Nitzan Lubianiker

the human hippocampus receives convergent input from multiple sensory systems, yet we lack a basic understanding of how this structure integrates across senses.

we tackle this problem in our new preprint!

paper: doi.org/10.64898/202...

w/ Aryan Agarwal, @yannanzhu.bsky.social, & Nick Turk-Browne

After several years of work, my lab is starting to put out our first papers on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus).

Here we show evidence for a form of associative learning in Stentor:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The age of animal experiments is waning. Where will science go next? Advances in organ and computer models are raising the prospect that some animal experiments could be eliminated. But there are still huge hurdles to overcome.

Ethical and animal-welfare concerns have long fuelled efforts to curb animal use in research — and now rapid advances in alternative scientific methods are accelerating the shift

go.nature.com/3P0OtCB

Come work with us at the computational memory lab!

Bearing Down on a Placebo Effect

www.science.org/content/blog...

A new study highlights the brain’s role in immune health It truly is a question of mind over matter

www.economist.com/science-and-...

Bearing Down on a Placebo Effect

A nice, balanced commentary in Science:

www.science.org/content/blog...

@roisarel.bsky.social

damn .png 🫣 attached again

@rtfin.bsky.social

Brain training may boost immune response to vaccines Positive thinking may boost immune response from vaccines, new brain training study shows

www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...

Placebo effect influences vaccine responses - Nature Medicine A randomized trial provides direct human evidence that the placebo effect can shape humoral immunity, showing that reward-related brain activity correlates with vaccine-induced antibody production and...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Upregulation of reward mesolimbic activity and immune response to vaccination: a randomized controlled trial - Nature Medicine Upregulation of the ventral tegmental area via neurofeedback is associated with a stronger immune response to hepatitis B virus vaccination, and VTA upregulation is achieved through conscious positive...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

and sharable link:
rdcu.be/eZ7Ck

@jalon.bsky.social

This has been a collaborative effort between two labs: Talma Hendler’s, and Asya Rolls', and was co-led by myself and Dr. Tamar Koren. Huge thanks to all the amazing scientists involved! Check out the full paper and related articles linked below #BrainImmune #Neurofeedback #Vaccines #Placebo

This was a healthy cohort, and clinical efficacy (to what extent an intervention prevents infection and illness) was *not* tested here, but rather a key biological precursor of it. A next step is to investigate clinical populations with impaired immunity, possibly looking at clinical efficacy.

We found *NO* group differences in HBVab, likely because we didn't target the VTA specifically. More research is needed to establish causality. Our hypothesis is that targeting the VTA specifically while instructing participants to use positive expectations could boost the immune effect.

Our findings also suggest a specific neuropsychological process – sustained VTA activity driven by positive expectation – underlying placebo effects, at least for immune-related pathologies involving conscious expectations rather than implicit conditioning.

We ruled out motivational traits, general neurofeedback performance, and activity in control ROIs as drivers of the VTA-Immune correlation. This specificity, combined with causal evidence from rodent models, highlights the VTA–immune axis as a *potential* regulatory mechanism in humans.

Analysis of participants’ mental strategies using our new MSQ protocol showed that positive expectation (future-oriented hopeful thinking) was *specifically* associated with sustained VTA activity. This was not shown for regulated control regions and for other positive affect categories.

Neuro-Immune associations: While participants in the experimental group successfully upregulated the broader reward system (NAcc + VTA), those from the active control also showed some VTA upregulation. Critically, only VTA upregulation correlated with the strength of the antibody response.

All groups received the Hepatitis B vaccine immediately after the final NF session/waiting period. We then tracked antibody levels at 2 weeks and 1 month post-vaccination.

85 healthy participants were randomized to:
(1) reward-mesolimbic upregulation,
(2) control networks upregulation, and
(3) a no-neurofeedback control group.

Neurofeedback participants learned to upregulate brain activity across 4 sessions using self-chosen mental strategies.

We used a real-time fMRI neurofeedback design, integrated with new methodological developments, to test if volitional upregulation of the reward mesolimbic system could modulate the response to a Hepatitis B vaccine.

Positive expectations can improve medical outcomes (placebo effects), but the physiological mechanisms behind these mind–body links are unclear. Animal studies showed that stimulating the reward-related DA midbrain (the VTA) can alter immune responses. Whether this applies to humans was unknown.

Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread:

Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.

This is figure 3, which shows mental strategies analysis.

Training people to activate a part of the brain linked to reward and positive expectations may be associated with an increase in the body’s immune response to a vaccine, according to a study in Nature Medicine. go.nature.com/4sQo3mK #medsky 🧪

Brain training may boost immune response to vaccines Positive thinking may boost immune response from vaccines, new brain training study shows

Positive thinking may boost immune response from vaccines, new brain training study shows

Direct human evidence that the #PlaceboEffect can shape humoral immunity: reward-related brain activity correlates with vaccine-induced antibody
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@naturemedicine.bsky.social @telavivuni.bsky.social @nitzanlubi.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tech Wants You to Believe AI is Conscious Tech companies stand to benefit from widespread public misperceptions that AI is sentient despite a dearth of scientific evidence.

quillette.com/2025/12/28/t...