Heather L Kosakowski

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi....

Awake infant fMRI offers a rare window into early brain and cognitive development. In a new paper out now in Infancy, we leverage data from hundreds of infant scans from the Saxe and Turk-Browne Labs to reveal what factors drive scanning success — and how future studies can maximize data retention!

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi...

Congratulations to @lillianbehm.bsky.social, Nick Turk-Browne, and a huge team for putting together this paper (out today) on lessons from a decade of attempts to study awake infants with fMRI:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press.

This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website:
tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...

I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.

My lab at USC is recruiting!
1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829
2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/

October office hours now posted for 10/10 1-3 pm EDT. Theme=applications (for lab manager jobs, grad school, post-docs, fac jobs, whatever you're applying for) but feel free to bring unrelated questions too! Sign up here: calendly.com/lah2201/open....
#AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky

How Our Brains Grasp Faces Podcast: In this episode, cognitive scientists Rebecca Saxe of MIT and Heather Kosakowski join host Scott Sleek to discuss their groundbreaking findings about the development of the brain’s face-proce...

In the latest #UndertheCortex episode, cognitive scientists @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social‬ of ‪@mit.edu ‬and @kosakowski.bsky.social of ‪@harvard.edu‬ discuss their groundbreaking findings about the development of the brain’s face-processing network.

We were blown away by the public response to our findings that the infant brain can store memories. Many people wrote to share with us their first memories. To help us capture these reports, we created a short, anonymous survey. We hope you might also consider taking it. Please share with others! 🧠🧪

The question we ask: when do face responses arise in human infant cortex?

Neuroscientists and developmental psychologists (my two disciplines) have different intuitions.

Very excited to share this new paper, out this week.

An attempt to express an idea I have been working on for more than a decade.

Responses, questions, critiques, suggestions encouraged!

MRI image of a parent kissing a baby's forehead.

And if you have an extra minute, read the story @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social wrote about making a modern Mother and Child image in an MRI machine. (5/5) www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

In our recent review, @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social & I bring together fMRI & fNIRS findings from the last decade to argue that babies not only perceive faces but they also attribute meaning to those faces. It’s a short read and we’d love to hear your thoughts. (4/5) doi.org/10.1177/0963...

Do babies really infer meaning from the people around them? Are their brains able to process more than the onslaught of sights & sounds hitting their sensory organs? These Qs have fascinated philosophers & scientists for millennia. How do babies experience their environments? (3/5)

Painting of a woman and baby looking at each other.

There many reasons the Madonna and Child image holds diverse audiences captive. It evokes not just the love a parent has a child but also the love a child has for a parent. The art depicts a relationship between 2 people, going beyond merely perceiving a collection of shapes. (2/5)

Video of a baby on its parent's chest looking at the parent's face and smiling.

When you see this image, does it make you wonder what that baby is thinking. Do you think the baby is merely perceiving a set of shapes or do you think that the baby is also inferring meaning from the face they are looking at? (1/5)

Liftoff: New lab alerts Learn about early-career scientists starting their own labs.

This month’s “Liftoff” features @jocelynbreton.bsky.social discussing the importance of patience when opening a lab. And @vivianpaulun.bsky.social shares how she'll use a traditional German custom in her lab to foster a supportive and uplifting culture.

#neuroskyence

bit.ly/4hFNosx

Are we paying too much for biomedical research? Trump's attack on NIH

Please share Dick Aslin's excellent blog on indirect costs:
dickaslin.substack.com/p/are-we-pay...

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

As if there wasn’t enough to worry about…

It turns out the Salience (SAL) and Parietal Memory Networks (PMN) are the same thing!

😩😩😩

🧵

These snails give live birth, and it’s the babies that may do the labor Protecting eggs in mom’s body may have given rough periwinkle snails an advantage over egg-laying cousins, letting them spread to far more coastline.

In rough periwinkle snails, embryos form and mature inside the brood pouch at different rates. When it’s time to hatch, youngsters may have to crawl out of mom’s body and into the world on their own.

Thanks :)

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The official website for the #DSPAN F99/K00 transition award is down, together with the official #NINDSDiversity social media account and webpage.

This is beyond terrifying.

neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/archived/tra...

NINDS DSPAN Scholars Join the conversation

Keep in touch with NINDS #DSPANscholars here 🧠 Reply or DM to be added! go.bsky.app/TQdWJr3

CONGRATULATIONS!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Troland Research Award – NAS Two Troland Research Awards of $75,000 are given annually to recognize unusual achievement by early-career researchers (preferably 45 years of age or younger) and to further empirical research within ...

So excited to receive the Troland Award!! Huge congrats to the other winner—Nick Turk-Browne! And TY, as always, to my mentors&nominators, to my amazing labbies past&present, and to all the wonderful and supportive colleagues in our broader scientific community. <3 www.nasonline.org/award/trolan...

✨ Do you know anyone who is making a real impact in area of increasing environmental sustainability in neuroimaging research? 🌎 🍃

🏆 Nominate them for an OHBM Sustainability Award today!

The recipient will receive $2500 USD! See below for award terms 👇

www.humanbrainmapping.org/i4a/pages/in...

Ah! I’ve been trying to do that, it seems more reasonable (compared to being an expert in their work) and actually a lot of fun. It’s really exciting to have a science convo when I feel like I can trust someone else’s expertise and, in turn, feel like they trust mine. Thanks!

Is there really an expectation during TT interviews that you know/understand the research of everyone you meet with? I thought just a general awareness, especially for people that don’t have overlapping research interests, would be sufficient….

😎 SPAN2025 Keynotes, invited symposia speakers, and sponsored symposia just dropped! Take a look at who will be at SPAN2025 and then submit your abstract so you can be there too!

More invited speakers will be announced soon. Visit our website for all the details: philandneuro.com

so excited about this one, out now in American Psychologist,

"The Detection of Automatic Behavior in Other People"

(with Ilona Bass & me)

link: psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

pre-print: osf.io/preprints/ps...