I’m excited to announce the launch of BPCCIR: Building the Future of Interoceptive Neuroscience —a new 5-year, $3.5M NIH Blueprint U24 Coordination Center focused on advancing the science of brain–body communication.1/3
Sahib Khalsa
@skhalsa.bsky.social
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist studying the role of interoception in mental health. Director of Anxiety Disorders Research, UCLA Psychiatry. Opinions my own.
Here here! Scientific knowledge whether basic or applied can have so many unforeseen impacts, and sharing this widely clearly only increases this potential
Rui Costa@ruimcosta.bsky.social · 4w agoScience moves faster when shared openly. #OpenScience is the ethos of the @alleninstitute.org. We take on foundational projects too big for any single lab and build them from day 1 to be shared. This #OpenScienceWeek, join me in celebrating the scientists and organizations sharing their science.
Postdoc job alert! I’m looking for someone with a PhD in neuroscience/psychology, psychiatry, computational modeling or a related field to join my NIH-funded team at UCLA studying the neural & computational mechanisms of #interoception in anorexia nervosa 1/2
Nice paper from Wani Woo (@choongwanwoo.bsky.social) and colleagues articulating a role for interoception in AI. Very timely! www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Life-inspired interoceptive artificial intelligence for autonomous and adaptive agents - Nature Machine Intelligence
Lee, Oh et al. propose interoception as a biologically inspired framework for building more autonomous and adaptive AI agents, learning from living organisms to build autonomous and adaptive intellige...
nature.com
How do we move AI from raw model performance to effective and impactful mental health care? Building on insights from a pivotal @acnporg.bsky.social study group, the authors set 5️⃣ priorities to embed AI into clinical workflows with safety and equity at the core. 🧠💻 www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Responsible and innovative AI for mental health care: five priority themes - NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience
This paper synthesizes insights from a 2026 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) study group examining how to responsibly translate AI into clinical mental health care. Building on this ...
nature.com
Very delightful to see on my hunt for better ways to model interoception. @rssmith.bsky.social #CPC2026
Excited to announce "The Body in Dialogue" workshop @institutducerveau.bsky.social! 4 sessions on how the brain talks to the body across the animal kingdom: My session features Ana Domingos, @karalmarshall.bsky.social, Denis Burdakov & Michael Krashes. More announcements coming soon, stay tuned!
A few recent noteworthy papers on human respiratory #interoception showing: 1) exhalation's impacts on risky decision making. Kudos to the team led by Soyoung Park! www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
Slow breathing impacts inter-organ dynamics modulating brain function and risk behavior
Huang et al. show that prolonged exhalation increases risky decisions by enhancing reward sensitivity and cardiac parasympathetic activity. Individuals with greater parasympathetic upregulation exhibi...
cell.com
AI is already entering psychiatric training. Our new Academic Psychiatry review argues that staged, supervised integration that protects clinical reasoning, formulation, privacy, equity, and the therapeutic relationship is key. AI should deepen (not replace) the human work of psychiatry. Link below
After a long break, I’m back to long-form blogging! The first population atlas of the human vagus gives us an extraordinary wiring map. But what do the wires actually do? I connect it to new mouse psychophysics, organ-targeted ultrasound and our human findings. www.the-ecg.org/2026/07/29/v...
The vagus has a map. Interoception still needs a model.
The first population-level atlas of the human vagus nerve has arrived. But a map of the wiring does not tell you what the wires are saying -- on va...
the-ecg.org
Some of the most intriguing findings in our recent JAMA Psychiatry study of anorexia nervosa were not the ones we originally set out to study.
🩺𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐨𝐬𝐚? 🧵(1/6) 🔗 Link to the article (open access): jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
I'm excited to share our new paper published today in JAMA Psychiatry: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Major new work on respiratory #interoception from Brian Dlouhy and an all star team www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Human forebrain neural synchronization and entrainment to breathing during wakefulness, sleep, and external mechanical ventilation - Nature Communications
The mechanisms underlying breathing interoception are unclear. Here authors show that distinct forebrain sites synchronize and entrain to breathing during wakefulness, sleep, and external mechanical v...
nature.com
Looking forward to welcoming you back, and participating with you in this event! An advance thanks to Liron and Galia for leading this effort
Micah G. Allen@micahgallen.com · 5mo agoI will be returning to the USA for the first time since COVID! Incredibly excited to be part of a star studded #SFN2026 Minisymposium with @lironrozenkrantz.bsky.social @skhalsa.bsky.social @camillanord.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social & Galia Avidan - interoceptive mechanisms ahoy!
Pleased to announce the Embodied Tech Summit, happening in London June 10: embodied.tech
The Embodied Tech Summit
The Qualified Self: An invitation-only working summit at the intersection of neuroscience and health technology. Part of the Embodied Series. June 10, 2026 | London
embodied.tech
We've learned a lot about the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP), but as this recent meta-analysis suggests, we have a lot more to learn when it comes to clinical applications of it. Kudos to Erica, Carolyn et al. on a monumental effort. #interoception pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42092635/
A comprehensive meta-analytic review of the neurophysiological properties of the heartbeat evoked potential in health and disease - PubMed
Based on these results, no firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the utility of HEP amplitude as a clinical biomarker. Substantial heterogeneity and widespread methodological inconsistencies across ...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
This does a good job of explaining (in part) why this amazing yet strange creature of the lab’s mascot.
Nature Portfolio@natureportfolio.nature.com · 5mo agoJust like vertebrates, cephalopods — such as octopuses and squid — have elaborate brains. A feature in Nature outlines how neurosciences are researching them for insights into how intelligence evolved. #Neuroskyence 🧪
We have less than 1 week until the Embodied Minds Summit, and the agenda is finalized! embodiedminds.ai If you are still waiting for an invitation, the final wave for this small invite-only meeting will be going out later today, so stay tuned.
Embodied Minds
Partnering to Accelerate the Science of the Embodied Mind. Interoception, Consciousness, and the Future of Self-Understanding in the Age of AI. May 2–3, 2026 | Los Angeles
embodiedminds.ai
Looking forward to visiting your institute at Mt. Sinai focused on the Brain and Body!
Abha Karki Rajbhandari, PhD@brainbodylab.bsky.social · 6mo agoSuper-excited to have @skhalsa.bsky.social from UCLA for our brain-body seminar series on April 28th! Join us in the link below 👇
In case anyone not attending the meeting is interested in reading along, we’re putting together a reading list from speakers and will post that. For a good entry book on the topic of consciousness, I’ve been enjoying Michael Pollan’s new book:
Sahib Khalsa@skhalsa.bsky.social · 7mo agoI am pleased to announce the Embodied Minds Summit, a two-day gathering on interoception, consciousness, and the future of self-understanding in the age of artificial intelligence. May 2–3, 2026 | Los Angeles embodiedminds.ai
Very cool paper showing inhalation on increases visual perception and neural network activity. The evidence for moment-by-moment regulatory influences of peripheral signals on the brain’s perceptual processing keeps mounting
Daniel S. Kluger@danlikesbrains.bsky.social · 6mo agoOut now in @natcomms.nature.com, our latest from @bodybrainbehaviour.bsky.social: Visual perception, oscillatory excitability markers, and network connectivity are modulated by the breathing rhythm - depending on how much you know about the stimulus. #brainbody #neuroskyence
I am pleased to announce the Embodied Minds Summit, a two-day gathering on interoception, consciousness, and the future of self-understanding in the age of artificial intelligence. May 2–3, 2026 | Los Angeles embodiedminds.ai
We are still recruiting #Autistic adults to participate in our interview study on #interoception. Take the eligibility screener here: paloaltou.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Please share with your networks! #ActuallyAutistic #AutismAcceptance
For more than a century, the study of brain lesions has been central to understanding cognitive processes and normal brain function (e.g., Broca’s studies). However, what electrophysiological signatures emerge following a brain lesion?
New paper in PNAS! When the mind wanders, it often drifts to the body. We call this "body-wandering". These thoughts are often negative, but are associated with reduced ADHD & depression symptoms, driven by a distinct interoceptive-allostatic brain signature. pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520822123
The updated YouTube livestream link for Day 2 of the UCLA Health Brain Health Summit (which is happening now) can be found here: youtube.com/live/0Quufvj...
UCLA BRAIN HEALTH SUMMIT Day 2: 8:15 am Saturday March 21, 2026
YouTube video by BRI UCLA
youtube.com
If you can't make the UCLA Brain Health Summit in person, the meeting will be live-streamed on Youtube here: teams.semel.ucla.edu/longevity/ev... (click on the hyperlink in the top right corner of the program).
UCLA Health Brain Health Summit | Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
teams.semel.ucla.edu
Looking forward to kicking off tomorrow's UCLA Brain Health Summit. To get things ready, Indira Subramanian and I recorded this podcast hosted by Genein Letford: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCdd...
UCLA Brain Health Summit Speakers on the Create and Grow Your Brain Capital
YouTube video by Genein Letford
youtube.com