Katie Insel

YouTube video by Vijay Mittal Northwestern's Adolescent Mental Health and Well-Being Anthem Video

I'm so excited to be a Faculty Fellow in the newly formed Institute for Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern! iamh.northwestern.edu

Learn more about IAMH's mission and research: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEyy...

Stay tuned for many exciting opportunities to get involved in 2026!

The effects of task similarity during representation learning in brains and neural networks Nature Communications - Here, the authors show learning tasks with similar structures can initially cause interference and slow down learning, but both the brain and artificial networks gradually...

Our new paper, now published in @natcomms.nature.com , asks a simple question: when two tasks share a common structure, does the brain learn them more efficiently? Surprisingly, this was not the case. Thread below (1/7)
rdcu.be/eSwvU

First one out in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🎉
Can’t wait to read the full @fitngin.bsky.social special issue!

2 weeks left to apply!!

A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.

My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN

A scatter plot of the number of citations associated with grants as a function of percentile score for a data set from NIGMS.

On the subject of data, here is from an analysis that I did when I was at NIGMS.

nigms.nih.gov/loop/2011/06...

This showed that there were some quite productive grants with percentile scores at or worse than the 30th percentile.

5/13

🚨 New preprint on the first infant 7T MRI project in North America! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We showcase that by leveraging 7T for infants, we can improve data quality and thereby facilitate precision functional mapping in early development.

Sign up for our final winter session of Scan Camp!!

Looking for teens in the Chicagoland area!

8-10 MRI scans at Northwestern's Feinberg campus.

Wear an Oura ring and answer daily surveys.

Earn up to $1,360, prizes, and a 3D-print of your brain!

northwestern.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Scaling back DEI isn’t just a moral setback—it’s a loss of innovation.

Bhalla, Trejo & @marymunson4.bsky.social in Nature Cell Biology: limiting who can participate in science “weakens research capacity and stifles discovery.”

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Applications are due December 1, and the GRE is not required!

Learn how to apply here: psychology.northwestern.edu/graduate/pro...

I'm recruiting PhD students for my lab at Northwestern! I'm reviewing applications for the Department of Psychology for the Cognitive Affective Neuroscience and Clinical areas, due 12/1. 🧠

Come join the CATS Lab: nucatslab.com

Learn about our latest research: iamh.northwestern.edu/research/res...

I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com

Understanding barriers to adolescent participation in developmental neuroscience research Increasing representation of youth in developmental neuroscience research is essential to elucidating neurobiological mechanisms of cognition, behavio…

New lab paper in DCN! 🧠 We conducted interviews with adolescents to better understand their perceptions of neuroscience research and barriers to participation, w/qualitative data that is shaping how we design lab studies & efforts to increase representation.

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

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/14

NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.

Thoughtful and well-informed op-ed from @ianlmorgan.bsky.social

Definitely worth a read!

www.the-scientist.com/nih-leadersh...

1/2

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Delayed thank you to @fluxsociety.bsky.social for a wonderful meeting in Dublin earlier this month! Thank you to everyone who came to my poster on reward-motivated working memory across children, adolescents, and adults

🇺🇸 These dedicated public servants risked their careers to deliver an urgent message. 🚨

While the 1st amendment grants them the right to speak on matters of public concern, their protection is not guaranteed under an administration hostile to free speech.

Please take the time to listen and boost 🔥

This US government shutdown is different: what it means for science President Trump’s budget office lays out guidelines for mass lay-offs across the federal government.

“American science, the gold-standard and world-leading science and innovation enterprise, is being destroyed….Congress has a rare moment of leverage to check Trump’s executive overreach and it must stand up and do so.”

- @markhisted.org, NIH neuroscientist

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exciting news! 🎉 Our Computational Neuroscience course has been awarded NIH BRAIN Initiative funding! Students will get hands-on experience w real BRAIN Initiative datasets, helping them build computational skills that are essential for the future of neuroscience.

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Help @thetransmitter.bsky.social and @neuromatch.bsky.social understand what early-career neuroscientists need. Take just a few minutes to fill out the survey: www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

#neuroskyence

House votes to charge D.C. 14-year-olds as adults The House also voted to restrict judges from giving lighter sentences to young adults, among 14 D.C. crime-related policy proposals from the GOP.

No 14-year-old should be tried as an adult. None.
www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

8 Democrats just joined Republicans in voting to enable 14-year-olds in DC to be tried as adults:

Cuellar
Davis (NC)
Gillen
Golden
Lee (NV)
Min
Perez
Vindman

Harmful, heinous, counterproductive, and deeply racist

clerk.house.gov/evs/2025/rol...

I wrote a little note on awards for diversity and science:
mwkraus.medium.com/a-note-on-aw...

Yay congratulations!!!

Senate panel raises hopes that NSF will restore killed grants Republicans promise to work with Democrats to salvage defeated amendment

So... where to go from here???

CONGRESS 👏 HAS 👏 POWER

Laws from Congress can help override this SCOTUS mess.

☎️ So tell your Senator to support Sen Baldwin's amendment to restore terminated NSF grants (or Durbin's for NIH)

🐘 *Especially* if you have a Repub Senator.

More context here:

🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget!

House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion.

To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!

Listed are some of the many NIH research training programs that were terminated! Together, these programs supported thousands of trainees, whose careers are now in limbo. Such a great loss for discovery and innovation. We must protect our next generation of scientists!
#HandsOffNIH #ProtectScience

The Shadow Docket Just Won’t Quit

Great breakdown of the SCOTUS shadow docket ruling on NIH grants terminations by @strictscrutiny.bsky.social. Even though SCOTUS ruled that the grant recipients would likely succeed, they allowed the NIH to continue terminating the grants for now. My brain hurts from this one.

This SCOTUS decision is not just about what words we can and cannot say in our grants. This ruling will destroy the careers of many scientists, and it will hit trainees and early career researchers the hardest. The future of scientific training and research innovation is at stake.