Katharina Duecker

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👌

Huge thank you to my co-authors Kim Shapiro, Simon Hanslmayr, Jeremy Wolfe, Yali Pan, @benjamingriffiths.bsky.social and the best PhD supervisor @olejensen.bsky.social for bearing with me over the past many years. There will be a part 2 so stay tuned :)

Finally out in @commsbio.nature.com !
Using MEG and Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) in a classic visual search paradigm we show that neuronal excitability in V1 is modulated in line with a priority-map-based mechanism to boost targets and suppress distractors!

In the physical world, almost all information is transmitted through traveling waves -- why should it be any different in your neural network?

Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"

1/14

Most amazing piece of science communication by one talented @kermieeart.bsky.social :)

HNN Pre-Workshop Information Workshop Overview The Human Neocortical Neurosolver (HNN) is a user-friendly software tool for interpreting the cell and circuit level origin of human MEG and EEG signals. In this virtual event, we ...

We invite you to join us at our 2025 Spring Online Human Neocortical Neurosolver (HNN) Workshop! This workshop will be on Wednesday, April 9th from 9 AM - 3 PM (ET). Find out more and sign up 👉 tinyurl.com/hnn-workshop....
Seats are limited! #compneuro

I think it’s really key to make people believe in expertise again. Intelligence ≠ Expertise. Wealth ≠ Expertise. High IQ ≠ expertise in everything. Someone being a scientist ≠ expert in a field they don’t study. Also teaching about confirmation bias & Dunning-Kruger, because we all have it.

If there is some science comm effort that tries to teach this I’d be happy to contribute. If not, I’d be happy to establish one! Potentially without a single host as the face of the show, but rather with many contributors. Would also reduce workload on the individual..

So critical! So many fitness, lifestyle & beauty influencers refer to papers to support their claims (also see Huberman’s success), but it takes years to learn how to read & understand a scientific paper. But this shows that there is a general interest in science and how it applies to our lives.

Thank you! I didn’t realize there was a thread on this exact question! :)

I thank taxpayers for supporting my lab's work. My group has helped map how brains transform "seeing" into "remembering". We've been working to transform what we've learned into a new treatment for individuals with memory impairment (by stimulating the vagus nerve).

www.nicolecrust.com/memory

Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain 2025 The Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain is an intensive, project-based residential course with a focus on the neurobiology of sensory processing, coding, and neural population dynamics.

Less than a week to apply for the Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain! 🐋🧠🌊

Apply by Feb. 1 to join us for this intensive, project-based residential course in the beautiful San Juan Islands.

🔗 alleninstitute.org/events/summe...

🧠📈

The Human Neocortical Neurosolver is on Bluesky! HNN is a user-friendly computational tool to develop & test hypotheses about the neural circuits underlying EEG/MEG signals. Our aim is to make comp neuro accessible to a broad community. Follow for HNN science, workshops & development! 🧠 👩‍🔬 #compneuro

Processes and measurements: a framework for understanding neural oscillations in field potentials Various neuroscientific theories maintain that brain oscillations are important for neuronal computation, but opposing views claim that these macroscale dynamics are ‘exhaust fumes’ of more relevant processes. Here, we approach the question of whether oscillations are functional or epiphenomenal by distinguishing between measurements and processes, and by reviewing whether causal or inferentially useful links exist between field potentials, electric fields, and neurobiological events. We introduce a vocabulary for the role of brain signals and their underlying processes, demarcating oscillations as a distinct entity where both processes and measurements can exhibit periodicity. Leveraging this distinction, we suggest that electric fields, oscillating or not, are causally and computationally relevant, and that field potential signals can carry information even without causality.

Our review on the theoretical status of oscillations and field potentials is out! What are their effects, and what can electrophysiology signals reveal about how the brain works?

w/ @dlevenstein.bsky.social @prokraustinator.bsky.social Bradley Voytek @rdgao.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

So I think gamma flicker response ≠ grating-induced gamma ≠ memory gamma ≠ evoked gamma. Probably all emerging from different neural circuits. Personally, I don’t know why it’s so important that the Alzheimer’s effects underlie oscillatory entrainment. Still compelling that the brain likes 40 Hz.

Imperceptible gamma-band sensory stimulation enhances episodic memory retrieval Enhanced gamma activity (30-100Hz) coincides with the successful recall of episodic memories, but it remains unknown whether this oscillatory activity is a cause or a consequence of the retrieval proc...

There is a concern about whether gamma flicker does propagate beyond V1 @mariusschneider.bsky.social but Ben Griffiths has found some effects of gamma flicker on memory performance www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I want to emphasize that our study doesn’t mean to question the therapeutic effects of the 40 Hz stimulation! In a related study, we found that human visual cortex does resonate at gamma, but not a grating-induced gamma frequency pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34061835/

The role of alpha oscillations in resisting distraction The role of alpha oscillations (8–13 Hz) in suppressing distractors is extensively debated. One debate concerns whether alpha oscillations suppress anticipated visual distractors through increased power. Whereas some studies suggest that alpha oscillations support distractor suppression, others do not. We identify methodological differences that may explain these discrepancies. A second debate concerns the mechanistic role of alpha oscillations. We and others previously proposed that alpha oscillations implement gain reduction in early visual regions when target load or distractor interference is high. Here, we suggest that parietal alpha oscillations support gating or stabilization of attentional focus and that alpha oscillations in ventral attention network (VAN) support resistance to attention capture. We outline future studies needed to uncover the precise mechanistic role of alpha oscillations.

The role of alpha oscillations in resisting distraction
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
#neuroscience

statistically significant :) @camelphat.bsky.social

apply to a transition grant that focuses on my lab research plan, would it help to have my research directions to be framed with both short-term (first 3-5 years) version of the experiments, next to a more long-term (years 5-10) vision?

New paper out in @ScienceMagazine! In 8 studies (multiple platforms, methods, time periods) we find: misinformation evokes more outrage than trustworthy news, when it does it's shared more + ppl are less likely to read before sharing. w/ @killianmcl1 @Klonick @mollycrockett 🧵👇

Our paper on multiplexing by oscillations in an ANN is now out in its peer-reviewed glory in PLOS Comp Bio with Marco Idiart, Marcel van Gerven & @olejensen.bsky.social
Hugely improved thanks to three very thorough reviewers! Let us know what you think! journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Please share, would love to add more people to this! #neuroscience #neuroskyence #compneuro

go.bsky.app/B6LsheP

any tips for when aims are deemed too ambitious for K99? making the case for learning rna sequencing (no experience beyond analysis) and combining it with prior expertise (electrophysiology and behavior), what are considered the stopgaps? thinking of cutting behavior since that can take forever

Just to offer a different PoV: this would benefit progress in the same direction, but IMO we need new math for life/natural intelligence to get us out of copying ML into neuroAI, e.g. claiming an engineering tool as THE way the brain works etc. Breakthrough Theoretical advances need broader search.

Loving the starter packs and would love to put one together full of #compneuro trainees on here! Please share and comment if you want to be added or tag your trainees and I’ll put one together😊 #neuroscience #neuroskyence

Differential neural mechanisms underlie cortical gating of visual spatial attention mediated by alpha-band oscillations www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... by @olejensen.bsky.social et al. via @peterkok.bsky.social; earlier non-paywalled preprint at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroscience

Stay tuned for part 2 where we test the hypothesis that alpha supports the search through inhibition while accounting for time-on-task.

The reverse hierarchy theory of visual perceptual learning Perceptual learning can be defined as practice-induced improvement in the ability to perform specific perceptual tasks. We previously proposed the Reverse Hierarchy Theory as a unifying concept that l...

Our results are in line with the reverse hierarchy theory proposing that top-down control progresses back to early visual cortex when a higher SNR is needed cell.com/trends/cogni... However, there is no evidence that known distractors are suppressed in anticipation.