Nadine Herzog
@ndherzog.bsky.social
Cracking Brain Signals 🧠 Neuroscientist | 🎯 Dopamine & Food Reward Systems 📡 EEG-fMRI Fusion | 🤖 Deep Learning Advancing obesity treatment through the science of cognition and reward.
Interested in #NeuroAI? Max Planck Schools Biomedical AI applications are open until Dec 1. Info: biomedicalai.maxplanckschools.org/4056/applica... If you’re looking at mentors, I think Arno Villringer is worth checking out :)
Application Process
Application Process - how to apply to the Max Planck School of Biomedical Artificial Intelligence
biomedicalai.maxplanckschools.org
New round of applications for Max Planck School of Cognition has started. Besides Q&A sessions, applicants may ask for an assessment of their application (CV and motivational letter) by one of the current students (me, for example😊). We are always happy to help! Request this via application portal.
Max Planck School of Cognition@mps-cognition.bsky.social · 2mo agoStill time to register for one of our first Q&As on Wednesday this week about the application requirements! #passionforscience #maxplanckschools
Here is a new paper from My group that originated from an NIH workgroup led by Luke Stoeckel. I can now recommend a cognitive test to predict outcomes on a behavioral weight loss program. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Identification of cognitive factors that predict behavioural weight-loss intervention outcomes - International Journal of Obesity
International Journal of Obesity - Identification of cognitive factors that predict behavioural weight-loss intervention outcomes
nature.com
Hi hi, does anyone have simultaneous EEG-fMRI data from a reward task they would be willing to share? We trained a deep learning model to predict striatal reward signals from EEG, but 19 participants is not enough. Collaborations welcome. doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
From surface to depth: Using deep learning to predict striatal fMRI reward signaling from EEG
Abstract. Reward processing is critical for motivation, learning, and decision making. It involves a network centered on the fronto-striatal circuit, with the ventral striatum (VS) playing a pivotal r...
doi.org
Your heartbeat quietly shapes how your brain processes information www.science.org/content/arti...
Your heartbeat quietly shapes how your brain processes information
Frequently ignored bodily rhythms may be skewing neuroscience experiments
science.org
How can 🍪 help us understand anhedonia? What started as a small project is now (> 2 years after the preprint, with revision deadlines landing exactly during my move from Tübingen to Bonn and even during a monastery-based PhD retreat) finally out in Cell Rep Med 🔽🧵 www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Blunted anticipation, but not consummation, of food rewards in depression
Schulz et al. show that anhedonia in depression, as measured by a scale often equated with loss of pleasure, reflects reduced anticipation of food rewards rather than impaired enjoyment itself. Linkin...
cell.com
After a year of feedback and revision, from creative writers to scientists, the article is finally out. I’m grateful to everyone who contributed their time. I hope it sparks reflection, discussion, and a shift in how we think about eating behavior. www.thesciencebasement.org/is-obesity-a...
Is obesity a choice? - The Science Basement
For over a century, obesity research has evolved from a simple story of personal weakness in resisting pleasurable foods to a complex, multifaceted disease. Yet this shift has not reached many of our ...
thesciencebasement.org
⚫️ NeuroAI Symposium 2026 - it was a blast! ⚫️ Groundbreaking talks, lively discussions and inspiring ideas across #NeuroAI topics! 🧠🤖 A huge thank you to all our speakers, organizers, and participants for making #NeuroAISymposium2026 such a success 🙌 📸 Highlights at neuroaisymposium.com
Our review about methods used in Heartbeat Evoked Responses research is out at Psychophysiology ✨! We hope it will be a helpful resource for the community: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
<em>Psychophysiology</em> | SPR Journal | Wiley Online Library
Heartbeat-evoked responses (HER) are a widely used marker for interoception. However, our systematic review revealed considerable methodological variability and a lack of reporting standards, likely ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Paul Steinfath@paulsteinfath.bsky.social · last yr.Could the diversity of findings in heartbeat-evoked response (HER) research be due to variability in methods? In our new preprint my co-first authors, Maria Azanova and @willenjoy.bsky.social, and me systematically reviewed 132 M/EEG HER studies and found:
New eLife editorial: their Publish-Review-Curate model works, even after losing the impact factor. I published with them because I believed in their approach. Scientific publishing needs more courage to embrace change ...especially in times of peer-review crisis.
Mara Mather@maramather.bsky.social · 8mo agoelifesciences.org/articles/110...
Here we gooo! Will fMRI become obsolete for measuring striatal reward signals? Probably not anytime soon… Still, in our latest paper, we use AI to take a step toward decoding striatal reward signals from EEG — maybe nudging the fMRI monopoly just a little :) direct.mit.edu/imag/article...
From surface to depth: Using deep learning to predict striatal fMRI reward signaling from EEG
Abstract. Reward processing is critical for motivation, learning, and decision making. It involves a network centered on the fronto-striatal circuit, with the ventral striatum (VS) playing a pivotal r...
direct.mit.edu
Nadine Herzog@ndherzog.bsky.social · 9mo agoWoop woop 🎉 Excited to share that our paper has been accepted in Imaging Neuroscience! Can ventral striatal reward signals — originating from deep within the brain — be reconstructed from scalp EEG? We tried to answer this question using deep learning. More soon 👀 Stay tuned.
Such a cool and rigorous paper by @studenova.bsky.social ! bsky.app/profile/stud...
Alina Studenova@studenova.bsky.social · 8mo agoHow dynamics arise from the structure is my biggest interest. In this study, we started with a small step and asked how structure constrains dynamics. Spoiler: would that it were so simple… (1/6)
How dynamics arise from the structure is my biggest interest. In this study, we started with a small step and asked how structure constrains dynamics. Spoiler: would that it were so simple… (1/6)
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 8mo agoInter- and intra-individual variability in structure-function coupling in human brain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.25.707886v1
Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky academic.oup.com/icb/article-...
Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky
Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For
academic.oup.com
Woop woop 🎉 Excited to share that our paper has been accepted in Imaging Neuroscience! Can ventral striatal reward signals — originating from deep within the brain — be reconstructed from scalp EEG? We tried to answer this question using deep learning. More soon 👀 Stay tuned.
On #InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience, this article hit me: more children are drawing scientists as women than ever before. Yay! 🎉 🤔 But still only ~30%. Progress, yes. Equality, not yet. www.science.org/content/arti...
What does a scientist look like? Children are drawing women more than ever before
Study is based on 20,860 sketches drawn by children over 5 decades
science.org
@cbsopenscience.bsky.social great opportunity to connect over open science in Leipzig coming up!
iDiv Biodiversity Research@idiv-research.bsky.social · 9mo ago📢 Call for registrations - Science:TBD 📍 Leipzig | 3–4 March 2026 Join us for an inspiring lineup of keynotes: ⭐Sheena F. Bartscherer ⭐Alice Hughes @achughes.bsky.social ⭐Wolfgang Forstmeier ⭐Ulrich Dirnagl ⭐Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social Register now: www.idiv.de/science-tbd
If oscillations are modulated in amplitude from trial to trial, and those oscillations have a non-zero mean, they "create" an evoked response. It is a baseline-shift mechanism for ERP/ERF generation. Here is a simulated example of how alpha oscillations may generate readiness potential. #brainmovies
I have been trying to simulate event-related alpha amplitude decrease with the Jansen-Rit model. Turns out adding external inhibitory input abolishes alpha. Pretty obvious. But how does it agree with more alpha = more inhibition? #brainmovies
Heute noch Thema Vereinbarkeit (Familie & Beruf). Das ist mir auch deshalb wichtig, weil ich selbst als Doktorandin so gut wie keine Professorinnen mit Kind(ern) als Vorbild hatte, mir das aber gewünscht hätte. Meine Karriere sieht auf dem Papier jetzt wie ein "Vorzeigemodell" für Vereinbarkeit aus.
main goal for this year: find a new job! 🙂 looking for a role with fun & complex technical challenges & within a great community. my main expertise is in signal processing/EEG/MEG, but topic-wise I am quite flexible. science/industry both great! starting mid-year. nschawor.github.io/cv
The Max Planck Society has begun an exploratory round table for open science. We are drafting some recommendations to leadership. Still a long way to go! But here are my notes on the most recent draft, just so you all know how I am trying to steer things.
It’s not too late to apply for the PhD position in my lab! Please send your documents (cover letter, CV, transcripts, names of references) through the official application platform by Nov 25!
Martin Hebart@martinhebart.bsky.social · last yr.Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026. The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social. Please apply here until Nov 25: www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
Please share! - 🚨⚠️ PhD position alert ⚠️🚨 - Please share! Come work with @ldeserno.bsky.social and yours truly on an exciting DFG-funded project on the neurocognitive mechanisms of (noise in) learning and decision-making in development and ADHD!
Is overeating driven by hedonism? @danasmall.bsky.social &co argue that the pleasure of eating food is not a driver of the #obesity epidemic, but rather the regular consumption of an unhealthy diet blunts sensitivity to interoceptive signals that drive food reward #neurosky 🧪 plos.io/4nTlHQc
Wer in der Wissenschaft als exzellent gelten will, muss sichtbar sein. Nur: Frauen werden für Sichtbarkeit abgestraft. Sie können es schlicht nicht richtig machen! Kein Wunder, dass Gleichstellung im dt. Wissenschaftssystem schleppend vorangeht. Das #Sichtbarkeitsparadox: heute in #ArbeitInDerWiss!
Das Sichtbarkeitsparadox: Warum Wissenschaftlerinnen es nicht richtig…
Als exzellent gelten setzt voraus, sichtbar zu sein. Wissenschaftlerinnen werden jedoch für Sichtbarkeit abgestraft. Egal was sie tun: Sie können es nur falsch machen!
steady.page
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026. The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social. Please apply here until Nov 25: www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
Big shake-up for dopamine theory? This new @NatureComms paper argues that VTA dopamine isn’t signaling reward prediction error but instead modulates force and performance. If true, it decouples learning from motivation and puts pressure on decades of RPE-based models. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning - Nature Communications
VTA dopamine activity control movement-related performance, not reward prediction errors. Here, authors show that behavioral changes during Pavlovian learning explain DA activity regardless of reward ...
nature.com
Fresh from the press 🍃 In this article, we put forward a framework for understanding goal-directed and habitual control. We propose how interactive loops in the brain & shortcuts between them may shape our behavior – and that of Transformers. Looking forward to your thoughts💡 doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
Redirecting
doi.org
Functional connectivity (FC) is driven by 1/f. The approach: compute FC as usual, compute FC only with ROI where oscillations are 'present', then compare. Alpha lives, but not other bands. Idk, seems overstated. If beta comes in bursts: no peak, but could be FC doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1041-25.2025
Functional connectivity is dominated by aperiodic, rather than oscillatory, coupling
Functional connectivity (FC) has attracted significant interest in the identification of specific circuits underlying brain (dys-)function. Classical analyses to estimate FC ( i.e ., filtering electro...
doi.org