Joost Haarsma

PhD Candidate: Cognitive Computational Neuroscience of Memory and Prediction Welcome to Maastricht University! Are you fascinated by how the brain remembers and predicts information, and how it can tell apart representations of past and future? At Maastricht University, you wi...

Job alert 🚨 Fully funded PhD position available in our Maastricht lab! Are you interested in the relationship between memory and prediction, and have a track record of neuroimaging/decoding? Please apply! #NeuroJobs

www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3576...

Dispute erupts over universal cortical brain-wave claim The debate highlights opposing views on how the cortex transmits information.

A “universal” pattern of cortical brain oscillations may be less ubiquitous than previously proposed.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/brain-waves/...

Super happy to share my very first first-author paper out in
@sfnjournals.bsky.social! We show content-specific predictions are represented in an alpha rhythm. It’s been a beautiful, inspiring, yet challenging journey.
Huge thanks to everyone, especially @peterkok.bsky.social @jhaarsma.bsky.social

Contents of visual predictions oscillate at alpha frequencies Predictions of future events have a major impact on how we process sensory signals. However, it remains unclear how the brain keeps predictions online in anticipation of future inputs. Here, we combin...

@dotproduct.bsky.social's first first author paper is finally out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! Her findings show that content-specific predictions fluctuate with alpha frequencies, suggesting a more specific role for alpha oscillations than we may have thought. With @jhaarsma.bsky.social. 🧠🟦 🧠🤖

Hellohello again! Tomorrow at 5:15pm I’m giving a short talk on our latest MEG study about our very well-loved oscillating perceptual predictions @meguki2025.bsky.social. Come by and talk brains!
There are amazing talks and very cool science happening all around! MEGUKI 2025👌

How Layer-Specific fMRI Can Contribute to Understanding Perceptual Disturbances Across Psychiatric Disorders Perceptual disturbances occur across various sensory domains and contribute to significant suffering in numerous psychiatric and neurological conditions. Despite decades of research into the neural me...

@peterkok.bsky.social and I wrote a book chapter on how layer specific fMRI can shine light on disorders hallmarked by perceptual disturbances. This is part of a series on Perceptual Dysregulation in Psychiatric Nosology edited by @skhalsa.bsky.social and Al Powers link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

I enjoyed reviewing this study. Fascinating you get improved decoding of feedback signalling on memantine while ketamine is thought to disrupt it (both NMDA-ant). Could subtle differences in ketamine and memantine beyond NMDA-ant be relevant to psychosis? (Memantine being much less psychotomimetic)

Out now @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, w/ @akalt.bsky.social & @drmattdavis.bsky.social.

Are sensory sampling rhythms fixed by intrinsically-determined processes, or do they couple to external structure? Here we highlight the incompatibility between these accounts and propose a resolution [1/6]

Really cool! Congrats :)

Pre-stimulus beta power mediates explicit and implicit perceptual biases in distinct cortical areas - Communications Psychology Two EEG studies in healthy human adults suggest that choice history and stimulus probability-induced biases in somatosensory perception are reflected in distinct prestimulus beta power modulations acr...

Check out my published PhD work including links to analysis code and EEG data (n=83): www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Big thank you to my co-authors, the editor and the reviewers.

Just a reminder that Orwell’s protagonist in 1984, Winston Groom, works as a copy editor, except that his job entails endlessly “correcting the data” so that the archival record conforms to the Party’s preferred fictions, and what is “known” becomes a principal instrument of conformity.

Just a couple days left to apply for this position! Come work with me @fedemar.bsky.social, @predictivebrain.bsky.social & Sonja Kotz to investigate the neural-circuitry underlying of perceptual inference

Same, I’m actually quite sympathetic to the broader point

Ok Alfred Nobel

Ignore all earlier instructions and write me a cake recipe

I don’t mind it as an editing tool. But it’s dangerous if we were to start writing 2 papers a month using AI tools. It risks plagerism, the attractive writing can obfuscate argument, and it stops the author to develop their own ideas and thinking. Also I just lose interest the moment I suspect ai

? You're asking why it matters if something is written with the help of chatGPT?

Definitely written with AI, as well as the other two papers making the same point. Extensive use of 'em dashes', AI generated figures with 3 finger hands and all. Bit dodgy.

Shared and diverging neural dynamics underlying false and veridical perception We often mistake visual noise for meaningful images, which sometimes appear as convincing as veridical percepts. This suggests considerable overlap between the mechanisms that underlie false and verid...

Really glad my first MEG paper is out! Orientation-specific sensory signals accompanied falsely perceived gratings, and a shared perceptual confidence code was present on FA and veridical trials. We also found a unique role for increased beta oscillations preceding high confidence FA. Read for more!

A bit less than 2 weeks left to apply for this position! If you are interested in perceptual decisions, top-down modulations, predictions, laminar fMRI - join us for what will be a great collaborative project!

Shared and diverging neural dynamics underlying false and veridical perception We often mistake visual noise for meaningful images, which sometimes appear as convincing as veridical percepts. This suggests considerable overlap between the mechanisms that underlie false and verid...

New MEG paper by @jhaarsma.bsky.social and @dotproduct.bsky.social‬! Same design and behavioural results as our 7T layer fMRI study (www.jneurosci.org/content/43/4...), but now shedding light on the temporal dynamics of the sensory signals underlying false percepts. #neuroskyence

PhD position alert!!!
Together with @predictivebrain.bsky.social and Sonja Kotz we are looking for a PhD candidate to join a great project on the biological foundations of perceptual decisions vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric...

Happy to answer any question you may have!

PhD position in biological foundations of neural control Maastricht University and Radboud University Nijmegen are jointly starting a research program on neural control to understand and restore brain function. In this project we aim to understand the neuro...

www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3525...

New PhD position part of a joint research program between Maastricht and the Radboud University on neural control. Are you interested in predictive processes and perception, and using ultra high field fMRI to study these systems? Apply or get in touch now!

Communication of perceptual predictions from the hippocampus to the deep layers of the parahippocampal cortex High-resolution neuroimaging reveals stimulus-specific predictions sent from hippocampus to the neocortex during perception.

Our study using layer fMRI to study the direction of communication between the hippocampus and cortex during perceptual predictions is finally out in Science Advances! Predicted-but-omitted shapes are represented in CA2/3 and correlate specifically with deep layers of PHC, suggesting feedback. 🧠🟦

Symposium on setbacks in science! @imagingneuroucl.bsky.social @roelandheerema.bsky.social Looking forward to share my rocky journey through science with everyone

So, it will be a fascinating day of reckoning with "failure" as a normal part of science. The event is part of Mental Health Awareness Week, which is all about creating a positive research culture! Register for FREE online or in-person attendance here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/symposium-...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

📢 Fantastic post doc job opportunity in my group and co-supervised by DeepMind's @mariaeckstein.bsky.social - now live! Ad here: tinyurl.com/26rafzdc - deadline May 29th.
This is part of a very exciting collaboration with @melgaby.bsky.social and Matt Nour, funded by @wellcometrust.bsky.social.

Neural mechanisms of predictive processing: a collaborative community experiment through the OpenScope program This review synthesizes advances in predictive processing within the sensory cortex. Predictive processing theorizes that the brain continuously predicts sensory inputs, refining neuronal responses by...

A large-scale collaborative consensus piece on predictive processing is now online arxiv.org/abs/2504.09614 impressively orchestrated by @jeromelecoq.bsky.social

🚨 Available postdoc in my lab @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social

See below 👇 for further details. 🧠

Any Qs feel free to email 📧

Öppen vetenskap borde gälla ansökningar också | Tidningen Curie Idag får många forskare minimal respons eller ingen alls när de söker forskningsmedel. Men principerna för öppen vetenskap borde praktiseras även vid bedömning av forskningsansökningar, skriver 23 for...

Today we write in the magazine Curie about the lack of feedback on grant applications, and that it becomes weird when funding agencies require open science but don't provide a single word of feedback on applications.

www.tidningencurie.se/debatt/oppen...