Yuan Chang Leong

How do brain networks tracking past trauma react to stress in the future? Thrilled to share new work from the lab led by rockstar postdoc @felhardi.bsky.social with wonderful collab @dylanggee.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
#psychscisky #neuroskyence

Three more days to submit to SANS 2026 in San Diego!

Not done with data collection/analyses yet? In case you missed it, we have a "Pre-Registration" category where you can submit an abstract for a study you plan to conduct!

More info here: socialaffectiveneuro.org/abstract-sub...

Junior Specialist - Lapate Laboratory, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences University of California Santa Barbara is hiring. Apply now!

📣 Our lab is hiring a full-time RA/lab manager! Join us in beautiful Santa Barbara to study the neural bases of affect-cognition interactions using fMRI and brain stimulation. Great stepping stone to a PhD in cognitive/affective neuro 🧠🐬🏖️ Apply by Jan 22: recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF03048

Our new paper out in NHB! We started this back in @ptoncompmemlab.bsky.social's lab when I was a postdoc and Rolando was a grad student, showing that stable fMRI representations of places (learned in Rolando's custom-made VR world) provide the best anchors for later item learning

Dynamic brain mechanisms supporting salient memories under cortisol The stress-related hormone cortisol alters dynamic brain networks predicting memory and arousal to promote emotional memories.

How does cortisol tune brain networks to form strong emotional memories? Excited to share new work led by amazing former RA Flory Huang w collabs Rajita Sinha and @toddc.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

a red building on UPENN's campus photographed during the fall

the Philadelphia skyline, with clear skies and autumn trees

starting fall 2026 i'll be an assistant professor at @upenn.edu 🥳

my lab will develop scalable models/theories of human behavior, focused on memory and perception

currently recruiting PhD students in psychology, neuroscience, & computer science!

reach out if you're interested 😊

Thrilled to see this reviewed preprint by grad student extraordinaire (but bsky-less) Euan Prentis posted on @elife.bsky.social! doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Thank you to the reviewers and editors for encouraging, insightful and helpful comments. We will be revising the paper, stay tuned!

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!

🎓Recruiting Ph.D. students for Fall 2026!🎓
The Feilong Lab @sc.edu studies commonalities & differences across brains, and how they relate to cognition, language, & disorders.
We develop brain templates, improve hyperalignment, and compare human brains with monkey brains & DNNs.
feilonglab.github.io

The Computational and Cognitive Neural Sciences lab (ballardlab.org) at UC Riverside is recruiting psychology PhD students to join our team! Check out the flyer to learn about the lab and our stellar research community at UCR. Apply by 12/1!
drive.google.com/file/d/19m8i...

Had a great time chatting with CASNL alum @sudkrc.bsky.social and sharing our recent work on arousal!

Her editing/producing skills are next-level - she somehow wrangled my scattered brain into something that actually sounds coherent...

A true miracle worker 😅

Graduate Study Our graduate programs are highly selective, successfully recruiting and retaining excellent students, competing with the top programs in the world. Our doctoral students go on to be scientists and sch...

PhD applications for Cognitive and Psychological Sciences at Brown (@browncopsy.bsky.social) are due on December 1st. We have a great community, so please apply, share with your students, etc. Read more on our fancy new website here: copsy.brown.edu/graduate-study

I'm recruiting PhD students for my lab at Northwestern! I'm reviewing applications for the Department of Psychology for the Cognitive Affective Neuroscience and Clinical areas, due 12/1. 🧠

Come join the CATS Lab: nucatslab.com

Learn about our latest research: iamh.northwestern.edu/research/res...

thanks dongwon!!! and let's hang out when you come to Chicago for SPSP next year!!!

New Research Explores What Makes Emotional Memories Stick - DSI By Sarah Steimer We can think of emotional experiences as sticky, explains the study’s senior author Yuan Chang (YC) Leong, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and DSI Affiliate Resear...

A new study in 'Nature Human Behavior' led by UChicago researchers combines fMRI data and natural language processing to understand how emotions lead to enhanced memory encoding, or "stickiness."

Learn more: bit.ly/3Lec2Gf

@jadynpark.bsky.social @ycleong.bsky.social

teaching this in my class on computational methods in comp SANS next quarter!

Neurocomputational basis of learning when choices simultaneously affect both oneself and others Nature Communications - When learning to make choices that simultaneously affect the self and others, asymmetric encoding of information guides future social behaviors across mutually beneficial,...

📢 Thrilled to share our paper is out now in @natcomms.nature.com

Shared computations underlie how we acquire actions that are mutually beneficial, instrumentally harmful (benefits self at the expense of others), altruistic (benefit others at the expense of self), or mutually costly

🧵 rdcu.be/eL8mZ

I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com

Longitudinal intergenerational hyperscanning reveals indices of relationship formation and loneliness Loneliness is globally acknowledged as a severe and burgeoning health risk, fuelling interest in helping people of all ages form meaningful social connections. One promising approach consists of inter...

What happens in the brain as people become less lonely? Intergenerational community programs can reduce loneliness, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. We collected and analysed 732 🧠-scans to find out!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@introspection.bsky.social + @escross.bsky.social

See Application Requirements Ready to join our community of bold thinkers? Here’s how to apply.

Consider applying to the PhD program at Chicago Booth! The application deadline is Dec 15. 1/

www.chicagobooth.edu/phd/admissio...

A multi-dataset, multi-measure, and multi-year effort led by @jadynpark.bsky.social!

Article link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Open-access link: rdcu.be/eKKAw

One of the papers I've been most excited about since starting the lab!

We adopt a network neuroscience approach to understand how arousal reconfigures large-scale functional network organization to support memory of complex narratives!

Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational ...

How does motivation shape learning and memory? In a new review w @ralisonadcock.bsky.social, we propose that under different motivational ‘moods', neuromodulators set distinct neural contexts to determine information processing and memory formation.
doi.org/10.1146/annu...
#psychscisky #neuroskyence

Job Opportunity Alert

Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship at the University of Chicago: apply.interfolio.com/173322

EOE/Vet/Disability

Rewards bias self-evaluations of ability - Communications Psychology People often receive rewards for good performance, but what happens when rewards do not reflect ability? Two behavioral studies suggest that rewards can impact how we evaluate our own ability, above and beyond the impact of actual performance.

Very excited to share that my first paper, with Peter Mende-Siedlecki and @leorhackel.bsky.social, is out now in @commspsychol.nature.com! ☺️

Can getting more rewards make you feel more skilled, even if your performance doesn't change?

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Fig. 1. a. Visual and auditory regions of interest (ROIs). b. Responses in a combination of visual (e.g., early dorsal visual stream; Fig. 1a, middle panel) and auditory regions were used to predict responses in the rest of the brain using MVPN. c. In order to identify brain regions that combine responses from auditory and visual regions, we identified voxels where predictions generated using the combined patterns from auditory regions and one set of visual regions jointly (as shown in Fig. 1b) are significantly more accurate than predictions generated using only auditory regions or only that set of visual regions.

I’m excited to share my 1st first-authored paper, “Distinct portions of superior temporal sulcus combine auditory representations with different visual streams” (with @mtfang.bsky.social and @steanze.bsky.social ), now out in The Journal of Neuroscience!
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.

We're excited to announce that the #SANS2026 Presidential Keynote Speaker will be Dr. Steve Chang of Yale! (medicine.yale.edu/profile/stev...). He will deliver an address titled "Diverse Social Strategies and Neural Mechanisms underlying Mutual Cooperation"

📢 My lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine is considering graduate student applications this fall

We welcome applicants interested in using computational modeling & fMRI to study social connection

🗓️ Deadline: December 1, 2025
🔗 Learn more: sinclaboratory.com/apply

#comppsychiatry #socialneuro

Colorado Social Vision & Mind Lab The Social Vision & Mind Lab (Director: Youngki Hong, Ph.D.) at the University of Colorado Boulder explores how people perceive and make sense of the physica...

I’m admitting 1–2 Ph.D. students to join my lab in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU Boulder, starting Fall 2026. We study person perception, stereotyping and prejudice, and intervention science.

Application info: www.colorado.edu/psych-neuro/...
Lab info: www.svmlab.org