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...

🎧 New Decision & Aging Insights🎙️ episode ‪@vpmurty.bsky.social describes his research for an SRNDNA Pilot Grant and finding inspiration at a haunted house. He also talks about moving his lab across country and the impact of a single line in his presentations. Listen now: srndna.utdallas.edu/podcast/

🧠👀 Do goals & desires shape what we see—or just what we say we see? In our review, we outline a neurocomputational framework where motivation biases perception and action via distinct neural systems: 👉 Amygdala & LC-NE boost what we want to see. 👉 Striatal dopamine biases what we choose to report.

#RLDM2025 officially starts tomorrow! 🚀 Have you checked out our program? See details below, full program is available at rldm.org 👀 New to RLDM? Join our first-timers gathering tonight, 6-7pm, at Kennedy's Pub (30-32 Westland Row) 😊

Only ONE WEEK until #RLDM2025 ☘️ We can’t wait to welcome brilliant minds from AI, neuroscience, psychology & beyond for cutting-edge talks on reinforcement learning & decision making. Spaces are disappearing quickly so grab your spot before it’s gone! Register now 👉 rldm.org

Excited to share our upcoming workshop on neuroscience, reinforcement learning, and decision making at RLDM 2025 in Dublin, Ireland — June 11–14! Check out the terrific speaker lineup: 🔗 sites.google.com/view/neurorl... Co-organized with @angelaradulescu.bsky.social @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social

📢 #RLDM2025 is nearly here – 11–14 June at Trinity College Dublin ☘️ Join researchers from AI, neuroscience, psychology & beyond to explore the latest in reinforcement learning & decision making. 🎟️ Register now to secure your spot: rldm.org #ReinforcementLearning #AI #Neuroscience #CognitiveScience

New from our lab: your brain doesn’t just remember time - it bends it. We show that the dopamine system responds to natural breakpoints in experience, and this relates to more stretched memories of time. Blinking also increases, signaling encoding of new memories. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited and thrilled and humbled that our work is now out at Nature Human Behaviour linking Memorability with Time Perception! I hope you all find it of interest 🙂 Memorability shapes perceived time (and vice versa) #academicsky #neuroskyence #psychscisky #science

Big milestone for the Ballard Lab—we scanned our very first neuroimaging participant today! Grateful to be collaborating with my UCR colleagues @halledz.bsky.social and @brenthughes.bsky.social. I love the excitement of new data rolling in...

So excited to see this come out!

Are you at CNS: hot* symposia alert featuring myself, @aaronbornstein.bsky.social, @chelseahelion.bsky.social, and @iancballard.bsky.social talking about uncertainty resolution across learning, memory, social cognition, and decision-making. See you Monday at 10:00 AM. *I sweat a lot giving talks

Excited for my lab’s first CNS! Catch us at: Saturday 10:30–12:00: Datablitz Session 3 (Xinxu Shen) Monday 10:00 AM: Symposium – Uncertainty resolution across learning, memory, and decision-making Posters: Saturday 3:00–5:00 (A133), Monday 8:00–10:00 (D156), Tuesday 8:00–10:00 (F145)

Interested in dopamine? Have fMRI data? We’ve identified a temporal BOLD feature that carries rich information about dopamine physiology. This measure, obtainable from resting-state and task fMRI, opens new ways to indirectly probe dopamine’s role in cognition and disease. 1/n tinyurl.com/bddyz67b

New paper alert! Have you ever looked at single-trial fMRI activation maps? If so, you know that they are super variable. Here we show that the variability is not just noise. In fact, the same task can consistently elicit different activation patterns. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exciting news - early bird registration is now open for #RLDM2025! 🔗 Register now: forms.gle/QZS1GkZhYGRF... Register now to save €100 on your ticket. Early bird prices are only available until 1st April.

Advancing Inclusive AI in Women’s Brain Health 🧠✨ We are thrilled to announce a $1.5M award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support the Women’s Brain Health Initiative in advancing inclusive AI through multi-modal biomedical datasets.

New lab paper out now in JEP:G! From Juliana Trach, @mdebettencourt.bsky.social , @angelaradulescu.bsky.social , and myself. "Rewards Transiently and Automatically Enhance Sustained Attention." t.co/r72fZRn3Nh 👇

New paper with Johanna Jarcho, Isabel Leiva, and Sam Reisman looking at distortions in perceived liking and its relationship with bullying (in adults!). Don’t worry we collected memory data for future analyses! www.jmoodanxdisorders.org/article/S295...

The RLDM workshop list is now up! Have a look: rldm.org/call-for-wor... More workshop details coming soon :) There were so many wonderful submissions---this was really tough for the committee. Huge thanks to all involved, and looking forward to seeing folks in Dublin

Some tips for making and keeping New Year's resolutions! @ucriverside.bsky.social news.ucr.edu/articles/202...

In our recent preprint, we unveil a new role for neural activity in the human dopaminergic system in reward learning - at the single neuron level! 🧠🖥️ #EEG #neuroskyence www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How do rewards influence how we select and pursue goals? Our study finds that rewards can create 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 in goal selection and execution—similar to habits—but without reducing cognitive flexibility. Check out our paper for more! @jocn.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...

Get your abstract submissions ready for RLDM 2025, at Trinity College in Dublin (abstracts due 1/15). Tutorial submissions close on 12/20. RLDM is a terrific interdisciplinary conference at the intersection of computational theory (AI, ML, robotics), cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience.

My paper on hierarchical plans is out in Cognition!🎉 tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions. authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2x...

Starter pack for researchers studying the control of cognitive processes e.g., attentional control, inhibition, task switching, working memory, error adaptation etc go.bsky.app/12KTqED

Representational spaces in orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex: task states, values, and beyond www.cell.com/trends/neuro... #neuroscience

Are you tempted to orthogonalize the regressors in your fMRI model? @jeanette-mumford.bsky.social tells you why this is almost never a good idea, and is likely to wreck the interpretation of your model. mumfordbrainstats.tumblr.com/post/1337933...

ALSO in this month's @jocn.bsky.social Special Focus: Neural and Computational Mechanisms of Motivation and Decision Making Debbie M. Yee Tyler J. Adkins, Taraz G. Lee Ian C. Ballard, Michael Waskom, Kerry C. Nix, Mark D’Esposito Yue Zhang, Xiamin Leng, Amitai Shenhav

Check out our Special Focus on motivation and decision-making in JOCN 🚨. Each paper applies computational process modeling to reveal how motivational factors shape the cognitive processes guiding decision-making. @tarazlee.bsky.social @lindazhang.bsky.social

My paper is out!! 🎉 "Opponent control of reinforcement by striatal dopamine and serotonin", @Nature Here, we show that dopamine and serotonin signals form a gas-brake system for reward in the mammalian brain THREAD ⬇️ 1/n

Check out our work on the circuitry of WM-action interplay, led by the ever-inspiring Anastasia Kiyonaga! Two distinct TMS protocols to lPFC differentially interfered with proactive vs. reactive control mechanisms between WM and action goals, suggesting multiple timescales of adaptive control in PFC

Hello #neuroeconomists and decision (neuro)scientists - did I miss you in this starterpack? Just reply to this post or DM if you'd like to be added! go.bsky.app/1K9Suh

First go at a starter pack for everyone who is interested in Cognitive Control research. go.bsky.app/R28hGhN Let me know if I should add anyone. #neuroskyence

I want to draw attention to a special issue that Lila Davachi and I put together to memorialize our friend and colleague Sarah DuBrow. It’s full of papers inspired by her work and her being from a group of collaborators, friends, and fans! Thanks @bradpostle.bsky.social for helping make this happen.

My lab at UCRiverside is once again recruiting grad students - come join us if you're interested in studying memory using EEG and/or fMRI in younger and older adults! You can check out more info on my grad app FAQ: bit.ly/dzmac Lots of my other fab colleagues are also recruiting: bit.ly/ccngrad

🤖 Meet Our Incredible Speakers! 🧠 We’re thrilled to announce the invited speakers for RLDM 2025: ✨ Iain Couzin ✨ Andreas Krause ✨ Alison Adcock ... and many more (see pictures)! 📅 Don’t miss their insights on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making 🎟️ Register now: rldm.org/call-for-abs...

What better first post than an annoucment that my lab is recruiting a PhD student! The deadline for the PhD program in Applied Cognitive and Brain Sciences at Drexel University is 12/1 - join us in fabulous Philadelphia!

So happy to see this published! Lila and I looked at how memory representations of sequences became integrated over time through their shared predictive cues. We had fun thinking about the different aspects of systems consolidation that may play a role in this transformation

🚨New preprint 🚨 **A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media** 🧵 We develop a computational reward learning model of real-world social media data, which infers the separate goal-directed and habitual cognitive processes driving posting...

The Computational and Cognitive Neural Sciences lab 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! @halledz.bsky.social @ilanabennett.bsky.social @ucriverside.bsky.social

Super excited to share our official ACORN Lab website!! 🍁🧠 appliedcognitionlab.psychology.uconn.edu We are recruiting new team members at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels - join us! #Neuroskyence #neuroimaging #PsychSciSky #CogPsyc #ClinPsych #CogDev #devpsy #CogSci

Fantastic explanation of the anatomy of the human #Hippocampus! Great video and visualizations!👌 #neuroscience #PsychSciSky vimeo.com/323365182

Come join us at Trinity College Dublin for the 6th Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM2025) Abstract deadline January 15: rldm.org/submit

Why do we sometimes rely on habits, even when they conflict with our goals? In our new preprint, 'A dopaminergic basis of behavioral control,' we explore how dopamine in the striatum influences the trade-off between automatic and goal-directed action. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Come join our fantastic research community at UCRiverside! The Computational Cognitive and Neural Sciences lab is recruiting at all levels. Check out our research at www.ballardlab.org