Preston Thakral
@prestonthakral.bsky.social
Assistant Professor, Smith College. PI of the Neuroscience of Memory and Flexible Cognition Laboratory https://t.co/BEC27XDM7w
New Paper! Monier et al. reveal scene- and object-selective regions exhibit convergent patterns of functional connectivity during encoding and retrieval of episodic memory, with age-related differences in scene-selective networks and their association with memory performance. doi.org/10.1093/cerc...
Combining data to study lifespan brain aging is tempting: more data and wider age range! But mixing data across scanners/protocols without proper harmonization can bias age effects, including studies using high-quality HCP data. Imaging Neuroscience🔔doi.org/10.1162/IMAG.a.1338
In honor of International Left-Handers Day, we have an updated preprint on scanning left-handed participants in fMRI studies. Although they're 11% of the population, we routinely screen LH people out of fMRI studies due to concerns about functional lateralization 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Left Out: The Effect of Handedness on fMRI Activation in Memory Paradigms
About 11% of the population is left-handed, a significant minority of the potential participant pool for functional MRI (fMRI) studies. However, convention in fMRI research dictates these potential pa...
biorxiv.org
TL;DR THREAD – Properties of personal semantics ⏳ (link.springer.com/article/10.3...) The backstory. In previous work, we observed a gradient of hippocampal activity 🍤 : general semantic knowledge < personal semantic knowledge < episodic memory 📈 (elifesciences.org/articles/83645)
The properties of personal semantics - Memory & Cognition
Recent cognitive neuroscience research has uncovered some similarities and some differences between general semantic memory (GS; e.g., knowledge about family in general) and personal semantic memory (...
link.springer.com
I'm really excited to share the results of a new study that @bjbalas.bsky.social and I have been working on this summer. This project was a bit of a labor of love. If you're interested in #chess, mental imagery, #aphantasia, or the value of a sabbatical, this is a 🧵 for you: 1/?
Clever Cat Plays Chess
ALT: Clever Cat Plays Chess
static.klipy.com
Neuroscientist Dr. Brenda Milner is recognized as one of the fundamental founders of modern cognitive neuropsychology. She proved the hippocampus is essential for forming long-term "declarative" memory (facts, names & events). She was born #OTD in 1918--she's 108 years old today! #WomenInSTEM
Thanks to Kshipra Guranandan, my notebook on how to design efficient fMRI experiments (for activity, connectivity and pattern analysis) is now available in Python as a Jupyter notebook (as well as previous Matlab): github.com/RikHenson/fM...
GitHub - RikHenson/fMRIefficiency
Contribute to RikHenson/fMRIefficiency development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
New paper from our lab in collaboration with @adevitt.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Episodic and semantic memory contributions to imagination and creativity
The ability to generate novel creative ideas (divergent thinking) is closely linked with our ability to imagine novel future events (episodic simulation). Here, we employed an individual difference...
tandfonline.com
The Marcels of the Backrooms remind you that shelter kitties need our help. Please donate if you can! givebutter.com/mollys-birth...
This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
Eiko Fried@eikofried.bsky.social · 8mo agoWould love to hear expert views on this paper. It appears to show that the operationalization of brain activity the field has relied on for 3 decades—the BOLD response—is not actually a sensible measure of brain activity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
LOAF IS IN SPACE! SHE MADE IT TO THE HEAVENS! We submitted this pic of her to Crunchlabs' space selfie project the day it debuted, and her turn finally came up! #NaniAndDashi
GEEZER BUTLER (BLACK SABBATH) Backs Effort To Rehome 1,500 Beagles From Wisconsin Lab: "We Can Pursue Better Science Without Animal Suffering" metalinjection.net/news/geezer-...
GEEZER BUTLER (BLACK SABBATH) Backs Effort To Rehome 1,500 Beagles From Wisconsin Lab: "We Can Pursue Better Science Without Animal Suffering" - Metal Injection
Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath spoke at a press conference in support of rescue efforts made for 1,500 dogs in animal testing facilities.
metalinjection.net
Totally wired to share this: TMS affects memory representations in MCI! Parietal TMS is emerging as an intervention for AD, but relies on a systems explanation (connectivity w/ hippocampus) Here's data for a complimentary view: these benefits emerge due to boosting memory representations
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 4mo agoUnderstanding the mechanisms of lateral parietalmemory modulation in Mild Cognitive Impairment https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.08.723648v1
We're hiring! FT research assistant @ UT Dallas Join our team to work on a longitudinal neuroimaging study of midlife brain aging. Strong opportunity for those interested in brain networks, aging, and Alzheimer’s disease risk. App. deadline May 6. Details: jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/31680
Last chance to apply for our virtual summer workshop on R Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience. Funded by NSF, this FREE workshop provides direct training in using R to analyze data from psychological experiments. Open to students from any university. Apps due May 15! rworkshop.missouri.edu
Home
This virtual workshop teaches basic principles of computer programming for psychology and neuroscience. Specific emphasis is given on the skills needed to analyze data from psychological tasks using R...
sites.google.com
New paper from our group out in @pnas.org! doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... Big thank you to coauthors @vosstacular.bsky.social and @anikka-jordan.bsky.social. Anikka spearheaded this project during her time as an RA and is now a grad student at Yale.
Spatial and semantic memory reorganize a hippocampal long-axis gradient | PNAS
The hippocampus supports episodic memory by binding spatial and semantic information, yet how this information is simultaneously organized along it...
doi.org
The Memory Disorders Research Society (www.memorydisorders.org) is now seeking nominations for new members! Self-nominations are welcome. Application is open until April 15 @ 11:59pm PT. Reach out if you have questions about the society or its (amazing) annual meeting! forms.gle/Qn7mchoPpaqL...
MDRS
MDRS is a professional society dedicated to the study of memory. Members engage in basic and clinical research into how memory works and why it fails.
memorydisorders.org
ICYMI at #CNS2026, we have a new mentorship program! Learn more and sign up NOW to be a mentee or mentor: www.cogneurosociety.org/new-cns-ment... #neuroscience
New CNS Mentorship Program Now Open
New mentorship program for CNS!
cogneurosociety.org
Our reply to 11 commentaries on our article ("Rethinking category-selectivity in human visual cortex") is out in Cognitive Neuroscience! Thanks to @susanwardle.bsky.social @maryamvaziri.bsky.social Dwight Kravitz @cibaker.bsky.social and all who contributed! 1/x www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
What behavioral relevance is (not)
We are thankful for the thoughtful commentaries of our colleagues. In our discussion article, we argued for a course correction to how the field approaches the organization of visual function in oc...
tandfonline.com
New preprint by @sarahehenderson.bsky.social. The *real* blood, sweat, and tears of her PhD - trying to develop an intervention to improve episodic memory in older adults under naturalistic conditions. "Event tagging" is simple, but holds real promise. #PsychSciSky #memory doi.org/10.31234/osf...
OSF
doi.org
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
Aligning eye tracking and free recall time series, we found that increased saccades predict episodic (vs. non-episodic) by 0.5 s. Just out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social, led by Ryan Barker with the inimitable @drjenryan.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A few days after the presidential election one year ago, we went to Fordham Road in the Bronx. It was a little different last week.
PhD student Nina Curko and I wrote a short article about the superpowers of memory! Now published in Frontiers for Young Minds: kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....
Traveling Through Space and Time With our Memories
A person wearing headphones and a red hoodie walks through an airport with a suitcase, gazing at a boarding gate sign marked C7 with a French flag. Thought bubbles depict the Eiffel Tower and a map of...
kids.frontiersin.org
Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience. mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
Why I left academia and neuroscience
Don't worry, this isn't yet another story of rage-quitting.
mikexcohen.substack.com
Out today! www.cell.com/current-biol...
tal boger@talboger.bsky.social · last yr.On the left is a rabbit. On the right is an elephant. But guess what: They’re the *same image*, rotated 90°! In @currentbiology.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show how these images—known as “visual anagrams”—can help solve a longstanding problem in cognitive science. bit.ly/45BVnCZ