Have you ever felt like something was missing from your #fmri results? Have you been worried about potential reproducibility issues? Well, this new @natmethods.nature.com article with 40+ coauthors shows how the simple change to transparent thresholding helps both. Go Figure! rdcu.be/B4tikBETdQZa

When is language needed for human culture to accumulate? When observing successful behavior is not enough to recover the mental model behind it! This is an incredibly ambitious project, involving large-scale experimentation, RL and ABM modeling, and computational language analyses.

Alexandre "Blublu" Bluet@blubludoesscience.bsky.social · 2w ago

New preprint! We investigate the role of language in the transmission of mental models in cultural evolution. Using a transmission chain design with over 2000 participants, we show that only language allows for the transmission and refinement of mental models. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Paper out - big congrats to Dahna Choi! How #empathy & #perspectivetaking relate to #depression, specifically disease severity @trr393.bsky.social @katfoerster.bsky.social @lisaleehr.bsky.social @straubeb.bsky.social @tudresden.bsky.social @kanskelab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/jclp...

When Being Social Is Costly: Empathy's Role for Risk States, Acute Symptoms, and Cumulative Disease Severity of Depression

Objectives Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) frequently report burdensome interpersonal difficulties and altered empathy and perspective-taking. Previous findings on binary comparisons b.....

doi.org

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher who wants to innovate at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, and machine learning. 📍Munich 📅Flexible start: 10/2026–03/2027 ⏳Full consideration by 14/08/2026 💼Funded for 2 years, extension possible Discover, grow, collaborate, eat cake.

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.

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Looking to work with a postdoc. Prior experience with fMRI and computational modeling required, interest in psychiatry desired. Fellowship provides three years salary plus independent travel/equipment funds. Send CV and 2-3 manuscripts (preprints OK).

Do people solve hard problems by first building a mental model, then searching for the best solution? With @gershbrain.bsky.social, our new manuscript suggests a different route: people often start by retrieving cached solutions, and scaffold representations around them. osf.io/preprints/ps...

How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...

I also wrote a blogpost about our paper, non-technical at all! psywalkeryanxy.github.io/posts/scienc...

The tower that never fell: how one brain holds two languages – Xinyuan Yan

In Genesis, humanity’s shared language is scattered at Babel. But inside the bilingual brain, we found something the story leaves out: a single, hidden map of meaning that English and Spanish both rea...

psywalkeryanxy.github.io

Cell Press@cellpress.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For many bilingual people, switching between languages feels effortless. Now, scientists have figured out how bilingual brains accomplish this feat at the single neuron level. spkl.io/633297EUXJ Xinyuan Yan, Benjamin, Y. Hayden, @sameershethmd.bsky.social & colleagues @cp-cell.bsky.social

A great preprint is out! It was also super fun collaborating with science museums!! Huge thanks to Humboldt Forum and Miraikan too!!

Ralf Kurvers@ralfkurvers.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96

Flexible decisions arise from resource-rational memory sampling https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.15.732446v1

🚨 New preprint with @sgluth.bsky.social on social learning and EEG! 🧠 We've recently found out that, to learn about others' preferences, humans don't just look at WHAT they choose, but also HOW FAST they make a decision. How does the brain actually process this? 👇 osf.io/preprints/ps...

We've known that socioeconomics (SES) matters for the 🧠. New & 🤯 is that SES drowns out all other brain associations, incl. IQ. If you train an algorithm to predict IQ from brain data, it's still way better at predicting SES. Science Mag: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @smarek0502.bsky.social 👀🧵👇

Scott Marek@smarek0502.bsky.social · 3mo ago

What matters most for childhood brain organization? We analyzed 649 variables. The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers. Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES. In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

✨ VERY excited to share our new paper led by Holly Bowen (SMU) & former ugrad Kyle Thurmann "Effects of reward anticipation on memory encoding and cognitive control outcomes: A meta-analysis" finally in press @ Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 💵🧠 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thread 1/n

Effects of reward anticipation on memory encoding and cognitive control outcomes: A meta-analysis

Extensive evidence suggests that cognitive performance is typically enhanced under increased motivation, often in the form of reward anticipation. Whi…

sciencedirect.com

⚽ Can humans beat AI at forecasting the World Cup? @rezlescu.bsky.social and I are launching Forecast 2026, a live research study comparing real-life, real-time human predictions about World Cup matches with those of AI models. Join our study at: forecast2026.com

Semantic knowledge is key for human innovation and cultural evolution! Our paper (thread in repost), led by fantastic @anilyaman.bsky.social & rising star @ts-brain.bsky.social is out in @pnas.org! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... I will present this work at APS Barcelona (29/5), happy to chat!

Björn Lindström@bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · 11mo ago

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone? Our new preprint, led by @anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

Awesome results from @fluketc.bsky.social @dudman.bsky.social and team, both for dopamine field and for all that train animals in tasks www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reward magnitude determines reinforcement learning efficiency

Standard animal learning studies minimize individual reward magnitudes to maximize the repetitions of reinforced behaviors. We investigated how reward magnitude influences initial learning across five...

science.org

Physical activity & #exercise require #time & #effort These costs are relatively well characterized separately But they co-occur in real life, & we lack understanding on how people jointly integrate them: Why/When do people choose elevators over stairs? Our brilliant PhD, Sena, explores this! ⚽🧠

Sena Ozay-Otgonbayar@senaozayotgonbayar.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Really happy to share that my first PhD preprint is finally out!🥳 We suggest that time and effort should be studied together as a shared experiential cost w/@bcheval.bsky.social, @corimartarelli.bsky.social, Dr. Maltagliati, Dr. Chastin, and @wanjawolff.bsky.social Curious?👇 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Very excited to share our first effort-learning paper in @plosbiology.org! Huge thanks to my wonderful co-authors @Jan Grohn, @thepsychologist.bsky.social and to my co-senior authors @mkflugge.bsky.social and @lilweb.bsky.social, for all their effort on this fun project. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨 I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p... Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling. Pls share!

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL

Discover Postdoctoral Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

jobs.ac.uk

📢 New preprint out now! In three samples (N=594), including a U.S.-representative cohort and a test-retest cohort, we formalize social motivation, learning, and homeostatic control within a single computational framework and identify a phenotype linked to chronic loneliness doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Cognitive Modelling Research in the Era of Agentic Large Language Models From equations to fitted models in minutes: how LLMs are changing computational cognitive science and how we should adapt My latest post on Medium medium.com/@stefano.pal...

Cognitive Modelling Research in the Era of Agentic Large Language Models

From equations to fitted models in minutes: what LLMs are changing in computational cognitive science and how we should adapt.

medium.com

We're happy to release NeuralSet: a simple, fast, scalable package for Neuro-AI Supports: 🧠 fMRI, EEG, MEG, iEEG, spikes… preprocessing 💬 text 🔊 audio ▶️ video 🏞️ image… embeddings 📦 pip install neuralset 🔍 facebookresearch.github.io/neuroai/neur... 📄 kingjr.github.io/files/neural... 🧵 Details👇

Top of my reading list 💫

Marcelo Mattar@marcelomattar.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New Annual Review with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social: “Planning in the Brain: It's Not What You Think It Is.” We argue that the brain's 'planning' machinery is mostly used for learning from simulated experience, and that thinking prospectively at decision time is just one special case of this process.

PhD Position available! We are seeking a motivated PhD candidate to join our team at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. The position is funded by the German Research Foundation and is available from 10/2026.

New paper from me at Perspectives on Psychological Science! "Reframing the Performance and Ethics of Empathic AI: Wisdom of the Crowd and Placebos" I use analogies to two classic psychological effects to recast recent findings about the performance of empathy by LLMs. doi.org/10.1177/1745...

🧠 Congrats @felixklaassen.bsky.social with this unique DBS case study targeting the midbrain PAG. Direct PAG stimulation (and not a bordering control region) induces threat-specific bradycardia ❤️ @devoogdld.bsky.social @anneloeshulsman.bsky.social & co-authors www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Stimulation of the human periaqueductal gray induces threat bradycardia: a case report

The ability to recognize and anticipate potential danger is crucial for survival across species. The midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) is implicated in regulating threat-anticipatory responses, in...

tandfonline.com

To accompany my textbook (Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience) and the class I taught this semester, I'm open-sourcing my lectures slides: gershmanlab.com/lectures.html I'll continue to update these as I improve them.

Hi! A group of people, especially @neurozorro.bsky.social and team, are developing new versions…check out compose.neurosynth.org. Neurostore, nimare And neuroquery @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social Neurosynth.org is static since Tal stopped maintaining it. Still useful though imo

New paper: Jamil Zaki and I integrate theories of empathy + emotion regulation to describe how therapists have to regulate a "therapeutic emotional circuit" in each session. Lots of applications and avenues for new research. Just published in CPS! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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