Lilian Weber

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

YouTube video by cutting EEG CuttingEEGX - Evolving Methods

My 15' talk "the modern EEG regression toolkit: rERPs, TRFs, mixed models, and more" is now on youtube youtu.be/vnlbVDarRUc?...

thanks @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for an awesome #EEG conference!

Yes!!! The review I've been looking for! Rapid-acting antidepressants like ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy, and noninvasive stimulation (TMS) are thought to work by enhancing plasticity, but how, exactly? Grateful to @alexkwan.bsky.social and team for summarizing the evidence in this review.

Check out this👇 amazing new python tool for Bayesian modelling, lead-developed by @nicolaslegrand.bsky.social - it includes (among many other things) all elements of the generalised HGF (arxiv.org/abs/2305.10937) for you to use and apply. Can't wait to see what the community will do with it! 🚀

Eli Sennesh, Hao Wu, Tommaso Salvatori
Divide-and-Conquer Predictive Coding: a structured Bayesian inference algorithm
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.05834

We have a new preprint out, with Teresa Schuhmann, Alex Sack and Catherine Tallon-Baudry.

I think our findings give some interesting leads on the various mechanisms underlying visceral influences on the motor system and how we conceptualize interoception as a whole.
#neuroskyence

Altered food liking in depression is driven by macronutrient composition of the depicted food. We analyzed wanting and liking ratings of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and matched healthy control participants. Patients with MDD reported lower food wanting, whereas food liking was primarily associated with symptoms of anhedonia. We then evaluated whether the macronutrient composition of the food accounted for differences in ratings. This led to a substantial improvement in models and showed that patients with MDD show specific deficits for food rich in fat and protein.

Can we use macronutrients to understand altered food reward in depression? Our new preprint shows that patients with MDD report lower wanting & liking for foods rich in fat or protein (vs. carbs). #neuroscience 🩺

W/ @corcerebrum.bsky.social @neuromadlab.bsky.social
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

This has been a long haul – the main work was done as part of my PhD at the #TNU @ethzurich.bsky.social , with Klaas and Chris. Years later, @nicolaslegrand.bsky.social, Peter and Anna came onboard and created shiny toolboxes from our initial codebase. First preprint May 2023. Glad to finally share!

We also provide some examples for the kinds of models you can now build within the HGF framework – from global volatility beliefs, multimodal inference, multisensory cue combination over time, etc etc – check it out! arxiv.org/abs/2305.10937