygen; it’s a rhythmic pacemaker for the sleeping brain. Our new preprint shows that the respiratory cycle actually gates memory reactivation during NREM sleep! 🧠😴💨 👇🧵(1/8)
The breathing cycle gates memory reactivation during human NREM sleep https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.29.741474v1
Excited to finally share our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com: Hippocampal ripples initiate cortical dimensionality expansion for memory retrieval www.nature.com/articles/s41... With @s-michelmann.bsky.social and @doellerlab.bsky.social
Hippocampal ripples initiate cortical dimensionality expansion for memory retrieval - Nature Communications
How past experiences are reconstructed from memory remains unclear. Here the authors used intracranial EEG to show that hippocampal ripples reshape the geometry of cortical representations, supporting...
nature.com
Can we study MTL ripples non-invasively? New preprint! We show that source-resolved MEG tracks ripple-like activity during sleep that: • localizes to the MTL • follows the canonical SO–spindle hierarchy • matches an iEEG benchmark • indexes memory reactivation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Non-invasive tracking of ripple-like activity during human sleep using MEG
Hippocampal ripples are considered a key mechanism of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. In humans, however, their direct investigation has relied on invasive recordings from patients with epilepsy...
biorxiv.org
Are you a sleep researcher? Then we're interested in your opinion on preregistrations! Help advance the field by filling out this short (5-minute) survey redcap.link/1zg4tezm (Any career stage, doesn't matter if you've preregistered before or not, we need you. Please share!)
Preregistration in Sleep Research - Practices and Barriers
redcap.link
📣 In meiner Arbeitsgruppe (LMU München) ist eine PhD-Stelle zu besetzen. Gesucht werden motivierte Bewerber:innen mit Interesse an experimenteller kognitiver Neurowissenschaft. Bewerbungsfrist: 10.08.2026. Bewerbungen bitte per Email. Mehr Infos hier: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/f...
Doktorand / Doktorandin (m/w/d)
job-portal.lmu.de
Excited to share my first #preprint with @matthiasnau.bsky.social on how gaze behavior shapes brain activity during eyes-closed rest and sleep! Gaze-dependent activity was widespread even during sleep, including in many visual cortices, and altered brain-wide functional connectivity! 🧵 1/8
Brain-wide gaze-dependent activity during eyes-closed rest and sleep
Gaze behavior and brain activity are tightly coupled during perception and mental imagery. Whether this coupling extends to eyes-closed states remains largely unknown, primarily because measuring eye ...
biorxiv.org
🧠 New opportunity for a combined PhD+Graduate Teaching Assistant position, see especially @tomdonoghue.bsky.social's and mine project on spectral parameterization models across cognitive contexts: www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
Graduate Teaching Assistant:Oxford Road
jobs.manchester.ac.uk
We're proud to introduce Brainbow, a new Slack workspace for LGBTQIA+ people in neuroscience worldwide. Brainbow aims to provide a safe space, even for those in the closet (emails & names are optional). It also includes channels for communities within the LGBTQIA+ umbrella (eg, trans/non-binary) 1/2
Join Brainbow on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
We're finally getting the tools to study replay in humans. But why bother? What can we learn from it that we don't know from rodent recordings? Our thoughts are now out in a new TICS Forum Great fun writing this w @smfleming.bsky.social + @maritpetzka.bsky.social authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
What can we learn from studying replay in humans?
Noninvasive methods are making it possible to study neural replay in humans. Although focused on alignment with rodent findings, human research often …
authors.elsevier.com
(1/2) Hiring! 🦠🧠 Postdoc position in my group @univie.ac.at on microbiome-brain interactions as part of the ERC-funded project “MemoryLane: Neural plasticity through the lens of gut-brain interactions”. 📍 Vienna, Austria 📅 Application deadline: 2 Aug 2026 ℹ️ shorturl.at/2E4sf
📣 Thrilled to share our recent work in @natneuro.nature.com. Using direct recordings from the human hippocampus and visual cortex, we asked how the brain prepares to encode information when upcoming events are unpredictable, and what ripples do in that process. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Human hippocampal ripples tune cortical responses based on predicted uncertainty - Nature Neuroscience
Using direct recordings from the human brain, Frank et al. show that hippocampal ripples increase ahead of unpredictable events and tune the visual cortex to respond faster and more strongly to surpri...
nature.com
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
Ever wondered what having auditory stimulation does to the sleep itself? Random stimulation disturbs SWS, memory, and travelling dynamics of slow waves. New paper in iScience with @mschoenauer.bsky.social, @denizkumral.bsky.social, and Steffen Gais! doi.org/10.1016/j.is... #sleep #neuroskyence
Redirecting
doi.org
🧠 New preprint! How well can current algorithms *actually* detect neural "replay" in the human brain under absolutely optimal conditions? We built FASTIMAGES: A combined MEG + fMRI benchmark with KNOWN neural sequences, so replay-detection methods can finally be validated against a ground truth.
FASTIMAGES: Validating replay detection methods in human neuroimaging
A combined MEG + fMRI benchmark dataset with known neural sequences to validate replay detection methods (TDLM and SODA).
cimh-clinical-psychology.github.io
Interested in human replay and solid methods? Jointly with @skjerns.de we're releasing a benchmark dataset with known ground-truth neural sequences in MEG & fMRI, for developing & validating replay methods. First test: existing methods show similar effect sizes, but room to improve shorturl.at/6TgIr
FASTIMAGES: Validating replay detection methods in human neuroimaging using a combined MEG and fMRI dataset
Studies in rodents and humans using invasive electrophysiology have established that neural replay is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the brain that is associated with a wide range of cognitive functions, ...
shorturl.at
New paper from our group: using simultaneous EEG-fMRI, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying individual NREM sleep slow waves. Our findings suggest that slow waves are not a homogeneous phenomenon and may reflect distinct physiological processes. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Thalamic involvement defines distinct slow-wave subtypes in NREM sleep - Communications Biology
Using simultaneous EEG-fMRI, we identify two types of NREM slow waves with distinct thalamic profiles. Large, synchronized waves involve early thalamic activation and arousal markers, whereas smaller ...
nature.com
Thalamic oscillations distinguish natural states of consciousness in humans
Thalamic oscillations distinguish natural states of consciousness in humans
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 27 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02446-zChowdhury et al. report the discovery of a 19–45-Hz thalamic oscillation that is present during human wakefulness and REM sleep, but not NREM sleep.
dlvr.it
📢 New paper out in @nathumbehav.nature.com: we identify a previously undescribed fast thalamic oscillation (~19–45 Hz) in rare intracranial human recordings that appears specifically during wakefulness and REM sleep — but disappears during NREM sleep. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thalamic oscillations distinguish natural states of consciousness in humans | Nature Human Behaviour
nature.com
🔔 Preprint: “Hippocampal ripples evoke a stereotyped cortical response followed by spindle-mediated network synchronization.” Combining iEEG+scalp EEG during sleep, we show that hippocampal ripples leave a decodable cortical fingerprint and are followed by brain-wide spindle synchronization!
doi.org
📣 First paper from the lab! 🎉🧠 Led by brilliant MRes students Aysha and Zhiyun, we found exploring a novel, unpredictable VR environment retroactively enhanced memory in humans: rdcu.be/fc496
Probing Behavioural Tagging in Humans: Spatial Memory Reveals Novelty-driven Retroactive Enhancement
rdcu.be
So excited to see this out today! Huge congrats to @oliviachristiano.bsky.social, who led this project.
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Olivia R. Christiano and Sebastian Michelmann: Reliability and signal comparison of OPM-MEG, fMRI & iEEG in a repeated movie viewing paradigm doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...