Steve Barrera

🚨REGISTRATION IS OPEN!🚨

We're so excited to host our first-ever, in-person event! Join us for panel discussions, a keynote address, and the opportunity to meet many amazing women in Neuroscience💜

Please register to attend by November 1st:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We can't wait!

POSTDOC Opening: I'm hiring a postdoc to work with me, @ayeletlandau.bsky.social, and Yuval Benjamini on a 4-year NSF funded project to understand timing and memorability in the visual system. fMRI, EEG, eye-tracking all included.

If interested, please DM or email me for more information!

Very interesting implications for active/predictive perception models.

He Was Expected to Get Alzheimer’s 25 Years Ago. Why Hasn’t He?

“His mother & nine of her 13 siblings developed Alzheimer’s & died in the prime of their lives. So did his oldest brother, and other relatives going back generations. It is the largest family in the US known to have an Alzheimer’s-causing mutation…Something has shielded him from his genetic destiny”

We’re recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join our team! 🎉

I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty).

See lab page and doc below for details!

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have developed a new mRNA vaccine that has been shown to suppress abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina, offering hope to MILLIONS of patients with age-related vision loss. The vaccine triggered strong antibody responses that REDUCED retinal damage by UP TO 85%.

Prevention of type 2 diabetes through prediabetes remission without weight loss - Nature Medicine A post hoc analysis of a multicentre, randomised trial showed that prediabetes remission is possible without total weight loss—providing weight is distributed to subcutaneous deposits as opposed to visceral ones.

Preventing progression to Type 2 diabetes, remission of pre-diabetes, without weight loss, in >20% participants in a prospective clinical trial: the importance of body fat distribution
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

We’re searching for TWO tenure-track cognitive neuroscientists here in the Wesleyan University Psychology Department! Apply here wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/careers

Transient conductive hearing loss (CHL) during development. Top left: Schematic of coronal section of a guinea pig skull (traced from high-resolution CT scan). A custom-made earplug is fitted within the cartilaginous ear canal (dotted line), a safe distance from the tympanic membrane (TM). Inset: View of external ear with earplug in place. Top right: Earplugs provide 10–35 dB SPL sound attenuation for frequencies >1 kHz. Bottom: Experimental timeline. Litters of newborn guinea pigs were divided into two groups at hearing onset (birth): pups that were raised with no earplug (littermate Controls) and pups that were raised with a unilateral earplug (“Early CHL”). Earplugs remained in place until adulthood (P56). Following earplug removal, animals were tested on: auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) including the binaural interaction component (BIC), a startle-based spatial discrimination task, and in vivo single-unit recordings in the auditory midbrain (i.e., inferior colliculus, IC). All testing was done within 1 week of earplug removal.

Early unilateral auditory deprivation can cause lasting spatial #hearing deficits. @anbuhlk.bsky.social &co show that unilateral #HearingLoss during development (but not adult-onset) impairs binaural #brainstem function & spatial hearing acuity in guinea pigs @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46njw1P

We teamed up with Society of Behavioral Medicine to share how all of us—scientists, health professionals, and the public—can help combat misinformation 🧠.

This post highlights their toolkit with 10 practical tips to help identify and prevent the spread of misinformation.

Science as a global public good? From the right to participate in science to science governance | Royal Society Science+ meeting organised by Professor Geoffrey Boulton FRS FRSE MAE and Professor Michela Massimi FRSE FRAS MAE

This 2-day workshop @royalsociety.org on the right to participate in science and science as a global public good brings together scientists, philosophers, and policy makers. The event is open to everyone and can also be attended online. Programme coming soon. Registration required 👇

So here are my suggestions if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to pronounce names in an official capacity.

1. Read them ahead of time.
2. Ask for help
3. Forvo.com is a great resource
4. Slow down, and use falling tones to give extra gravitas.
5. Apologize and own mistakes

Simulating an 80-year-old with MIT Age Lab's gear, Amy Marcus @wsj.com learns about the importance of balance and strength training
www.wsj.com/health/welln...

A challenging paper I'm looking forward to reading. I believe more strongly than I can say in the need to create a positive vision for models and how people use models that is a part of *science* rather than "product." As people in the tech industry we have a responsibility for this.

Wow. The smoke absorbs/scatters blue light, letting redder wavelengths through.

A lively debate? For whom?

academic.oup.com/ije/article-...

Carl Sagan's Profound 'Pale Blue Dot' Speech Set to a Beautifully Calming Classical Soundtrack Become Human took the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" speech by Carl Sagan, removed some of the noise, and set it to a calming classical soundtrack.

Carl Sagan’s Profound ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Speech Set to a Beautifully Calming Classical Soundtrack laughingsquid.com/carl-sagan-p...

Using the NASA-NSF-funded ‘Alopeke instrument on the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have discovered a companion star in an incredibly tight orbit around Betelgeuse. This discovery answers the millennia-old question of why this famous star experiences a roughly six-year-long periodic change in its brightness, and provides insight into the physical mechanisms behind other variable red supergiants. The companion star appears blue here because, based on the team’s analysis, it is likely an A- or B-type star, both of which are blue-white due to their high temperatures.

The giant star Betelgeuse appears to have a secret companion. We missed it before because it's only a little bigger than our Sun.

And it's going fast: The companion star is likely to spiral in and be destroyed in about 10,000 years. 🧪🔭

noirlab.edu/public/news/...

AI Is Crushing the Early Career Job Market, Stanford Study Finds Warning bells have been ringing for months, and now experts are providing the data to back that up.

AI Is Crushing the Early Career Job Market, Stanford Study Finds gizmodo.com/ai-is-crushi...

A graphic with an icon of the sun, a wiggly line denoting natural cycles, and a volcano, with a title reading "WHY is climate changing?" created by me. Not fancy, as my graphic design skills lean to function over art!

Scientists who study climate don't automatically attribute all changes to human activity. Rather, we carefully investigate every possible natural factor that could explain the planet's warming.

Could these be the real culprits?

The evidence is in--and the answer is NO.

This thread explains! 🧵

YouTube video by The Royal Institution Misinformation and distrust in science - with Naomi Oreskes

@naomioreskes.bsky.social gave this *excellent* interview at @rigb.org back in May. A great primer on a lot of big problems in science - trust, disinformation, freedom - and why the onus is on scientists 🧪

I teach this! It's a seminar for first-year undergrads called The Science of How to Study and they love it. (But it only reaches a very small number of students, would be great to have as a regular part of the curriculum)

Rhythm Radar Which rhythms fit best? Test your musical intuitions!

our latest music game, Rhythm Radar, is about how melodies and rhythms work together to make a perfect rhythmic fit 🥁🎶🧠

give it a try at themusiclab.org/quizzes/downbeat!

(this is a collab across Auckland Psych and Yale Cognitive Science, led by @mattsluke.bsky.social and Maxx Shearod)

When I teach my undergrad intro cognitive class (~200 students), I usually require students to take weekly quizzes online to promote retrieval practice & spaced learning. But, now that it's so easy to cheat, I wonder whether there're any other ways to administer review quizzes. Any ideas?

wow this is still going. We synthesized critiques from actual neuroscientists about the bombastic claims of this very messy preprint, you know, for fans of thinking.

Bonus, show notes include a primer on EEG data with an open interactive textbook!

www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...

van Rooij, I., & Guest, O. (2025). Combining Psychology with Artificial Intelligence: What could possibly go wrong?. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

I have a new paper on "The Psychology of Virality" with @steverathje.bsky.social

We explain how similar psychological processes (eg preferential attention to negativity, social motives, etc.) drive the spread of information across online and offline contexts: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

For #DigitalFriday I’d like to gather a list of royalty/fee-free image catalogues and databases - ideally thing that *can* be used commercially too - to counter the “but I have to use AI” argument. Any suggestions?

Experimentology cover: title and curves for distributions.

Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.