#JNeurosci: Can pupil size dynamics shed light on how aroused or alert you feel, even before you say so? @ryanypsych.bsky.social et al. found that pupil size and associated brain activity can predict moment-to-moment changes in self-reported arousal. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0157-26.2026

Our paper, "Pupil size dynamics predict momentary changes in self-reported arousal," has been accepted by the Journal of Neuroscience! 👀 🎉 We know pupil size is related to norepinephrine activity, and thus arousal and vigilance. But does it also map onto how people subjectively feel?

out today! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Chaz Firestone@chazfirestone.bsky.social · 3mo ago

You press ‘send’ on a high-stakes email but hesitate when lifting your finger. You make a chess move but linger on the piece before letting go. Familiar? In @pnas.org, Hanbei Zhou @ruizhegoh.bsky.social @ianbphillips.bsky.social & I show that response *duration* tracks confidence! shorturl.at/A9NVe

Our lab (w/ @patrickgbissett) is hiring a full-time research coordinator to work with us on cognitive control, dense fMRI, computational modeling, and human-AI interaction. Designed for post-bacs looking to start a Ph. D in ~2 years. Please repost. phxc1b.rfer.us/STANFORDNLbWAG

Social Science Research Coordinator (Hybrid Opportunity) in School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, United States

Professor Russ Poldrack’s lab is seeking a new full-time Research Coordinator. The RC will work closely with and report directly to Dr. Patrick...

phxc1b.rfer.us

Our paper on 13 methods for detecting careless responding in EMA has been accepted by Psychological Methods. Grateful to have collaborated with this wonderful team of researchers🍀(final post-print: osf.io/preprints/ps...).

Leonie Vogelsmeier@leonievogelsmeier.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨 New preprint: We compared 13 methods for detecting momentary careless responding in the WARN-D data (206k+ obs.). Tutorials guide you through each method. The takeaway? Diverging results, inherent subjectivity (to varying degrees), and a clear need for further validation. osf.io/preprints/ps...

🎉 Excited to share our publication in PNAS! 🎉 What happens when our stream of consciousness turns towards the body? Our fMRI study of 536 individuals finds that 'body-wandering' is associated with patterns of brain connectivity, physiology, affect, and mental health: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

We show that synesthesia is sensory and automatic in nature: the pupil scales with the brightness of experienced synesthetic colors. doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Now in its new dress @elife.bsky.social (convincing & valuable in round 1). If anyone wants to pick up the method, happy to share & explain!

Christoph Strauch@cstrauch.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number. 
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪

Excited to share our new review on #adolescent #anhedonia and #reward processing, published in @NatRevPsych with my lab @XueqingMa @AngadSahni9 rdcu.be/e2ENh bsky.app/profile/unir...

Subcomponents of reward processing in adolescent anhedonia

Nature Reviews Psychology - Understanding the link between anhedonia and reward processing in adolescence can enhance mental health interventions specifically for young people. In this Review, Ma...

rdcu.be

"These findings challenge the traditional brain-centric view of reward processing, supporting a more integrated model in which vagus-mediated interoceptive signals intrinsically shape motivation and reinforcement." Awesome work by @peppeganga.bsky.social & his team 👏 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The gut-brain vagal axis governs mesolimbic dopamine dynamics and reward events

Gut-brain vagal signals gate dopamine ensembles, reshaping reward and motivation beyond a brain-centric view.

science.org

Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread: Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.

Nature Portfolio@natureportfolio.nature.com · 9mo ago

Training people to activate a part of the brain linked to reward and positive expectations may be associated with an increase in the body’s immune response to a vaccine, according to a study in Nature Medicine. go.nature.com/4sQo3mK #medsky 🧪

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 · 9mo ago

Would 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...

Online Now: The Reward Positivity signals a goal prediction error

The Reward Positivity signals a goal prediction error

The Reward Positivity (RewP) is an electroencephalogram (EEG) feature that emerges following performance feedback and is commonly understood to index both positive and negative reward-prediction error (RPE+ and RPE−, respectively) signals. In contrast to this dominant perspective, we argue that the RewP is an independent EEG feature that selectively responds to positive RPE and is superimposed on a common background signal. We further propose that the RewP signals a goal prediction error: it is elicited by abstract signals instead of by hedonic 'rewards'. This goal prediction error appears to be produced by a critic-like architecture that is associated with the actor–critic framework in reinforcement learning. This perspective emphasizes the role of the RewP in goal attainment and cognitive control as opposed to being a simple indicator of reward receipt.

dlvr.it

Goal selection through the lens of subjective functions: arxiv.org/abs/2512.15948 I welcome any feedback on these preliminary ideas.

Subjective functions

Where do objective functions come from? How do we select what goals to pursue? Human intelligence is adept at synthesizing new objective functions on the fly. How does this work, and can we endow arti...

arxiv.org

wowza - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human nucleus accumbens impacts reward sensitivity - Nature Communications

This study shows that non-invasive ultrasound to the human nucleus accumbens can modulate deep brain activity and enhance reward-guided learning, offering a potential alternative to invasive neuromodu...

nature.com

My paper is out! Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets. rdcu.be/eQjLN

A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning

Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.

rdcu.be

Worth a read - context is everything. #neuroskyence #immunosky #medsky

Lior Pachter@lpachter.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I wrote a review of James Watson's obituary by CSHL: liorpachter.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/r...

Super happy to see this review out! We ask why people are so reluctant to abandon goals and how this commitment could be understood computationally. Work with Jill O'Reilly & @yaelniv.bsky.social

Trends in Cognitive Sciences@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Online Now: The adaptive value of stubborn goals

Really interesting work by Bakhurin and colleagues challenging the reward prediction error hypothesis of dopamine: www.nature.com/articles/s41... I love this figure which both echoes and undermines the famous figure from Schultz et al. (1997).

Online Now: Cognitive modeling of real-world behavior for understanding mental health

Cognitive modeling of real-world behavior for understanding mental health

A core strength of computational psychiatry is its focus on theory-driven research, in which cognitive processes are precisely quantified using computational models that formalize specific theoretical mechanisms. However, the data used in these studies often come from traditional laboratory-based cognitive tasks, which have unclear ecological validity. In this review we propose that the same theoretical frameworks and computational models can be applied to real-world data such as experience sampling, passive data, and digital-behavior data (e.g., online activity such as on social media). In turn, modeling real-world data can benefit from a theory-driven computational approach to move from purely predictive to explanatory power. We illustrate these points using emerging studies and discuss the challenges and opportunities of using real-world data in computational psychiatry.

dlvr.it

New preprint alert with @mikebrowning.bsky.social and Chamith Halahakoon! People have been using computer-based reinforcement learning tasks with affect probes. But to what extent do they reflect real-life affective experience? We tested this with 3 weeks of EMA + RL tasks in 339 participants.

‪@benhayden.bsky.social‬ @tyrellturing.bsky.social‬ @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social‬ @pessoabrain.bsky.social I see a lot of talk on here about how we should avoid "x does y" talk because the brain is "a dynamic, reverberant, reciprocally interconnected system". But this does not follow. A thread...

New preprint from the lab! 🧠 Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum. Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · last yr.

The human cerebellum encodes temporally sensitive reinforcement learning signals https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.06.674658v1

This is an exquisite demonstration of using intracranial recordings in humans to validate our findings that amygdala neurons encode the value of exploring in NHPs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rate and noise in human amygdala drive increased exploration in aversive learning - Nature

Human exploration is driven by two distinct neural mechanisms, a valence-independent rate signal and a valence-dependent global noise signal.

nature.com

Ok, reinforcement learning fans: RL is great, but what do we do when there's no obvious reward from the environment? What about perfecting a golf swing or a foxtrot or a musical performance? We may have an answer. A tale of 🐦 🎶 + 🧠. 🧵1/ #bioacoustics #prattle 💬 #neuroai #compneuro

Ziyi Gong@gongziyida.bsky.social · last yr.

I am happy to share our new preprint! In this work, we proposed a theory about how zebra finches bootstrap their error signals for self-guided RL via predictive coding 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Two papers out today on RL in the dopaminergic neurons of the midbrain of mice (one from McGill's new PI @paulmasset.bsky.social). Both papers demonstrate heterogeneity in discount factors! www.nature.com/articles/s41... nature.com/articles/s41... 🧠📈 🧪 #NeuroAI

Multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain - Nature

Individual dopaminergic neurons encode future rewards over distinct temporal horizons.

nature.com

New in Nature MentalHealth! with Vrizzi, Najar, Lemogne, and @mael-lebreton.bsky.social We tested whether behavioural and RL-based model parameters are test-retest reliable and predict mental health traits. The result? Not really. A cautionary tale for comp. psychiatry doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Behavioral, computational and self-reported measures of reward and punishment sensitivity as predictors of mental health characteristics - Nature Mental Health

Reinforcement learning task-based behavioral and computational measures displayed low test–retest reliability at the individual level. Also in contrast to self-assessed personality measures, behaviora...

doi.org

Widespread cofluctuations in the low-frequency range between resting-state global fMRI signals, EEG activity, and a host of peripheral autonomic signals spanning cardiovascular, pulmonary, exocrine and smooth muscle systems 🧪🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Autonomic physiological coupling of the global fMRI signal - Nature Neuroscience

The brain and body are necessarily connected. Here the authors show that brain blood flow and electrical activity are coupled with systemic physiological changes in the body.

nature.com

yesterday, my postdoc funding (salary and research funds) was cancelled by the National Science Foundation, effective immediately. I received the same generic, vaguely threatening, typo-ridden email as many of my colleagues who have had their awards terminated recently. (1/n)

Excited to see this in "print"! Work led by @jinke.bsky.social decoding emotional arousal across fMRI movie datasets!

Jin Ke@jinke.bsky.social · last yr.

Now out in Plos Computational Biology! We identified a generalizable neural signature of emotional arousal across contexts and individuals during movie watching. work with the best team: @hayoungsong.bsky.social @Zihan Bai @monicarosenb.bsky.social @ycleong.bsky.social dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Epic recordings of model-based and model-free learning signals from Kennerley lab (Bruno Miranda). Now at @elife.bsky.social doi.org/10.7554/eLif...