Nadine Herzog

Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning - Nature Communications VTA dopamine activity control movement-related performance, not reward prediction errors. Here, authors show that behavioral changes during Pavlovian learning explain DA activity regardless of reward ...

Big shake-up for dopamine theory?
This new @NatureComms paper argues that VTA dopamine isn’t signaling reward prediction error but instead modulates force and performance.
If true, it decouples learning from motivation and puts pressure on decades of RPE-based models.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fresh from the press 🍃
In this article, we put forward a framework for understanding goal-directed and habitual control. We propose how interactive loops in the brain & shortcuts between them may shape our behavior – and that of Transformers. Looking forward to your thoughts💡
doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Functional connectivity is dominated by aperiodic, rather than oscillatory, coupling Functional connectivity (FC) has attracted significant interest in the identification of specific circuits underlying brain (dys-)function. Classical analyses to estimate FC ( i.e ., filtering electro...

Functional connectivity (FC) is driven by 1/f. The approach: compute FC as usual, compute FC only with ROI where oscillations are 'present', then compare. Alpha lives, but not other bands. Idk, seems overstated. If beta comes in bursts: no peak, but could be FC
doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1041-25.2025

Data Scientist or Machine Learning / AI expert (m/f/d) Data Scientist or Machine Learning / AI expert (m/f/d) to join the AI and High-Performance Data Analytics division of MPCDF.

We are looking for “Data Scientist or ML/AI expert” who will work at the cutting edge of data science and neuromaging in a collaboration between @mpicbs.bsky.social and the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF).

Deadline: 10th Nov. 2025.

Apply here:

Published now (after long last & 10 citations). Although tVNS does not alter food reward ratings in healthy people, it acutely improved liking ratings in patients with MDD (also correlated with anhedonia). #neuroskyence 🩺

Work w/ @akuehnel.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Elucidating some common biases in randomized controlled trials using directed acyclic graphs Although the ideal randomized clinical trial is the gold standard for causal inference, real randomized trials often suffer from imperfections that may hamper causal effect estimation. Stating the estimand of interest can help reduce confusion about what is being estimated, but it is often difficult to determine what is and is not identifiable given a trial’s specific imperfections. We demonstrate how directed acyclic graphs can be used to elucidate the consequences of common imperfections, such as noncompliance, unblinding, and drop-out, for the identification of the intention-to-treat effect, the total treatment effect and the physiological treatment effect. We assert that the physiological treatment effect is not identifiable outside a trial with perfect compliance and no dropout, where blinding is perfectly maintained

Table 1 showing the Identifiability of target estimands depending on whether there is blinding, full compliance, and no drop-out

An example DAG from the paper. Fig. 4: A blinded trial with noncompliance. U are unobserved confounders, Z is treatment assignment, C is compliance, X is the realized treatment, S is the subject's physical and mental health status, Xself and Xcln are the treatment that the participant and the clinician believed the participant received, Y is the outcome.

Just finished reading this *excellent* article by Gabriel et al. which discusses which effects can be identified in randomized controlled trials. With DAGs!>

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis - Nature Metabolism This Review provides an overview of the interplay between host diet and the gut microbiota, and how this affects brain function.

#Throwback 🧪

REVIEW | Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis

@elizschneider.bsky.social‬
‪@jfcryan.bsky.social et al

🧠 Join Our Team! 🧠
2 PhD candidates and 1 Study Nurse positions ope as part of our new RCT within the LeiCeM Excellence Cluster.
- PhD (deadline:15/10): tinyurl.com/35e5tbhy
- PhD within the IMPRIS-CONI (deadline:02/11): tinyurl.com/y9yt4akf
- Study Nurse (deadline:15/10): tinyurl.com/4zztjmj9

Alina Studenova - myside-bias Have you ever argued with someone about a political issue and lost your temper because they just didn’t seem to hear your arguments? Why don’t they hear your arguments? Your arguments were perfectly s...

I read books on various topics. This time, I picked up a book that I thought would be about cognitive science, but turned out to be political. Still, the central argument applies to the lives of every scientist. “The Bias That Divides Us” by Keith E. Stanovich
www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...

Simulations are fun! Especially with the right tools😉.
@willenjoy.bsky.social and I (with support from Mina Jamshidi) made a toolbox for simulating EEG/MEG data
meegsim.readthedocs.io
I put together a quick simulation using it for this short clip. Took me 10 minutes (no, really!)
#brainmovies

In some way, it's trivial:

The #brain & the rest of the #body (e.g. the #heart) are coupled.

Yet, we spelled it out
w/ A. Villringer & V. Nikulin for current scientists (below)
w/ @martager.bsky.social @agatapatyczek.bsky.social @el-rei.bsky.social for future scientists bsky.app/profile/mart...

“The Big Three” properties of food that drive intake Much of the interest in studying human eating behavior stems from a desire to characterize properties of foods that affect consumption, with the goal …

What drives how much we eat? A new paper from Dr. Barbara Rolls et al. highlights “The Big Three” food properties that shape consumption:
1️⃣ Portion Size 2️⃣ Energy Density 3️⃣ Variety
See: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Hey Everyone! Before we kick off our review of the #SSIB special issue review we wanted to make sure that we connected with as many members as possible. Please help us by sharing this post and tagging anyone who is or should be a member of #SSIB!

@paulsteinfath.bsky.social check this out :)

Love it! Especially the boundaries part...
not sure I agree with the “I won’t open my laptop until the kids are in bed” part though...

probably you shouldn’t open your laptop after the kids are in bed at all — there needs to be some space for “me-time” as well.

If you're contemplating new study to start,
Cause you want to couple the brain to the heart,
And you search for clear analytical steps,
That give you a good estimation of HEPs.
This review uncovered how most people act,
When they heart reaction from data extract.

Our symposium is headed to FENS Forum 2026—join us in Barcelona! » O’BRAIN Lab Great news: Our sym­po­sium pro­pos­al on Neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms on the cog­ni­tive con­trol of feed­ing in the mod­ern food envi­ron­ment (Inter­nal States & Home­osta­sis) was select­ed ...

Join us !!!
obrainlab.com/our-symposiu...

Expression of Interest in Serving as a PsyArXiv Moderator As you might have heard, PsyArXiv is having some issues with an increase in low-quality submissions, ranging from AI generated manuscripts to inflate citation metrics, incoherent or nonsensical docume...

PsyArXiv is seeking new moderators to help combat an increase in AI submissions! If you've ever posted a preprint to PsyArXiv, please consider joining. Minimum commitment 1h/month, there's a training session this Monday @ 1pm ET. More info here: forms.gle/9LB1rEtxHAeZ... #PsychSciSky

Could the diversity of findings in heartbeat-evoked response (HER) research be due to variability in methods?

In our new preprint my co-first authors, Maria Azanova and @willenjoy.bsky.social, and me systematically reviewed 132 M/EEG HER studies and found:

NEW PREPRINT

Explainable AI refers to an extremely popular group of approaches that aim to open "black box" AI models. But what can we see when we open the black AI box? We use Galit Shmueli's framework (to describe, predict or explain) to evaluate

arxiv.org/abs/2508.05753

I find these GIFs super cool!
could you, however, mark T 0 (when the stimulus arrives) a bit more pronounced?
Give it one more sec? Or make the background colour of the plot a slightly different colour or so?

Thanks, Alina, for pointing me to this paper — perfect timing as I'm finishing the discussion section of my current EEG-fMRI manuscript!

🧵 Beautiful new preprint by @marishishi.bsky.social on the genetic architecture of impulsivity. With the UCSD team of Sandra Sanchez-Roige, Abe Palmer et al. and Lang Liu, Ziv Gan-Or @ukuvainik.bsky.social @filipkmorys.bsky.social @misicbata.bsky.social and others www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Are you sure that your Heartbeat Evoked Potential (HEP) effect is real?
In our new paper, we show that task-evoked activity can overlap with HEPs, creating false positive effects - unless you correct for it.

Vagusnerv: Wie das Hirn zum Herzen spricht - Die ganze Doku | ARTE Der Vagusnerv wird in der Medizin auch der Schlüssel zur Gesundheit genannt. Dieser bedeutende Nerv, der Gehirn und Körper verbindet, beeinflusst Atmung, Herzschlag und Verdauung. Viele Menschen könne...

ARTE released a nice trailer for the upcoming documentary on the vagus nerve, which will cover our ongoing work on gut-brain interactions.
It also features @neurometabolic.bsky.social, so I am sure it will be worth watching 👀
www.arte.tv/de/videos/12...

After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology.

Ultra-processed food consumption affects structural integrity of feeding-related brain regions independent of and via adiposity - npj Metabolic Health and Disease npj Metabolic Health and Disease - Ultra-processed food consumption affects structural integrity of feeding-related brain regions independent of and via adiposity

New paper! In ~30k people from UKBB we show that ultra-processed food consumption 🍔 is associated with structural integrity of feeding-related brain regions (Hpth/NAcc) 🧠 Some of the changes occur independent of obesity, through inflammation. www.nature.com/articles/s44... @alaindagher.bsky.social

The neurobiology of overeating Obesity rates are rapidly rising, driven by overeating because of easy access to ultra-processed foods. We discuss the dichotomy of hedonic and homeostatic feeding circuits and how palatable food impa...

nice review on "The neurobiology of overeating".
This new @NeuroCellPress review unpacks the circuits of hunger, reward & overeating—and how GLP-1 fits into the puzzle.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

scobel: Riten und Rituale Schon immer haben Riten Tradition und Moderne verbunden und auch die jeweilige Gesellschaft definiert. Übergangsriten sind so alt wie die Menschheit selbst - ein universelles Phänomen.

Hier nochmal der Link dazu: www.3sat.de/wissen/scobe...

The Gender Equality Plan @mpicbs.bsky.social is finally presented! It was a pleasure and empowering team effort to draft it with Anahit Babayan, @ndherzog.bsky.social and @braincox.bsky.social. Thanks also to current EO Officer Karina Naethe (shorturl.at/VbNda) for sharing the stage with me! 🔥💜
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