Building compositional tasks with shared neural subspaces Nature - The brain can flexibly perform multiple tasks by compositionally combining task-relevant neural representations.

Thrilled that my paper is out in the @nature.com. We explored how the brain builds complex tasks by compositionally combining simpler sub-task representations. The brain flexibly performs multiple tasks by dynamically reusing neural subspaces for sensory inputs and motor actions

rdcu.be/eRVUk

Incentives are skewed in research publishing. eLife looks for better ways to share and assess research and researchers by focusing on public peer reviews and eLife Assessments rather than publishing decisions.
buff.ly/WfmVvbP

Interview with Erdem Pulcu at @oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social

Cholinergic modulation of dopamine release drives effortful behaviour - Nature In the nucleus accumbens, acetylcholine boosts dopamine release to promote effortful behaviour.

Block that acetylcholine and just doesn't feel worth it any more...

Cholinergic modulation of dopamine release drives effortful behaviour
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Preprint alert!!! We recorded directly from the human ventral tegmental area (VTA), the principal source of cortical dopaminergic innervation, while patients performed an instrumental learning task. 🧵👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Congrats!!!

DOPAMINE 2026 Room Sharing Interested in finding fellow delegates to share hotel rooms with during Dopamine 2026? If so, please fill out the form below! Once you complete your information, you will be sent an email with inform...

🚨DOPAMINE2026 (Sevilla, Spain)

Looking for someone to share a room with?
Here’s the room-share form👇🏻

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

a woman says we have to work together in front of a wentworth sign ALT: a woman says we have to work together in front of a wentworth sign

Passionate about women's mental health?

Interested in brain stimulation?

Excited by cutting edge neurotech?

Come do a PhD with me!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

(thread)

Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching’ Hans Eysenck A “high and far reaching” number of papers and books by Hans Eysenck could be “unsafe,” according to an updated statement from King’s College London, where the psychologist was a profe…

Diederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology.

However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.

The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.

retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...

‼️Now published in @imagingneurosci.bsky.social‼️
(with @judithschepers.bsky.social & @benediktehinger.bsky.social)

Do you have RTs in your 🧠📈-data? Fixation durations?

How do event-durations affect your data? And how to deal with this?

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

🧵 ⤵ 1 / 7

🧪 #EEG #fMRI #neuroimage

Counting down to friday! 👀

Integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives on metacognitive mechanisms in psychopathology - Nature Reviews Psychology Cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology have made substantial advances in knowledge about metacognitive processes, but these fields have progressed in parallel. In this Review, Seow et al. inte...

Very pleased to share our new review in @natrevpsychol.nature.com on integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives of metacognition in mental health! With @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social, Lena Jelinek, and Steffen Moritz. (1/3)

Web: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
PDF: rdcu.be/ePxUG

Without monkeys, neuroscience has no future Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of BCIs, ANNs. New funding and policy changes put future such advances at risk.

Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy changes put future such advances at risk, write Cory Miller, @movshon.bsky.social and Doris Tsao.

#neuroskyence

bit.ly/47MXYLH

The respiratory cycle modulates distinct dynamics of affective and perceptual decision-making Author summary Breathing is more than just a vital process for survival — it influences how we perceive and interact with the world around us. Recent research suggests that the rhythm of breathing, fr...

🧠 New paper on breathing and the brain, out now
@plos.org Computational Biology! 🫁
"The respiratory cycle modulates distinct dynamics of affective and perceptual decision-making"
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
We show how respiratory 'tidal computations' alter our decisons!

Thx!!!

4/4 We showed that a negative coupling between Hb and VTA when encoding NPE, which is associated with a negative learning bias. These interactions, in turn, could affect downstream NAcc responses to NPE. Structural equation modeling suggested that Hb drives activities in this network encoding NPE.

3/4 We then examine how a priori regions in a reward circuit, including habenula(Hb), ventral tegmental area(VTA), nucleus accumbens(NAcc), and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), encode positive and negative reward prediction errors (PPE & NPE). We showed Hb encodes NPE while VTA encodes PPE.

2/4 We showed that negative learning bias derived by a 2 learning-rate Rescorla-Wagner model captured pro-variance bias (PVB, a manifest of risk-seeking behaviour qualified using our novel reinforcement learning task). Negative learning bias & PVB are associated with anxiety and depression scores.

1/4 I’m super excited to share our latest PNAS paper: a 7T-fMRI study shows that functional connectivity between habenula and VTA in humans is associated with individual differences in negative learning bias, which further associates with higher anxiety and depression scores. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

(1/3) Focused ultrasound stimulation is a versatile neuroscience tool. Depending on parameter settings it can safely and reversibly alter brain function, or it can lead to lasting tissue damage. That’s why we have safety guidelines (see ITRUSST: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... ).

Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions | PNAS Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions

Great piece on the absurdity of brute force multiverse analyses.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

eLife Assessment This important study reports the results of efforts to replicate two phenomena of significant interest to early-career scientists and scientific policymakers: the Matthew effect and the early-career setback effect. Several previous studies of these effects have focused on early-career researchers with grant proposals that fell just below or just above a funding threshold. Those just above the threshold were more likely to be successful when they applied for funding later in the career (an example of the well-known Matthew effect), while those just below were more likely to go on to have stronger publication records (the early-career setback effect). In this study the Matthew effect was found to be robust across funders, and to generalize from those close to the funding threshold to the whole population. The early-career setback effect was not robust across funders and did not generalize to the whole population. The evidence reported is convincing.

Evidence from 14 research funding programmes confirms that early winners tend to keep winning (Matthew effect). But the idea that an early setback makes you stronger later doesn’t replicate widely.
buff.ly/UEtcRd4

@tobiasuhauser.bsky.social, laureate of the ERC's #ERCengage Award, created a tool with young people living with #OCD; showing how engagement makes research stronger.

Read about his experience in the ERC's magazine: buff.ly/dQbMfJz

Check out our latest paper, a collaboration with @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social using gamified computational psychiatry measures to explore brain-behavioral correlates of decision making!

Very proud of @sankalpgarud.bsky.social for this heroic effort studying human affiliation decisions which is now out in @pnas.org 🥳 Check out the thread below for quick summary of what we found 👇

A eulogy for my friend Nolan Williams.

open.substack.com/pub/thefront...

𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗨𝗥𝗢𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗫
By Mars and Passingham
"Understanding anthropoid foraging challenges may thus contribute to our understanding of human cognition"
Going to the top of the reading list!
doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...
#neuroskyence

MEG Nord returns to Aarhus, Nov 26-28, inaugurating our new OPM lab! Keynotes from @olejensen.bsky.social, James Bonaiuto @danclab.bsky.social, Sophie Scott; sessions will feature both group leaders + early career researchers.

Registration & abstract submission now open:
cfin.au.dk/meg-nord-2025

MEG Nord topics span perception, cognition, brain development, disorders, and quantum sensors. Abstract/reg deadline will be October 30, 2025.

We expect to have a few travel grants available for early career researchers travelling from Europe who submit an abstract or are invited for a talk! 🧠📈

Characterising Cognitive Biases Elicited by Misinformation Using Reinforcement Learning at Queen Mary University of London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Characterising Cognitive Biases Elicited by Misinformation Using Reinforcement Learning at Queen Mary University of London, listed on FindAPhD.com

⭐PhD in Cognitive/Computational Psychology⭐, Please Share!! Use Reinforcement Learning and Computational Modelling to study how dis/misinformation affects us (with myself +Tali Sharot). Full funding for those eligible for UK home fees. Deadline 10th Nov. @queenmarycbb.bsky.social

schematic of fetal OPM-MEG

📈🧠 We're looking for brains! 🧠📈
Postdoc + PhD positions are available to help pioneer fetal MEG with optically pumped magnetometers, measuring prenatal responses to sound and light to understand how we start making sense of the world even before we're born. 🐣

Please get in touch to hear more!