UR Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences

Congratulations to BCS grad student Claire Sun, recipient of a Society for Neuroscience Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA), which recognizes trainees who demonstrate scientific merit and excellence in research. @cvsuor.bsky.social @coralineiordan.bsky.social

Faculty Positions Updated 09/08/2025

We’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Prof in Computational Neuroscience/Cognition at
@uor-braincogsci.bsky.social! Join a Simons-supported cluster across Math/Physics/Biology/BCS. Apply by Nov 1, 2025: www.sas.rochester.edu/bcs/jobs/fac... #ComputationalNeuroscience #Cognition #FacultyJobs

Distinct audio and visual accumulators co-activate motor preparation for multisensory detection - Nature Human Behaviour Egan et al. examine multisensory evidence accumulation and show that auditory and visual evidence is accumulated in distinct processes during multisensory detection, and cumulative evidence in the…

NEW from Manuel Gomez-Ramirez & @johnfoxe.bsky.social
Distinct audio and visual accumulators co-activate motor preparation for multisensory detection.
doi.org/10.1038/s415... #URochesterResearch @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social @urneuroscience.bsky.social

Head and shoulders photo of Dr. Elise Piazza, she has a multi-colored top, brown shoulder-length hair, and is smiling.

Dr. @elisepiazza.bsky.social of @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social has woven her love of music & science into her lab-aiming to understand how the brain organizes natural sounds and how multiple people’s brains & behaviors align to support interpersonal communication 👉 bit.ly/46oMVYs

#URochesterResearch

Distinct audio and visual accumulators co-activate motor preparation for multisensory detection - Nature Human Behaviour Egan et al. examine multisensory evidence accumulation and show that auditory and visual evidence is accumulated in distinct processes during multisensory detection, and cumulative evidence in the…

New paper from Manuel Gomez-Ramirez
Distinct audio and visual accumulators co-activate motor preparation for multisensory detection.
doi.org/10.1038/s415... #URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social

The Speed of Visual Discrimination Differs between Foveola and Perifovea: A Combined EEG and Behavioral Investigation Despite the vivid experience of homogeneous vision, our visual system is inherently endowed with highly inhomogeneous structures. Although the temporal characteristics of visual responses vary with…

NEW from Martina Poletti in eNeuro: The Speed of Visual Discrimination Differs between Foveola and Perifovea: A Combined EEG and Behavioral Investigation.
doi.org/10.1523/ENEU... #URochesterResearch @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social @aplabur.bsky.social

“What happens when you get corona?”: Children’s questions and parental responses about the COVID-19 pandemic Information discussed between parents and children provide a foundation for children's developing understanding of health and illness. Parents of 3-to-7-year-old children (N = 516, 62% female, 78%…

OUT NOW from Karl Rosengren: “What happens when you get corona?”: Children’s questions and parental responses about the COVID-19 pandemic doi.org/10.1371/jour... #URochesterResearch

Spatial and Temporal Factors Influencing Fixational Saccades Much research has focused on how perceptual, cognitive, and attentional processes modulate microsaccades, the small rapid gaze shifts that humans perform when at tempting to maintain steady gaze on a…

New publication from Jie Wang & Michele Rucci: Spatial and Temporal Factors Influencing Fixational Saccades in J. Neuroscience.
doi.org/10.1523/JNEU... #URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social

The Speed of Visual Discrimination Differs between Foveola and Perifovea: A Combined EEG and Behavioral Investigation Despite the vivid experience of homogeneous vision, our visual system is inherently endowed with highly inhomogeneous structures. Although the temporal characteristics of visual responses vary with…

New paper from Martina Poletti, "The Speed of Visual Discrimination Differs between Foveola and Perifovea: A Combined EEG and Behavioral Investigation," published in eNeuro.
doi.org/10.1523/ENEU... #URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social @aplabUR

NEW from Florian Jaeger in Cognition: People quickly get better at understanding new accents, but how this happens isn't fully known. A study found that while listeners might use distributional learning to adapt, their improvement has limits not predicted by current models.
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

An international team of researchers @spk3lly.bsky.social @johnfoxe.bsky.social et al, discovered when we see & hear simultaneously our senses integrate & send information to the part of the brain that controls movement #URochesterResearch
@nathumbehav.nature.com 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Announcing a joint BCS/CVS Research Talk 9/10 at 12PM, Kresge Room: Eli Merriam, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health

Representations in human primary visual cortex drift over time
more: www.cvs.rochester.edu/events/index...
@cvsuor.bsky.social

Frontiers | Baboon route repetition in a seasonal environment IntroductionRoute-based navigation is a common movement strategy for a variety of taxa, wherein animals repeatedly re-use familiar paths during travel. Howev...

New publication from @dorabiro.bsky.social in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: Baboon route repetition in a seasonal environment. #URochesterResearch
doi.org/10.3389/fevo...

Asymmetries in foveal vision Visual perception is characterized by known asymmetries in the visual field; human’s visual sensitivity is higher along the horizontal than the vertical meridian, and along the lower than the upper…

New article in J. Neuroscience from Sam Jenks & Martina Poletti: Asymmetries in foveal vision.
doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...
#URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social @aplabur.bsky.social

Higher dopamine D1 receptor expression in prefrontal parvalbumin neurons underlies higher distractibility in marmosets versus macaques - Communications Biology Integrative anatomical, molecular, behavioral, and modeling evidence suggests that higher dopamine D1 receptor expression in prefrontal cortical parvalbumin neurons in marmosets likely contributes to…

NEW research from Jude Mitchell shows that marmosets are more easily distracted than macaques. Their brain cells have more dopamine receptors, which may make it harder to stay focused when unexpected things happen.
#URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1038/s420...

The speed of visual discrimination differs between foveola and perifovea: a combined EEG and behavioral investigation Despite the vivid experience of homogeneous vision, our visual system is inherently endowed with highly inhomogeneous structures. Although the temporal characteristics of visual responses vary with…

OUT NOW from @aplabur.bsky.social The speed of visual discrimination differs between foveola and perifovea: a combined EEG and behavioral investigation, published in eNeuro.
doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
#URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social

New article from Greg DeAngelis: When we move our eyes and body, the resulting image motion complicates visual scene analysis. This article reviews how the brain uses these signals to compute the motion and depth of objects while an observer is moving.
doi.org/10.1146/annu... #URochesterResearch

Congrats to the recent UR recipients of the Fulbright US Student program, including 2 BCS/NSC students: Isabelle Miranda (neuroscience) & Daniel Pyskaty. More: www.rochester.edu/college/stud...

Even though the foveal region takes up a large portion of the brain’s visual processing area, it hasn’t been studied as much as other parts of our visual field, mostly because it's technically challenging to precisely track where people are looking.”

Yue Guzhang is a fourth-year student in the @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social at the @urochester.bsky.social in the @aplabur.bsky.social studying how attention and fixational eye movements influence our ability to see fine details in the fovea #URochesterResearch
Read More ➡️ bit.ly/3GcWIaO

2of2) This distinction supports the idea that attention and motor planning are mediated by distinct neural mechanisms depending on whether the task involves attention or motor intention.

doi.org/10.1038/s415...
#URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social @aplabur.bsky.social

Distinct modulation of microsaccades in motor planning and covert attention - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Distinct modulation of microsaccades in motor planning and covert attention

1of2) NEW from Martina Poletti: Distinct modulation of microsaccades in motor planning and covert attention, published in Scientific Reports.

This study found that microsaccades are a reliable indicator of attentional shifts but not of motor intentions...

Sex-mediated Gene Flow in Grayfoot Chacma Baboons (Papio ursinus griseipes) in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique - International Journal of Primatology Dispersal behavior influences gene flow and the spatial distribution of genetic diversity, which is crucial for a species' evolutionary trajectory and population persistence under environmental…

OUT NOW from @dorabiro.bsky.social Sex-mediated Gene Flow in Grayfoot Chacma Baboons (Papio ursinus griseipes) in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique in International Journal of Primatology.
doi.org/10.1007/s107... #URochesterResearch

Rewarding animals based on their subjective percepts is enabled by online Bayesian estimation of perceptual biases Rewarding animals to accurately report their subjective percept is a key challenge in studying higher-level perception and cognition. This study formalizes this problem and overcomes it with a…

New from Ralf Haefner & Greg DeAngelis: How can we measure the subjective percepts of animals, for instance for visual illusions? Scientists have developed a new method using Bayesian math and context cues

doi.org/10.1371/jour...
#URochesterResearch @cvsuor.bsky.social

Congratulations Jude!🎊

students standing together on stairwell

students, bench mentors, and PI's standing together on stairwell

bench mentor showing student part of lab

PI showing students mock MRI room

Welcome Scholars! We've kicked off another summer of NEURO RocHS. Looking forward to seeing what these high school students will accomplish this summer! @urochestersmd.bsky.social @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social #URochesterResearch

NEW from @dorabiro.bsky.social West Side Story: Regional Inter-Troop Variation in Baboon Bark-Stripping at Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique
doi.org/10.1002/ajpa... #URochesterResearch

During undergrad at @urochester.bsky.social, Yue Guzhang learned a programming language from grad students while working in a lab

Today, as a @uor-braincogsci.bsky.social grad student, she is meeting undergrads in the classroom, teaching them
@matlab4neuro.bsky.social before they enter a lab 👇

Talking Science

🧠 How do the brain & mind work?
Students from the BCS Class of 2025 created short videos breaking down key concepts in brain and cognitive science — clear, fun, and informative! 🎓 Check them out: shorturl.at/Qr6m2

New publication from Dora Biro in American Journal of Biological Anthropology, "Landscape-Scale Effects of Season and Predation Risk on the Terrestrial Behavior of Chacma Baboons (Papio ursinus)."
doi.org/10.1002/ajpa... #URochesterResearch

Hierarchical motion perception as causal inference - Nature Communications "Motion perception depends on reference frames, but it is unclear what the brain’s reference frame is. Here, the authors show that human motion perception follows a hierarchical causal inference…

NEW from Sabya Shivkumar, Greg DeAngelis & Ralf Haefner in Nat. Commun. on how motion is always defined with respect to a reference frame. This study shows how the brain uses causal inference to find the right reference frame to guide our perception.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
#URochesterResearch