Melissa Franch, PhD

Specialized Representations of Value in the Orbital and Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex: Desirability versus Availability of Outcomes Rudebeck et al. show that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) make dissociable contributions to decision-making. The VLPFC, but not the OFC, is critical for upda...

When people, on occasion, DO careful lesions that spare white matter then tend to get VERY different results than classic lesion studies, for example, Broca's Area lesions sparing language, or this:

www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Lesions needs to be revisited because almost all lesions intrude on adjacent white matter. Lesions disrupt complex circuits, not areas. This problem was ignored until recently because it was believed, incorrectly, that white matter was largely composed of connections to adjacent gray matter.

How distributed is the brain-wide network that is recruited for cognition? - Nature Reviews Neuroscience Both localized and distributed views on the functional organization of the brain have been put forward. In this Perspective, Rosen and Freedman examine the degree to which these two views account for ...

Thoughtful review with some good recent historical perspective on the ongoing paradigm shift that is radically changing the way we think about what brain areas do.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀?
Do they even exist...?
Join @lucinauddin.bsky.social who will present, followed by discussion in the Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon.
Open to all.
Date: Dec 9, 12pm EST-US
Register: umd.zoom.us/meeting/regi... (you need a zoom account which is free)
#neuroskyence

This is a really nice neural model for the Minimalist Program's central claim that the core language system (compositional syntax-semantics) provides instructions to distinct cognitive systems, and that these systems have their own unique 'interface conditions' for readouts.

Y’all are reading this paper in the wrong way.

We love to trash dominant hypothesis, but we need to look for evidence against the manifold hypothesis elsewhere:

This elegant work doesn't show neural dynamics are high D, nor that we should stop using PCA

It’s quite the opposite!

(thread)

Research statement for postdoc positions.
Any good resources on this? Samples people would be willing to share?
@neural-reckoning.org @kordinglab.bsky.social @gunnarblohm.bsky.social

Virtual reality as a tool for supporting autistic people. Exploring how VR can help us understand—and improve—the social experiences of autistic people.

Another #CRAEwebinar booked in! February seems a long way away, but you might want to sign up now to hear from @natecaruana.bsky.social on how VR can help us understand and improve the social experiences of autistic people.

Agreed! And I suspect we'll get there quicker if we all adopt an attitude of openness to heterodox ideas. Unfortunately, all too often in neuroscience whenever people have suggested ideas that are even a small step outside orthodoxy they're met with extreme hostility (I don't mean from you!).

As I see it, we're facing similar problems in brain research, including the biggest mysteries like understanding depression. We have a sense of what depression is and some crude scales to measure it; the end goal is the equivalent of thermodynamics. How will we get there? Epistemic iteration! 🤞

Summer Undergraduate Research Experience | HHMI The Cech Fellows Program is a paid, nine-week summer research experience empowering the next generation of scientific leaders.

@hhmi.org Summer Undergraduate Research Experience - #CechFellows named in honor of Prof Tom Cech
Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025
Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!!
www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...

Besides the awesome neuroscience I learned at HSN and @sfn.org, I was reminded of my incredible support system and the many inspiring women in neuroscience who currently guide and influence me! @nicolecrust.bsky.social @libertysays.bsky.social @storiesofwin.bsky.social to name a few.

Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings Subcortical brain structures contain neurons encoding subjective reports of stimulus detection in human participants, suggesting a role for conscious perception.

New “version of record” in @elife.bsky.social! ‬

We recorded neurons in the thalamus and subthalamic nucleus of humans and found both sensory- and perception-selective neurons with two distinct latencies!

7-year project with @nfaivre.bsky.social + @foscobernasconi.bsky.social.

A short thread 👇

How is the semantic content of a movie processed by our brains? 🧠🎬
We decode characters, events, & other features and investigate how populations and single neurons represent movie features. Check my poster @sfn.org #sfn25!
Sat. Nov 15, 6:45-8:45pm, Hall E, poster S5
Wed. Nov 19, 9-10am, poster NN5

Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe The Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) is key to human cognition, supporting memory, emotional processing, navigation, and semantic coding. Rare direct human MTL recordings revealed concept cells, which were ...

🚨Preprint: Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

1/8: How do human neurons encode meaning?
In this work, led by Katharina Karkowski, we recorded hundreds of human MTL neurons to study semantic coding in the human brain:

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

My piece on brainfacts.org about human brain connectivity! www.brainfacts.org/in-the-lab/t...

I’m very honored to be recognized by @thetransmitter.bsky.social as a Rising Star of Neuroscience!! If you’re at SfN, come learn more about my work on developmental plasticity of the auditory cortex with longitudinal 2P imaging thru postnatal development - I’m at O15 this (Monday) morning!!

Characterizing neuronal population geometry with AI equation discovery The visual cortex contains millions of neurons, whose combined activity forms a population code representing visual stimuli. There is, however, a discrepancy between our understanding of this code at ...

1. New preprint resolving a conundrum in systems neuroscience with an AI scientist, and humans Reilly Tilbury, Dabin Kwon, @haydari.bsky.social, @jacobmratliff.bsky.social, @bio-emergent.bsky.social, @carandinilab.net, @kevinjmiller.bsky.social, @neurokim.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What an absolute inspiration this morning was!!!! Thankful for all these amazing women in neuroscience

Conceptual and methodological flaws undermine claims of a link between the gut microbiome and autism Claims that the gut microbiome causally contributes to autism regularly appear in the scientific literature and popular press. Mitchell et al. critically examine influential studies underpinning these...

New paper with @statsepi.bsky.social and @deevybee.bsky.social in which we show there's really no evidence for a link between the gut microbiome and autism www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

If you're attending HSN or #SfN2025 #SfN25 be sure to come by my poster to learn about my new work, "Neural signatures of impaired semantic contextualization in autism."

SFN info: Board KK2, Sun Nov 16. 13-1700PM

Estrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning - Nature Neuroscience Dopamine encoding of reward prediction errors naturally fluctuates over females’ reproductive cycles with estrogenic signaling due to reduced expression of dopamine reuptake proteins.

Thrilled to share our new paper, out now in @natneuro.nature.com, uncovering how estradiol, the most potent estrogen, modulates reinforcement learning and reward prediction errors across biological levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#blueprint 1/7

Brain-wide single-neuron bases of working memory for sounds in humans In order to understand the constantly changing acoustic world our brains must maintain elements of auditory scenes in memory. The neural mechanisms for this fundamental process remain unclear. Here, w...

I rarely come on here or any social media, but wanted to share our latest preprint of large-scale human single neuron recordings during an auditory working memory task: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
I'm very grateful to our patients, my co-authors and the funders. And to anyone who reads it :-) 🧠📈🧵👇(1/5)

YouTube video by Andrew Huberman How Your Thoughts Are Built & How You Can Shape Them | Dr. Jennifer Groh

I really enjoyed having this conversation with Andrew Huberman @hubermanlab.com and I hope y'all find it interesting: youtu.be/tb6ApBIXr1k?...

What Is a Manifold? | Quanta Magazine In the mid-19th century, Bernhard Riemann conceived of a new way to think about mathematical spaces, providing the foundation for modern geometry and physics.

All manifolds are shapes, but not every shape is a manifold. www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-ma...

Emotion and prediction errors: which ingredients matter? Does including emotions improve reinforcement-learning models? A recent EEG study by Heffner and colleagues presents separate neural signatures for reward and emotion prediction errors. This advance invites questions about, and even holds clues to, which ingredients of emotion and prediction errors most improve reinforcement-learning models.

Online Now: Emotion and prediction errors: which ingredients matter?

We're excited to announce the official lineup for our in-person event! 🎉

There's one week left to sign up - registration closes Nov. 1st. You don't want to miss this!

#StoriesOfWiN #SfN #WomenInNeuroscience

Transfer learning via distributed brain recordings enables reliable speech decoding - Nature Communications Speech brain-computer interfaces face challenges scaling across individuals with different brain organization. Using minimally invasive recordings from 25 patients, the authors developed transfer learning methods that enable robust speech decoding even with incomplete brain coverage.

New Paper in Nature Communications!

We present exciting work on applying transfer learning on minimally invasive recordings to build scalable speech BCI for a more heterogeneous population. #iEEG #neuroskyence

Check it out : www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🤖📈 How do LLMs use their depth?

Akshat Gupta led a fun project to find out! We leverage TunedLens (~linear decoding of tokens) to explore how LLMs' internal representations change from layer to layer.

Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2510.18871

1/

Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵