Matthias Nau

This is such a fun idea! A cross-decoding perception-imagery challenge 🤩 Looking forward to seeing what comes out (and maybe having a sneaky go myself when I should be doing admin...)!

Current trends in European Research funding... 😵‍💫 erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

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. 🧠🟦 🧠🤖

Entorhinal grid-like codes for visual space during memory formation Nature Communications - Eye movements during scene viewing are tied to grid-like codes in the entorhinal cortex. Grid signals are specific to later remembered scenes, covary with activity in...

✨My first first-author paper is out✨
Entorhinal grid-like codes for visual space during memory formation in @natcomms.nature.com ➡️ rdcu.be/eLRm2
Big thanks to everyone ‪@isabellacwagner.bsky.social‬, @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social, @olejensen.bsky.social, @doellerlab.bsky.social, @clauslamm.bsky.social

Nice to see *non-neural* brain cells more in the spotlight! This new paper links astrocyte activity during memory recall to the long-term stability of the memory! By Deva et al. @nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Excited to share our work making an "allostasis-first" case that brain function is most productively framed in terms of its core regulatory function. We also introduce some new ideas in the context of metabolism and cognitive function in Alzheimer's.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

🧵 New paper out🚨🧠! Information about motion is key to vision. Head motion signals from the vestibular system robustly modulate visual cortex activity. Despite this profound modulation, we still don’t know how these signals reach visual cortex - or even what aspects of head motion are transmitted.

I agree!

Important paper for interpreting #fMRI results on #psychedelics! In short, psilocybin changes neurovascular coupling (i.e., how neural activity links to blood flow). 👇

Hippocampal transformations occur along dimensions of memory interference The role of the hippocampus in resolving memory interference has been greatly elucidated by considering the relationship between the similarity of visual stimuli (input) and corresponding similarity o...

🧠🚨 How does the hippocampus transform the visual similarity space to resolve memory interference?

In this new preprint, we found that the hippocampus sequentially inverts the behaviorally relevant dimensions of similarity 🧵

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phase-locking saccades to posterior alpha oscillations improves the neural representation of visual objects during memory formation Visual memory formation begins with the intake and neural processing of discrete samples provided by gaze fixations and saccades. Past research has highlighted a functional relationship between the ti...

Memory might depend on when you look, not just what you see

Happy to share a new preprint from my postdoctoral work with Jed Meltzer, @drjenryan.bsky.social, and @rosannaolsen.bsky.social

Paper: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Why do we remember emotional events so vividly? Our new paper @nathumbehav.nature.com suggests that emotional arousal enhances memory by strengthening integration across large-scale brain networks! Led by the amazing @jadynpark.bsky.social & @ycleong.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Congratulations, Megan! 🎉 So amazing to have you in Europe!

Why do we remember emotional events so vividly? Our new paper @nathumbehav.nature.com suggests that emotional arousal enhances memory by strengthening integration across large-scale brain networks! Led by the amazing @jadynpark.bsky.social & @ycleong.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Emotional arousal enhances narrative memories through functional integration of large-scale brain networks - Nature Human Behaviour Park et al. find that emotionally arousing moments during a narrative are associated with heightened integration across functional brain networks, which in turn predicts how well those moments are subsequently remembered.

In this article, @jadynpark.bsky.social et al find that emotionally arousing moments during a narrative are associated with heightened integration across functional brain networks, which in turn predict how well those moments are then remembered.

This is one of those papers that just deserves a post every now and then. Half a century old, with a message still relevant today: Cognition won't be understood one variable at the time.

You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...

YouTube video by Travis Sylvester MRI explosion

Just a video of an #MRI exploding after its vacuum insulation is compromised. By Travis Sylvester. Cheers! #everydaythings 💥
youtu.be/SWnXJFAGk2Y?...

Creative experiences and brain clocks - Nature Communications Creative experiences such as dance, music, drawing, and strategy video games might preserve brain health. The authors show that regular practice or short training in these activities is linked to brains that look younger and work more efficiently.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... linking creativity and brain health 😍 (+socioeconomic status perhaps)

Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.

fMRI_EPI_KspaceAcquisition_short This is a demonstration of how a single slice of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data is collected. Before this makes any sense, you will need to understand…

Nice demo by Mark Lescroart @neuromdl.bsky.social on EPI imaging of a single #fMRI slice. Great for teaching! :)
vimeo.com/143701608?fl...

Long time in the making: our preprint of survey study on the diversity with how people seem to experience #mentalimagery. Suggests #aphantasia should be redefined as absence of depictive thought, not merely "not seeing". Some more take home msg:
#psychskysci #neuroscience

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Important new resource for all Hippocampus lovers!👌👇

Artificial Phantasia: Evidence for Propositional Reasoning-Based Mental Imagery in Large Language Models This study offers a novel approach for benchmarking complex cognitive behavior in artificial systems. Almost universally, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform best on tasks which may be included in th...

Imagine an apple 🍎. Is your mental image more like a picture or more like a thought? In a new preprint led by Morgan McCarty—our lab's wonderful RA—we develop a new approach to this old cognitive science question and find that LLMs excel at tasks thought to be solvable only via visual imagery. 🧵

AI Overview: "Dental realism"refers to the philosophical debate about whether teeth exist independently of human perception, a concept rooted in metaphysical realism. While realism asserts an objective reality for teeth, idealist philosophies contend that teeth's existence is tied to our consciousness and perception. Philosophers use this idea, for example, to discuss the ethics of tooth extraction, examining whether a procedure impacts a real entity or merely a subjective experience.

When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions

Authors retract Science paper on controversial fMRI method Several MRI artifacts contribute to the neuronal activity signal picked up by the method, according to a preprint the authors posted this month.

A method for capturing neuronal activity using fMRI excited the neuroimaging field but couldn’t be replicated. Today, the authors of the original paper retracted their work.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/retraction/a...

Amazing news! Congratulations Ondrej!!

Looking for cognition? It's right in front of your nose. Well, above it! 👀

Incredible study by Raut et al.: by tracking a single measure (pupil size), you can model slow, large-scale dynamics in neuronal calcium, metabolism, and brain blood oxygen through a shared latent space! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/8
How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very cool and strong effect for me!
It reminded me of this amazing fovea visualizer that I saw on the other platform a few years ago. Open it, make full screen, and see the extent of your fovea! 👀 www.shadertoy.com/view/4dsXzM