Ricardo J. Alejandro

I’m excited to share my recent preprint on a neural network model of free recall that learns multiple memory strategies including the memory palace!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗨𝗥𝗢𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗫
By Mars and Passingham
"Understanding anthropoid foraging challenges may thus contribute to our understanding of human cognition"
Going to the top of the reading list!
doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...
#neuroskyence

🚀Excited to share our project: Canonical Representational Mapping for Cognitive Neuroscience. @schottdorflab.bsky.social and I propose a novel multivariate method to isolate neural representations aligned with specific cognitive hypotheses 🧵https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673485v1

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex links abstract planning to motor execution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.31.673392v1

Hippocampal mismatch signals are based on episodic memories and not schematic knowledge | PNAS Prediction errors drive learning by signaling mismatches between expectations and reality, but the neural systems supporting these computations rem...

We make predictions based on general knowledge and/or specific memories. Different brain areas are active when these distinct predictions are violated – and hippocampus selectively responds to prediction errors based on episodic memory.

Cool work by @chrismbird.bsky.social @ayab.bsky.social et al!

Awesome tip!

A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...

Check out our new review/perspective (w/ @juangallego.bsky.social & Devika Narain) on neural manifolds in the brain! It was a lot of fun to think through these ideas over the past couple of years, and I'm excited it's finally out in the world!

🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
📄: rdcu.be/ex8hW

Fantastic work by our (now former) lab manager Liv Christiano. We assess the test-retest reliability of OPM and compare it to fMRI and iEEG. 🧠📄🧵

🚨 We’re hiring a postdoc!
Join the FLARE project @cimcyc.bsky.social to study sudden perceptual learning using fMRI, RSA, and DNNs.
🧠 2 years, fully funded, flexible start
More info 👉 gonzalezgarcia.github.io/postdoc/

DMs or emails welcome! Please share!

Super excited to announce a follow-up to the Janelia 'mechanistic basis of foraging' conference - this time held in Birmingham, UK! Join us from the 3rd - 5th November to discuss all things foraging: uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...

Model-based planning in structured foraging environments: https://osf.io/8z3qv

Fast-timescale hippocampal processes bridge between slowly unfurling neocortical states during memory search Prior behavioral work showed that event structure plays a key role in our ability to mentally search through memories of continuous naturalistic experience. We hypothesized that, neurally, this memory...

Excited to share our preprint "Fast-timescale hippocampal processes bridge between slowly unfurling neocortical states during memory search" 🧠✨ We leverage iEEG to elucidate the fast neural mechanisms by which long multimodal narratives are unfurled in continuous memory-search tinyurl.com/wjkr3dvf

Reinstatement of temporal context retrieves cognitive control demands: http://osf.io/qgfz6/

Episodic memory and the temporal dynamics of cognitive control: http://osf.io/9jr52/

How important are your #postdoc years in the likelihood of you staying & succeeding in #academia?

In our newly published paper in @pnas.org, "Postdoc Publications and Citations Link to Academic Retention and Faculty Success," we study the journey of #CareerSuccess of ~45,000 #postdocs.

🧵1/7

We have a new opening for a three-year postdoc position in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University: jobs.ugent.be/job/Ghent-Do...

Lesions of anterior cingulate cortex disrupt an electrophysiological signature of reward processing in humans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.04.626789v1

Rapid modulation in music supports attention in listeners with attentional difficulties - Communications Biology Rapid temporal modulation added to music affects attentional performance and brain activity; parametric manipulation of this added modulation reveals rates that differentially affect individuals with ...

Music helps attentional focus. I hope so. I'm not going to stop listening to music when I work.
Rapid modulation in music supports attention in listeners with attentional difficulties
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
#neuroscience

YouTube video by RANJIT "I don't wanna think too much" - Hikaru Nakamura

Just to give a hint on the potential for think aloud to answer these questions - this is my favorite chess streamer video - pretty nice evidence for model-based planning and model-free decision making from just one trial of data! www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zys...

Brain and eye movement dynamics track the transition from learning to memory-guided action This study reveals how the brain dynamically shifts from learning to memory-guided behavior. Büchel et al. use electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking in a spatiotemporal learning task to show a...

Proud of my first contribution to memory research: “Brain and eye movement dynamics track the transition from learning to memory-guided action” out in @currentbiology.bsky.social, great team effort together with Janina Klingspohr, Marcel Kehl & Bernhard Staresina.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Excited to have our Automated Research Assistant (AutoRA) published. While initially developed for the behavioral sciences, AutoRA is designed as a general framework for closed-loop scientific discovery. Visit the doc to construct your own closed-loop studies: autoresearch.github.io/autora/

This is intuition (inspired, e.g., by @suryaganguli.bsky.social on random projection theory) allowed us to show that if an animal performs the same task on different days, you can recover the same population dynamics even if you record from completely different neurons

tinyurl.com/5n7c6wvw

Neural Manifolds for the Control of Movement The analysis of neural dynamics in several brain cortices has consistently uncovered low-dimensional manifolds that capture a significant fraction of …

We have an updated opinionated review coming out relatively soon on this, but perhaps this perspective we wrote a long ago will help?

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If you are looking for an EEG Post Doc position, and have both an applied and fundamental interest, Roeljan Wiersema's lab is the place to be.

Deadline is Monday 25-11, so be quick! #EEG #neuroskyence

Home The Translational Lab focuses on when and why decision-making goes awry in depression and anxiety disorders and on developing potent and scalable interventions to improve it. We leverage careful expe...

Hi new followers! 👋 My lab has lots of projects underway studying why *mental behavior* goes off the rails — leading to thinking patterns like rumination and worry 🌀 — and how we can make it more effective.

* Sketch of our approach: tinyurl.com/r3tvmbn9

* Lab website: www.translational-lab.com

Good discussion on brain decoding, modularity and lots more.
#neuroscience

On the role of behavioural modes during temporally extended decision-making and their neural substrates Everyday decision-making is broader than the types commonly studied in the laboratory. For example, food preference or gambling tasks lack many essent…

Jacqueline Scholl and I have wrote an opinion piece about recent work!
We propose that behavioural modes are particularly helpful during complex, self-organized behaviour in temporally extended contexts (and could be coordinated by emotions):
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

stoked to announce i'll be starting my lab at USC jan 2025! www.rouhanilab.com

please RT (here or IRL): i'll be looking for a research specialist/lab manager & grad students for fall 2025; email if interested! (will also be giving a talk at APS tomorrow)

this took entire villages! tytyty

Toward a neuroscience of natural behavior One of the most exciting new developments in systems neuroscience is the progress being made toward neurophysiological experiments that move beyond si…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

PhD position Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

We are looking for a full-time PhD student at Ghent University to study the hierarchical learning of cues for cognitive control. The position is for four years (provided positive periodic evaluation).
Application deadline: 26 April 2024