Objectively measured time can be very different from subjectively perceived time. However, Buzsáki argues that both time in physics and subjective time relate to motion (or speed, or change). He suggests that internal speed is attention.🙂‍↕️ This review also covers neuronal mechanisms of time-tracking.

Beta oscillations can be subdivided into low beta (13-20 Hz) and high beta (20-30 Hz). This paper nicely demonstrates dissociation using Hidden Markov Models. While low beta is completely suppressed during movement, high beta shows variability. Post-movement rebound is dominated by low beta. Cool!👍

Neurons x time points is higher-dimensional data. It can be reduced to a lower-dimensional manifold. This review gives an introduction, explanation, and summary of current evidence on neuronal manifolds. I appreciated the discussion of emergence: is the manifold more than the sum of its parts?

Plateau potential is exactly what it sounds like: the neuron membrane potential that increases a bit and stays in this depolarized state for ~500 ms. This paper found that pyramidal neurons in V1 L5 have those plateau potentials, and they are related to behavioral plasticity. V. weird but cool!👏

Recently, I was playing with extracting brain activity using ICA (I know that some use SSD, but I use ICA). Here's one example from the dataset with somatosensory stimulation. There are several components over the right somato-motor area (where the brain responds to stimulation).🧐 #brainmovie

Aperiodic spectra under anti-epileptic drugs (presumably reduced excitation). No good news for 1/f slope, but the offset was decreased. Cool!👏 Found something for myself: alpha power seems to be reduced under lamotrigine but not levetiracetam, and only in eyes-open but not in eyes-closed condition.🤔

Proposed model returns uncertainty representations (confidence) based on input sensory signals. Tested on auditory perception. Cool!👍 It means that if one has data without confidence ratings, the model can give at least an estimate. I wonder how easy it could be to adapt it to somatosensory domain.

I like this channel! Scrolling through titles and reading abstracts gives me a very unusual milieu. Not everything is directly related to my research, but there are gems like this👇

Last week I was being trained as a #MNE-Python TrainEErs at #PracticalMEEG2025 - it was a lot of fun to look behind the scenes and learn how to run a good workshop :) thanks to @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for hosting and Marijn van Vliet and @nschawor.bsky.social for organizing this amazing workshop!

Noradrenaline is involved in motor learning. And not just as a background unspecific signal but actually refined and precise, both temporally and spatially. This study demonstrated it using two strains of mice and optogenetic stimulation. Cool!👍 I wonder what part of this learning is attention...

Today at #PracticalMEEG2025 Nick @willenjoy.bsky.social and I will be conducting a tutorial on how to simulate EEG/MEG data with our toolbox meegsim. If you happen to be around, come to our virtual booth; we will tell scary stories.👻

Noise as a Signal – Moritz Gerster, Vadim Nikulin & Arno Villringer analysed data from 119 patients & discovered a new electrical signature of #Parkinson’s Disease, now published in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social: www.cbs.mpg.de/2412209/2025... #parkinsontherapy #clinicalstudy

Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) can capture a 140 Hz retinal response to a flash of light. Super!👏 It's not that I study high gamma at 200 Hz or high frequency oscillations at 600 Hz, and it's not that I have convenient access to OPMs, but it's encouraging to see the OPMs' increased bandwidth.

Diazepam increases the effects of GABAa in the brain. It also changes alpha rhythm. The most pronounced change occurred in somatomotor regions. Good news!👏I wish they would have recorded structural MRI...

Another book summary/opinion. This time I read Andy Clark's recent book. The book is written well and reads fast. However, predictive processing as an explanation for everything sounds too good to be true. www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...

learn about advanced electrophysiology-related toolboxes (>20 to choose from) at this online event, in lectures or hands-on tutorials: 📅 Wednesday, October 30th at 2 pm (CET) cuttingeeg.org/practicalmee... very cool concept! 🙂 free but registration required. #PracticalMEEG2025

Nice piece about extreme multiverse analysis! The exemplar study performed 3.6 billion regression models. The author argues against this approach and suggests that multiverse analysis should only include valid models selected based on theories. Statistical inference requires thinking before acting🤓

People come and people go, In a monotonic flow. Finally, I have a guest, Demonstrating interest. I would show him alpha waves, How they are dispersed in space. Then the myelin content maps, Cut across the cortex’s depths. And relation that I found With interpretation round.

I always learned a great deal from simulating data (aka mostly how things don't really work the way they are advertised 🙃). so I can definitely recommend playing with this toolbox for simulating EEG/MEG sources with desired properties (location, coupling) for connectivity. ⬇️

Second day at the Brain Quantum Imaging symposium: Ole Jensen about reading. Two interesting things: 1) when reading, alpha rhythm power remains strong (not stronger than resting but still there); 2) alpha may be involved in visuomotor coordination.🤔

Today I'm at Brain Quantum Imaging symposium in Berlin. Learning a lot about optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs). Many interesting talks! One highlight is Saskia Helbling on whether we can infer laminar origin of signals with OPMs. Answer: there are many things to consider. doi.org/10.1162/imag...

Great overview conceptualizing approaches for studying sensory conscious perception👏. I, myself, had research experience with both subjective and objective approaches, but it was nice to learn the great landscape and where I land. Table 1 is especially informative.

Nick (@willenjoy.bsky.social) is obsessed with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). And for good reason! It could explain many results. Our simulation toolbox meegsim enables setting up SNR of individual sources as well as SNR of all signal sources with respect to all noise sources. meegsim.readthedocs.io

Nice things for the **13th #MindBrainBody Symposium 2026** happening under the hood 😊 Save the date: 📆 March 9-11, 2026 (Berlin and virtual) Stay tuned for the call and announcement! (For info about the last 12 MBBSymposia: mindbrainbody.de) #interoception #neuroskyence

As part of the Toolbox Bouquet, @studenova.bsky.social and I will host a workshop on simulations of M/EEG activity and connectivity with the MEEGsim toolbox! You’re very welcome to join us on Oct 30th between 2 and 5pm 😉 More details will follow soon 🔜

When target for reaching varies in certainty of its position, it is pre-motor cortex (PMd) that codes uncertainty, not primary motor cortex (M1). Also, preparatory activity for left and right movements becomes similar with high uncertainty. Cool!👍 Now I know why I'm so stupid when hitting the ball.🎾

Motor evoked potentials are larger when the TMS pulse is delivered at the trough of alpha rhythm. It is also true for patients with subcortical stroke, even in their affected hemisphere. Nice!👏 But if excitability is higher at the trough, is it a good or bad moment to stimulate for stroke recovery?

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:

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

Near-threshold tones were accompanied by a slow negative-going evoked response (150-700 ms) in primary auditory cortex but only when tones were task-relevant😯. Also, this activity scaled linearly (in 200-400 ms window) with self-reported strength of perception. Cool!💪 Should generalize to S1, right?

If you want some support, That results you’ve obtained Didn’t come from a fault, Then you must simulate. If you feel that this task Is unbearable one, I’m the person to ask How to get this task done. I suggest trying out Python toolbox meegsim. Simulation layout Never simpler has been. ->

Functional connectivity (FC) in fMRI/EEG/MEG is a correlation between time series of different brain areas. The authors claim that FC can be explanatory if it allows "rich" interpretations, where "rich" interpretation is a way of understanding FC network and it's higher-order properties. 🤔

Combined EEG and 7T fMRI - very cool!👏 Alpha was negatively correlated to BOLD in superficial cortex, somewhat in deep, and not at all in the middle. To keep in mind, it was alpha changes from open to closed eyes. I happen to have EEG+7T fMRI dataset. It would be nice if the code were available.🙏

This study created a model circuit with pyramidal (PN) and 3 types of inhibitory neurons (PV, SST, and VIP)👏. Main result, in my view, is that inhibition doesn't have to result in a decrease of oscillations. When input was applied to SST, they inhibited PV, such that oscillations from PN increased!

We (I and @willenjoy.bsky.social) created a toolbox for simulations of EEG/MEG because we needed to simulate data. Our initial aim was to simulate connectivity. For this short clip, I simulated two sources with phase connectivity using our toolbox. #brainmovie meegsim.readthedocs.io/en/stable/in...

Check out this new Max Planck graduate school, for talented students interested in applying ML/AI tools to one of a wide variety of scientific fields. Deadline this October 31st!

🧠 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

Vividness score actually correlates with measures of visual imagery strength and predisposition to visualize. Good news!🎊 Hope it applies to other domains, like tactile imagery. Yet, the issue may be complicated, because the authors report that visual aphantasics imagine objects in a tactile manner.

I like studies on beta bursts but I don't understand why good old power analysis should be abandoned at the same time. I would appreciate if studies show both types of analysis, at least in supplementary.🙏

Presence hallucinations (PH) are sensing that someone else is close behind you when no one is there. PH can be induced. This group pulled all the data they had in one study. One of the results: delusional ideation (DI) correlates positively with PH. Amazing!👏 Can DI explain other types of behavior?

PhD Scholarships If you're interested in studying with me, here's a new funding scheme just launched by @maxplanck.de: The Max Planck AI Network ai.mpg.de Application deadline 31 October

A colleague of mine at the CBCLab at Maastricht University, Sven Hildebrand, is looking to hire a PhD student to investigate the arrangement of blood vessels in the human brain cortex using 3D postmortem histology: www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3549... Application deadline the 31st of October.

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

New method for data decomposition: ICA that takes into account phase, allowing extraction of broader class of signals. Additionally, it is possible to evaluate the propagation direction of the component. Validated on fMRI data. I would try it for my MEG data, if the code would be available.

'Brain–body states as a link between cardiovascular and mental health' by Arno Villringer, Vadim Nikulin & Michael Gaebler @mbe-lab.bsky.social @michaelgaebler.com @mpicbs.bsky.social sky.social www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

My supervisors wrote a review www.cell.com/trends/neuro... They suggest that depression is mental and cardiovascular. And hypertension is cardiovascular and mental. It is plausible, I agree. But I can't say I agree with every claim in the paper😏

Nice piece!⚡ On the one hand, I really like circuit-level mechanisms (of everything, including consciousness). On the other hand, can consciousness be just circuit-level mechanisms? I'm not sure...

Last day of #ICON2025 I had a great experience throughout the week. A lot of new ideas and inspiration 🤗

Highlight of the day is a poster. Have you ever looked for a sock in a pile of socks? You may have a full template or a partial (only pattern). You will be quicker if you have a full template but also when other socks look different. Soon to be published by Norman www.uni-leipzig.de/personenprof...