Ronald Sladky

Hand holding a copy of "A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life" by Kathryn Nave. The cover is blue with orange text and features a geometric design at the center.

“A game-changer for cognitive science." — @evanthompson.bsky.social‬

In "A Drive to Survive," @kathrynnave.bsky.social‬ offers an extended critical analysis of the strengths and limitations of the free energy principle. Available #openaccess: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255132...

Contact person: For further inquiries please contact Katalin Szigeti, PhD, the Training Unit Coordinator of the CoE (margit.katalin.szigeti@univie.ac.at).

Are you passionate about neuroimaging methods and would like to work with us? 🚨

4-year PhD position on methods development in the new Cluster of Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease (coe.univie.ac.at) and the role of GABA in the amygdala and other brain areas 🧠

Details: shorturl.at/EcI2W

Pls 🔁

We are a bit late for this, but happy new year from the SCAN unit! 🎈
We are thankful for the productive and joyful times together and looking forward to another year of exciting research! 🤩
Here is our 2024 in review 👇

'Accelerating scientific progress through Bayesian adversarial collaboration' -- out now in the latest issue of Neuron. @hohwy.bsky.social, Karl Friston & I propose a formal framework for designing & evaluating adversarial tests of competing theories.

Neuroimaging and behavioral evidence that violent video games exert no negative effect on human empa... After playing violent video games for 7 hr over the course of 2 weeks, human male participants show neither signs of decreased empathy for the pain of another person nor of decreased responsivity to v...

New paper from the SCAN-Unit out in @eLife. Do violent video games decrease our empathy and numb us towards real violence? Let’s find out!
elifesciences.org/articles/84951 Lengersdorff et al. (2023)
(1/12)

For those interested in the coolest present for @clauslamm.bsky.social anniversary - we wrote a “paper”named “How to be a good supervisor: a mixed-methods case study of Claus Lamm” 🤓 here the link ucloud.univie.ac.at/index.php/s/...

Happy new year from us! 🥳😊
Following with our tradition we present to you our year in figures and wish you all the best for 2024!

Check out our paper, talk to us, and let‘s see how our idea will be useful for future empirical research.  [8/8]

4. Actions: some sensations feel better than others. Approach and avoidance actions can make more preferred expected sensations become reality. It’s like magic. If it hurts in a bad way and you avoid it before it hurts, it does not hurt. [7/8]

3. Fear conditioning: results from predictive processing and anticipating the future. Using exteroception the amygdala helps to predict deviations from optimal regulation (e.g., pain) before they happen. I call this a pro gamer move if you want to survive. [6/8]

2. Danger detection: how do we distinguish a snake from a rope? The context matters: if you are afraid of encountering snakes (e.g., because you’re in the jungle) you are more likely to (mis)identify a snaky object as a snake. Not so much on a relaxing sailing cruise. [5/8]

1. Fear/anxeity: we see the amygdala as a mediator between interoception and exteroception. The central amygdala acts as a Bayesian regulator to inform affective states. It sends predictions to the basolateral amygdala, which allows efficient perception. [4/8]

We want to inspire amygdala research by suggesting a unified narrative grounded in biological fundamentals (self-regulation) and a computational framework (Bayes). By proposing an active inference perspective, we reframe previously fragmented amygdala research topics: [3/8]

More than 10 years I’ve been wondering how to link my amygdala research with predictive processing. With the invaluable help from my interdisciplinary colleagues and friends it worked out: a bit inspiration, hard work, and letting go of unnecessary clutter. [2/8]

Maybe the amygdala is not angry or sad or afraid – it’s just misunderstood!

“An active inference perspective for the amygdala complex” is online www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @scanunit.bsky.social @haubensaklab.bsky.social @univie.ac.at [1/8]

🚨We have a new perspective out today in @natureclimate called “Leveraging neuroscience for climate change research” shorturl.at/dyN35 where we call on #Neuroskyence researchers to help combat #climatechange 🧠