How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Why does dopamine ramp up during approach to predictable rewards? In this preprint with Luke Priestley, we explore the idea that dopamine ramps occur when reward predictions inferred using a world-model are used to train striatal cached values.

How do brains plan actions towards goals? To get at this question we studied mice navigating complex mazes as goals changed on every trial 🧵 Work with @thomasakam.bsky.social @behrenstimb.bsky.social @kristorpjensen.bsky.social now on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This project builds on work establishing the behaviour done at Champalimaud in Lisbon with @michaelfsp.bsky.social, Beatriz Godinho, Christian Machens, and @ruimcosta.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/11 Happy to share our TICS paper on using the flexibility of one of the most basic cognitive functions, perception, to understand one of the most complex cognitive dysfunctions, psychiatric conditions (also my first formal work in computational psychiatry 🎉) 📄: www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🧵 : 👇

Looking forward to it!

My undergraduate thesis, "Distinct patterns of social contagion under risk and ambiguity", is now published online at @commspsychol.nature.com Deeply grateful for the guidance and constant support of Dr. Qingtian Mi, Prof. Jian Li, and Prof. Lusha Zhu.

New Annual Review with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social: “Planning in the Brain: It's Not What You Think It Is.” We argue that the brain's 'planning' machinery is mostly used for learning from simulated experience, and that thinking prospectively at decision time is just one special case of this process.

Excited that my paper on metacontrol in humans and neural networks with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social and @lhuntneuro.bsky.social is out in PNAS! We examine the way that predictive representations of control enable behavioral adaptation across settings, and pathologies: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our work on how neural circuits in the cerebellum encode prior probabilities led by Julius Koppen is out now in Nature Neuroscience www.nature.com/articles/s41... Big thanks to Julius Koppen & the whole team! And dedicated to all of us who found inspiration in Bayesian theories of the brain!

Categorization is ‘baked’ into the brain — a Perspective by Lisa Feldman Barrett & Earl K. Miller @lisafeldmanbarrett.com @earlkmiller.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔔PREPRINT: Sleep ripples drive single-neuron reactivation for human memory consolidation 1/9: How does sleep support human memory consolidation? To test this, we recorded hundreds of neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) across learning, wakefulness, and sleep. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Using non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation to boost threat extinction. Finally able to causally unravel amygdala computations in healthy humans. I’ve been dreaming about these capabilities for years and it still feels magical. Pinch me, I can hardly believe how strong these effects are.

Clarifying the conceptual dimensions of representation in neuroscience — a Perspective by Stephan Pohl, Edgar Y. Walker, David L. Barack, Jennifer Lee, Rachel N. Denison, Ned Block, Florent Meyniel & Wei Ji Ma www.nature.com/articles/s41...

To accommodate applicants and PIs attending Cosyne, we’ve extended the MCN application deadline to Sunday, Mar 22. Please repost.

Check out our new preprint! We directly tested a common assumption in neuroimaging: Is resting-state the best estimate of intrinsic organization? Spoiler: Across datasets and brain systems, multi-task fMRI did better. 👇

We review studies showing that when brain areas face similar computational demands in social and non-social context, they perform the same computations. We argue that exaptation (repurposing of traits for new functions) played a key role in brain evolution.

Amazing work.

Neural population geometry and optimal coding of tasks with shared latent structure www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵 New paper in @NatureComms Feedback-induced attitudinal changes in risk preferences Nasioulas, Potier, Cerrotti, Lebreton & me (2026) Does feedback really improve risky decision-making? Short answer: no! it changes attitudes, not learning. 👇 rdcu.be/e0VcO

Wanna compare dynamics across neural data, RNNs, or dynamical systems? We got a fast and furious method🏎️ The 1st preprint of my PhD 🥳 fast dynamical similarity analysis (fastDSA): 📜: arxiv.org/abs/2511.22828 💻: github.com/CMC-lab/fast... I’ll be @cosynemeeting.bsky.social - happy to chat 😉

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨new work with the dream team @danakarca.bsky.social @loopyluppi.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @stuartoldham.bsky.social @duncanastle.bsky.social We use game theory and show the brain is not optimally wired for communication and there’s more to its story: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Building compositional tasks with shared neural subspaces www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exciting research position in Germany (Freiburg) with Carsten Mehring uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004.... Carsten was my PhD supervisor. He is of the best scientists I have seen.

🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉 We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience. It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic. Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif

Happy to share my new paper published in @nathumbehav.nature.com: A critical look at statistical power in computational modeling studies, particularly those based on model selection. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Come find out all about cognitive maps in the PFC!!

How do we decide to reach out and make friends? My PhD work on this question is out today in @pnas.org 🎉 Study done in collaboration with the incredible @mirunarascu.bsky.social, @sorcha-hamilton.bsky.social, Ingrid Yu, and my two amazing supervisors, Matthew Rushworth and @mkflugge.bsky.social👇

Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper our in @pnas.org, lead by @isabellehoxha.bsky.social with Léo Sperber. We use evolutionary simulation to assess and compare the adaptive value of positivity bias and gradual perseveration in reinforcement learning. Follow the thread below (and Isabelle!) for more details!

I’m glad to have played a small part in this project, where the brilliant Deng Pan combined modelling, fMRI and ultrasound stimulation to demonstrate the causal role of the hippocampus in learning based on inference. See Deng's thread below

We are super excited about the first human transcranial ultrasound study from our lab which is now on BiorXiv, showing the amygdala‘s role in processing ambiguous emotions and showing TUS changed resting-state connectivity and metabolite concentrations (GABA) in the amygdala - a huge team effort! 🥳🙏🏼

New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex. rdcu.be/eAofi

📢 Job announcement: Two (!) 3-year postdoc jobs in our lab at UCL 📢 🧠💫🔊 We are looking for postdocs interested in the abstract mechanisms underlying social cognition. Modelling, fMRI and non-invasive ultrasound, a new deep-brain stimulation method. Please RT www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Individual differences in decision-making shape how mesolimbic dopamine regulates choice confidence and change-of-mind www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is cool!

🚨 We’re hiring! The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Virginia Tech is looking for a postdoc to join our team studying the neural + computational mechanisms of structure learning and flexible cognition: ccnvt.github.io#positions

We have a Research Assistant position available in Rushworth Lab to help us with projects involving fMRI, TMS, and TUS. Find out more here my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

new paper from a collaborative endeavor! (@co0p3r.bsky.social) we find & replicate food-reward biases in a reinforcement learning task (where food stim are incidental) people with eating disorder symptoms show a low-calorie food bias while those without show a high-calorie food bias... (1/3)

Completing the mouse, ANN, human trilogy of projects, here are two openings to study cognitive map deficits in human psychosis patients with the inimitable @mattnour.bsky.social Using functional neuroimaging and planning tasks. If you’re keen to join us then apply!

New in Nature MentalHealth! with Vrizzi, Najar, Lemogne, and @mael-lebreton.bsky.social We tested whether behavioural and RL-based model parameters are test-retest reliable and predict mental health traits. The result? Not really. A cautionary tale for comp. psychiatry doi.org/10.1038/s442...

🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 Thrilled to share new research on teaching! Work supervised by @cocoscilab.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social. This project asks: When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3 osf.io/preprints/os...

Humans learn generalizable representations through efficient coding www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hippocampal output suppresses orbitofrontal cortex schema cell formation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 New study alert! 🚨 Ever wondered if rats and humans learn in the same way? 🐭🧑‍🔬 We tested this — and the answer is yes, at least when it comes to how we value rewards in context. (with @shaunaparkes.bsky.social Lachlan Ferguson, Magdalena Soukupova) 🧵Thread 👇 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

join us at @oxexppsy.bsky.social | @ox.ac.uk!

Blimey! Machine-unique chess knowledge from an AI system (AlphaZero) can be transferred to four current or former world chess champions. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our new paper with Max Taylor-Davies introduces a resource-rational model of Theory of Mind. The model can explain many of the successes and failures of mindreading in human adults and children, and non-human primates. 🧵

getting this paper published was a bit painful but I am proud of it: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... We use deep RL to find mechanisms that help (real) people sustain the commons. Well done to Raphael Koster and Miruna Pislar (not on BlueSky). non-paywalled version on arxiv.