Lilian Weber

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.

"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/...

🎉 My PhD work has just been published in @natcomms.nature.com!

How do we learn who caused what - and how much control we had - when outcomes depend on multiple people? We studied how humans do so using a new social learning task, computational modelling and fMRI.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧵👇

🚀 Deadline for this is this Sunday! 🏃‍♀️

We use cognitive & biophysical models, EEG, and transcranial ultrasound to study cognition in health and disease. A list of ongoing projects is here:
tinyurl.com/cogmodeltopics

The positions come with a lot of freedom to develop your own research agenda in this space. Any questions: Email or DM!

🚀 Excited to announce that I'm looking for people (PhD/Postdoc) to join my Cognitive Modelling group @uniosnabrueck.bsky.social.

If you want to join a genuinely curious, welcoming and inclusive community of Coxis, apply here:
tinyurl.com/coxijobs

Please RT - deadline is Jan 4‼️

A figure showing that non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) modulates Pavlovian bias in a state-dependent manner. A milkshake vs. water load reduces hunger and these changes are associated with the effects of tVNS on Pavlovian bias.

Last preprint 🎶(of the year).

If vagus nerve stimulation alters motivation by amplifying internal signals, then bodily states should matter. Using milkshake vs. water loads, we show that tVNS-induced changes in Pavlovian bias are dependent on hunger. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Important topic, state-of-the-art methods, cool city, caring supervisor - go for it people!

Thanks @cmdn-lab.bsky.social for discussions & dinner - I had a lovely time!

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...

New study out today in Nature Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41..., in which we set out to test whether ultrasound could influence the reward-related learning computations of the nucleus accumbens, building on decades of work on dopaminergic prediction error and reinforcement learning. And it did.

Come work with us!

Really excited about this 5-year project starting, funded by @wellcometrust.bsky.social, where we will combine ✨computational modelling✨ with causal intervention techniques such as ✨tFUS✨ to study the neurocognitive mechanisms of repetitive negative thoughts 🚀 led by @mikebrowning.bsky.social

A figure with 3 panels. Top: A plot of log-evidence for an experimental effect over peristimulus time, as inferred using vRSA. Bottom-left: a condition-by-condition matrix of regression parameters. Bottom-right: condition-by-condition matrix estimated by the vRSA model.

Do you like RSA analysis, M/EEG and Bayes? Then you'll love Variational RSA for M/EEG, by recently completed PhD student @alexlepauvre.bsky.social from Lucia Melloni's group. It's a method and SPM toolbox for multivariate analysis of M/EEG data. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01784 . 🧵 [1/4]

Brain Injury During Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation for Substance Use Disorder

A brain injury was reported in a trial using ultrasound, framed as low-intensity TUS. Kim Butts Pauly and I reviewed the case and disagreed with how it's presented. Key acoustic data are missing.
Case: doi.org/10.1016/j.br...
Letters: www.elsa-fouragnan.com/blog | web.stanford.edu/~kimbutts/Le...

Looking for a PhD next year? Want to come and work on the next generation of OPM-MEG/EEG biomarkers in computational psychiatry?

Apply for our MRC iCase studentship with @mkflugge.bsky.social, collabs with @lilweb.bsky.social + industrial placement at P1Vital:
www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/gradua...

An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health Interactions between metabolic interoception and regulation may drive comorbidity between mental and metabolic ill-health.

What drives the bidirectional relationship between metabolic and mental ill-health?

Read our new metabolic psychiatry paper, “An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... led by @saramehrhof.bsky.social @hugofleming.bsky.social

🚨 I am over the moon 🌓 to announce that I am joining University College Dublin @ucddublin.bsky.social as an Assistant Professor this fall to start the Uncertain Mind (UMI) lab 💫

I am looking for PhD/Postdoc candidates to join (more below 👇 ). Please RT as the deadline is pretty soon 🙏

These, and other, studies show that you can decode task-related signals from many brain areas.

But wouldn't we need causal manipulations to conclude that the brain "uses" them?

For example, maybe we can decode equally well from two areas. But, only one impacts behaviour when inactivated.

Couldn't agree more with this

New at the university: Prof. Weber! Osnabrück University welcomes Prof. Dr. Lilian Weber! Since August 15, she has held the professorship "Cognitive Modeling" at the School of Human Sciences. A warm welcome!

In other news, I am now a ✨ COXI ✨ (cognitive scientist in Osnabrück, Germany)

www.uni-osnabrueck.de/en/campus-li...

I'll be looking for PhD students & postdocs later this year, so watch this space if combining cognitive modelling, EEG & tFUS to study flexible cognition sounds exciting to you 🚀

So proud of, and excited about, this project with the brilliant @johalgermissen.bsky.social, @mirunarascu.bsky.social, and @mkflugge.bsky.social + an amazing team of collaborators. Check out Johannes' summary thread 👇 #tFUS #amygdala

We are super excited about the first human transcranial ultrasound study from our lab which is now on BiorXiv, showing the amygdala‘s role in processing ambiguous emotions and showing TUS changed resting-state connectivity and metabolite concentrations (GABA) in the amygdala - a huge team effort! 🥳🙏🏼

Looking forward to this!

Are you coming to @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social #RLDM2025?
Join our workshop on Gamification in Computational and Cognitive Neuroscience with an amazing speaker lineup! 🎮👾🧠💫

w/ @ondrejzika.bsky.social @ingrdmrtn.bsky.social

The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide l…

For the past couple of years I met weekly with 3 amazing younger scientists @lilweb.bsky.social @debyee.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social to share ideas and teach each other. No agenda. It was often the favorite part of my week. Then we started writing. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Re-posting is appreciated: We have a fully funded PhD position in CMC lab @cmc-lab.bsky.social (at @tudresden_de). You can use forms.gle/qiAv5NZ871kv... to send your application and find more information. Deadline is April 30. Find more about CMC lab: cmclab.org and email me if you have questions.

Two days left for contributed talks submissions 🤖💫

sites.google.com/view/game-on...

so, so excited to share our new theory which endeavours to answer why depression and poor metabolic health go hand-in-hand: "An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health" 💪🧠🔋 @saramehrhof.bsky.social
@hugofleming.bsky.social

osf.io/preprints/ps...

📣 Exciting announcement for the summer term:

Starting in May, the @ccnberlin.bsky.social seminar series by Felix Blankenburg & Timo Schmidt (FU Berlin) is co-hosted by @david-s-stolz.bsky.social David Stolz (Universtiät Lübeck) and myself.

The topic of all talks is: "CONTROL"

🚨💫🤖 RLDM Workshop announcement:

"Game on: Leveraging Gamification in Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience"

Contributed talks submissions now OPEN: shorturl.at/0p0Jd

Looking forward to seeing you in Dublin!
w/ @luiantaverra.bsky.social & @ingrdmrtn.bsky.social

Interesting paper from Millridge et al: Reward Bases: A simple mechanism for adaptive acquisition of multiple reward types

Do DA neurons encode gradient of reward dimensions, i.e some encode food predicting cues, others fluid etc.?
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
#compneurosky #neuroskyence