Alex Galvez-Pol

How physical information is used to make sense of the psychological world

Perspective by Shari Liu, Seda Karakose-Akbiyik, Joseph Outa & Minjae J. Kim

Web: go.nature.com/3Xwo40J
PDF: rdcu.be/eSMfa

New preprint 🎉 Living systematic reviews ensure evidence stays current osf.io/preprints/ps...

In this brief comment (all four pages are here ⬇️), @iaiversen.bsky.social and I cover the benefits and challenges of living systematic reviews, along with two ways to increase their uptake

🧵 1/8

Did you know the heart imprints onto the voice? New preprint spearheaded by Marijn Hafkamp, confirming (seemingly forgotten) research from the 80's and testing for the first time possible biomechanical mechanisms (evidence points to heart-lung-voice interactions).
wimpouw.com/files/Hafkam...

Stylized logo of the MindBrainBody Symposium

*13th MindBrainBody Symposium*

📆 Mar 9-11, 2026
🏠 #Berlin & virtual
(deadline: Jan 8, 2026)

Keynotes:
- @ulrikebingel.bsky.social
- Karl Friston (online)
- @tinalonsdorf.bsky.social
- Sonja Kotz
- Julian Thayer

...& so much more: prizes, posters, talks, food, drinks, encounters.

Let's meet!

After a long time, I’ll be back in London

Next Monday 8th Dec: I’ll give the ICN Seminar at UCL (3:15pm-Queen Square)

Talk: Rethinking perception–interoception research through an ecological lens

Hope to see some familiar faces there 💫

www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-scienc...
@uclbrainscience.bsky.social

Vicarious body maps bridge vision and touch in the human brain - Nature A mode of brain organization that connects visual and bodily reference frames may translate raw sensory impressions into more abstract formats that are useful for action, social cognition and semantic...

Another cool study modelling shared somatosensory and visual representations during naturalistic video watching 👇

'Vicarious body maps bridge vision and touch in the human brain'

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

𝗔𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀
"...support hypothesis that spontaneous spatially structured fluctuations in brain-wide physiology on timescales of seconds ... are in large part expressions of lowdimensional, organism-wide dynamical system"
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Transparent and comprehensive statistical reporting is critical for ensuring the credibility, reproducibility, and interpretability of psychological research. This paper offers a structured set of guidelines for reporting statistical analyses in quantitative psychology, emphasizing clarity at both the planning and results stages. Drawing on established recommendations and emerging best practices, we outline key decisions related to hypothesis formulation, sample size justification, preregistration, outlier and missing data handling, statistical model specification, and the interpretation of inferential outcomes. We address considerations across frequentist and Bayesian frameworks and fixed as well as sequential research designs, including guidance on effect size reporting, equivalence testing, and the appropriate treatment of null results. To facilitate implementation of these recommendations, we provide the Transparent Statistical Reporting in Psychology (TSRP) Checklist that researchers can use to systematically evaluate and improve their statistical reporting practices (https://osf.io/t2zpq/). In addition, we provide a curated list of freely available tools, packages, and functions that researchers can use to implement transparent reporting practices in their own analyses to bridge the gap between theory and practice. To illustrate the practical application of these principles, we provide a side-by-side comparison of insufficient versus best-practice reporting using a hypothetical cognitive psychology study. By adopting transparent reporting standards, researchers can improve the robustness of individual studies and facilitate cumulative scientific progress through more reliable meta-analyses and research syntheses.

Our paper on improving statistical reporting in psychology is now online 🎉

As a part of this paper, we also created the Transparent Statistical Reporting in Psychology checklist, which researchers can use to improve their statistical reporting practices

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Article: "An active-inference approach to second-person neuroscience"

Coauthors: Konrad Lehmann, Dimitris Bolis, Leonhard Schilbach, Maxwell JD Ramstead, Philipp Kanske

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Scientists launch $14.2 million project to map the body’s “hidden sixth sense” Inside your body, an intricate communication network constantly monitors breathing, heart rate, digestion, and immune function — a hidden “sixth sense” called interoception. Now, Nobel laureate Ardem ...

These are great news for #interoception research www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

🤖 Prominent AI scientists call for a halt to the “uncritical adoption of AI technologies in academia” in an open letter.

The authors of the position paper oppose… insist that “university leaders and administrators must act to help us collectively turn back the tide of garbage software” (sic).

This seems quite useful:

"Which Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Indices Should I Use for Psychophysiological Research? A Data-Driven Approach to Identifying Clusters of HRV Indices" (in Psychophysiology)

doi.org/10.1111/psyp... 🫀

this paper might be in our next journal club, will let you know!

It’s not the thought that counts: Allostasis at the core of brain function The authors review evidence that the primary function of the brain, supported by distributed neural systems, is the predictive regulation of physiology (i.e., allostasis). An example from Alzheimer’s ...

It’s not the thought that counts: Allostasis at the core of brain function: Neuron www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

This looks super cool; by @jtheriault.bsky.social
By the way congrats really!

TIL that Dale invented the heartbeat counting task, not Schandry, and that it was known from the very first study that people underestimated their heart rate. It was orginally called a heart rate estimation task! journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2...

The work with bats on barren, 7-acre Latham Island was Nachum Ulanovsky’s most complex undertaking yet.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/neuroetholog...

Submissions will OPEN 30 October for the 2026 APS Annual Convention taking place in Barcelona! (Closing 5 December) #APS26BCN

Learn more about the upcoming program and save the date www.psychologicalscience.org/conventions/...

Why modern life has us turning to ambient music - BBC Sounds Dani Thomas explores the genre's surge in popularity

I did a small thing for the BBC on the remarkable increase in people listening to ambient music.

Here

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

and here

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

4x días para aplicar a esta fantástica oportunidad, con @mbaborebelo.bsky.social al frente; check below the position! and please RT 🙏

The social, decoupled self: interpersonal synchronization of breathing alters intrapersonal cardiorespiratory coupling People synchronize their periodic behavioural and physiological rhythms with each other during social interaction. While this interpersonal synchronization has largely been associated with positive ef...

🫁❤️New preprint out: The social, decoupled self

We show effects of interpersonal synchronization of physiological rhythms on intrapersonal cardiorespiratory coupling: when we sync our breathing, our breathing–heart rhythms decouple, with a perturbed phase-relationship
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How sighing regulates pulmonary surfactant structure and its role in breathing mechanics Sigh-induced structural changes lower alveolar surface stress through a mechanical response.

2025. How sighing regulates pulmonary surfactant structure and its role in breathing mechanics | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I'm thrilled to share that our new paper is now published in Psychophysiology (Open Access):
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@zacndr.bsky.social @teamlabuda.bsky.social @fraferri.bsky.social @danlikesbrains.bsky.social

In some way, it's trivial:

The #brain & the rest of the #body (e.g. the #heart) are coupled.

Yet, we spelled it out
w/ A. Villringer & V. Nikulin for current scientists (below)
w/ @martager.bsky.social @agatapatyczek.bsky.social @el-rei.bsky.social for future scientists bsky.app/profile/mart...

Interested in brain-body interactions but unsure where to start?

🎮 Choose your character

👩🏻‍🔬👨🏽‍🔬 Current scientists: a new review by @michaelgaebler.com A. Villringer & V. Nikulin

🧒🏼👧🏾 Future scientists (and people of all ages): our scicomm article with @agatapatyczek.bsky.social & @el-rei.bsky.social

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (286516) | University of Oslo Job title: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (286516), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Please RT
2 new positions in the lab as postdoc & PhD!

Interested in stress, pain, or reward? This project has it all!

We are a friendly but ambitious group. Oslo is a capital city on the fjord & bordered by forest, great urban & outdoors opportunities: 💃 ⛷️ 🚣 🎭 🎶

www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Indeed, the idea replicates from yours. I hope to have this one moving asap 💪

Thanks!

For the moment: just a table, 2 chairs, battery with solar panels, and fake grass on the floor. We'll carry two sets of physiological sensors (wearables)

Our mobile lab is now ready 🚐!

How do perceptual processes contribute to the development of psychiatric illness? @skhalsa.bsky.social and I have compiled this volume with experts from across the world to begin to answer this question.

Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...

How does the brain decide? 🧠

Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.

After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.

rdcu.be/eGUrv