Gonzalo Urcelay

Excellent talk by @katepeters3.bsky.social, who visited us at @notts-psych.bsky.social today to speak about "Effects of environmental enrichment in reducing food seeking and the role of corticolimbic circuits"

This looks very appealing for someone looking to do a PhD in sunny Malaga (Spain) with an excellent mentor and team.

Yes, that phenomenon is also called the "gap-filling effect". However the contiguity that @gershbrain.bsky.social refers to is (to me) a CS duration effect, because in the figure above a delay procedure was used. The manipulation is not about temporal closeness between two events (CS and US)

It is all dependent on parameters and preparations, what's amazing to me about the figure is that the shape of the function is always the same.

It depends on who you ask, much of the evidence for contiguity comes experiments in which the trace interval is manipulated, to that the "delay" vs "trace" is the relevant comparison. But yes some of the wording in the Rescorla review takes on the view that you allude to

Mackintosh's figure (p 203) has a panel D in which contiguity (CS offset to US onset) does not follow the same inverted U pattern. As to why the inverted U, I take it that if the CS is too short it doesn't get processed and therefore less learning. Imagine a 3 ms tone and try to learn from it

I love this figure - it actually appeared first in Mackintosh's 1983 book and Rescorla adapted it - but I interpret it as showing a CS duration effect rather than proper contiguity (contiguity, that is the time between CS offset and US onset, is strong in all the examples by Rescorla)

Thought-provoking analysis by @markhaselgrove.bsky.social on a recent preprint looking at benchmarks for associative learning models 👇

In which 94 benchmark phenomena are identified.

16 are domain- and species-general and should be explained by any theory claiming generality.

30 are species- and/or domain-specific but highly robust across procedures

I looked into this two years ago and concluded that GPower cannot do this power calculation (2x2 W-S). Daniel Lakens has a shinny app that can do it (but there is a parameter [correlation between measures] which gives a lot of flexibility).

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry Commission’s 72-page legal analysis cites examples including scale of killings, aid blockages and forced displacement * Middle East crisis – live updates A UN commission of inquiry concluded on Tuesday that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts. It cited examples of the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding, adding its voice to rights groups and others that have reached the same conclusion. Continue reading...

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry

MRC Neurosciences and Mental Health Board (NMHB) member vacancies Closing date 14 September 2025 at 11:59pm (UK time) Number of positions Six Length of term Two years, plus additional two years after review Time commitment Two days per month Remuneration £160 per da...

The MRC are looking for a computational neuroscientist to join their Neuroscience & Mental Health Board, to replace me as I step down next year.

Drop me a line if you want to know more

Deadline September 14th

www.ukri.org/who-we-are/w....

Only two days left to apply for this 3-year postdoc position to look at fear, avoidance, heart rate monitoring and the neural mechanisms orchestrating these. Get in touch with Carl Stevenson or myself if you are interested, the deadline is Friday! Please repost.

Only a few days left to apply for this 3-year postdoc position in Nottingham (deadline Sept 5th!). If you're considering applying please get in touch. If you're already a PI, then repost this!

Reminder that we're looking for a Post Doc and the deadline is looming (Sept 5th). If you are interested, please get in touch. If you see this, please repost it to that it is seen by potential applicants!

In this recent #ResearchHighlight, the authors discuss new findings pointing a potential non-pharmacological approach for mitigating maladaptive craving behaviors

The cost of remembering: engram competition as a flexible mechanism of forgetting The retention and use of long-term memories is crucial for adaptive behavior. While stable memories help organisms anticipate outcomes, they may become maladaptive if not updated to reflect new condit...

The cost of remembering: engram competition as a flexible mechanism of forgetting.

Our new perspective piece in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social, lead by Ryan Lab alumni, Livia Autore. Also with Michael Drew from @utaustin.bsky.social

Trends in Neurosciences www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

The challenge of defining a neural population Our current approach is largely arbitrary. We need new methods for grouping cells, ideally by their dynamics.

My latest column for @thetransmitter.bsky.social - why neural populations are a convenient fiction

doi.org/10.53053/FZK...

Nick Mackintosh and the not-so-recent history of associative learning, as seen through the eyes of his friend and definitive rival, Geoff Hall.

It reminded me of how much fun it was working with Geoff.
www-users.york.ac.uk/~gh1/pdf/201...

Very interesting take, I had not seen this so thanks for sharing.

Job Vacancy at the University of Nottingham: Post Doctoral Research Associate/Fellow (Fixed term) Applications from highly motivated and self-driven candidates are invited for the above position to work on the BBSRC-funded project ‘Determining the brain basis of heart rate variability during extin...

We want to (1) characterise the relationship between different anxiety-related behaviours and arousal states, and (2) causally determine the brain circuit mechanisms involved. Please share widely and get in touch with Carl or me if you are interested.

jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Job Alert!!! We are looking for a motivated postdoc to join a 3-year BBSRC funded project led by my colleague Carl Stevenson (I’m coPI). This multi-disciplinary project will combine in vivo heart rate monitoring and optogenetics with behavioural testing (fear and active avoidance) in rats.

100% agreed!

I was thinking of appetitive-aversive inhibitory interactions, unless you manage to use two outcomes which are qualitatively different but of the exactly same valence. Even then you could argue that they may inhibit each other as means of explaining interference. A long shot anyway.

You will probably need Konorski to get closer to the interaction between outcomes

Looking for a free day out over Summer? We give you free car parking, and a fun half day of science. Rember the park and the ice-cream van are only a stones throw away.

We still have a few spaces left for this years Summer Scientist Week, so make sure to get booked on at www.summerscientist.org

As staff, it’s our great honour to witness this moment of celebration. We’ve loved teaching & supporting you throughout your journey, watching you cross the stage, meeting your families & friends is a privilege. Wishing you all the best. Go make your mark, Class of 2025! 💫

New preprint from the lab on habit learning in compulsivity from the fantastic @kellydonegan.bsky.social! ✅ N=1000, ✅ pre-registered, ✅ within-person crossover design...we study individual differences in habit learning using the Neureka App

The first day of the joint EPS and CSBBCS meeting in Dundee ends, fittingly, with a joint poster session!

@kellydonegan.bsky.social showing our latest smartphone habit research this morning at @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social 📲