Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread: Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.

The visual world is composed of objects, and those objects are composed of features. But do VLMs exploit this compositional structure when processing multi-object scenes? In our 🆒🆕 #ICLR2026 paper, we find they do – via emergent symbolic mechanisms for visual binding. 🧵👇

H. Sebastian Seung (@princetonneuro.bsky.social) is transforming #neuroscience. His work in connectomics—from deep learning for neural reconstruction to large-scale brain wiring maps—is revealing how brain structure gives rise to function. Learn more: www.nasonline.org/award/pradel... #NASaward

We are hiring a research specialist, to start this summer! This position would be a great fit for individuals looking to get more experience in computational and cognitive neuroscience research before applying to graduate school. #neurojobs Apply here: research-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21503/r...

☕️ Our new Pearl Coffee weekly pop-up returns to the PNI Study Hall tomorrow morning (Wed, Jan 28)! Full espresso bar & specialty drinks available for purchase. Stop by, grab a drink, and catch up with colleagues. ⏰ 8:30 am - 12:30 pm

We could all use some extra stress #resilience rn. But how does it work in the brain? On the surface, resilience looks like ignoring stress. Does the brain fail to respond? Or are active adaptations required? Or are resilience and susceptibility divergent paths? doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116867

The winner of the 2026 Pradel Research Award is H. Sebastian Seung of @princetonneuro.bsky.social! He is being honored for for transformative advances in computational neuroscience. Learn more about his discoveries: www.nasonline.org/award/pradel... #NASaward #neuroscience

Congratulations to @princeton.edu's @sebastianseung.bsky.social, who was named the winner of the 2026 @nationalacademies.org's Pradel Research Award! 🏆 Seung's work is “fundamentally reshaping” our understanding of brain wiring & connectomics. #NASaward Read more: pni.princeton.edu/news/2026/se...

A real tour de force today by Mala Murthy @princetonneuro.bsky.social at @salkinstitute.bsky.social about her work with @sebastianseung.bsky.social on leveraging the complete connectome of the fly brain to understand social behavior in fruit flies. Incredible work!

From our brains, to yours 🧠 Get the best of Princeton Neuroscience delivered monthly via our newsletter, "Discoveries & Developments", including: 🔬 Research breakdowns 🏆 Awards & spotlights 🤝 Community news 📰 PNI in the media Sign up here 📬 eepurl.com/iTAKzI

What if we could tell you how well you’ll remember your next visit to your local coffee shop? ☕️ In our new Nature Human Behaviour paper, we show that the 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 can be measured with neuroimaging – and 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸.

In a new study, @princetonneuro.bsky.social scientists uncover one reason for the brain’s advantage over AI: it reuses the same cognitive “blocks” across many different tasks. By combining and recombining these blocks, the brain can rapidly assemble new behaviors: https://bit.ly/481dpBe

🧠 NJ high schoolers: sign-up for the 2026 Princeton Brain Bee at PNI! Compete for a chance to advance to the National Brain Bee 🐝 🗓️ Feb 7, 8 am 📍 Princeton Neuroscience Institute ⚠️ Deadline to register: Jan 15 🔗 Registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... 🔗 Info: pnn.princeton.edu/brain-bee/

Congrats to Juncal Arbelaiz on winning a 2025 @schmidtsciences.bsky.social Fellows Catalyst Grant! 🏆 Her work aims to help develop algorithms to act as "cruise control" for the brain, optimizing neurostimulation to treat conditions like Parkinson's and epilepsy. pni.princeton.edu/news/2025/ar...

Congrats to PNI + affiliated trainees named 2025 Honorific Fellows by the @princeton.edu Graduate School! 👏 Victor Geadah 👏 Isaac Christian 👏 @danmirea.bsky.social gradschool.princeton.edu/news/2025/ho...

Want to track the dynamics of estrogen in the brain across long periods of time? New paper as part of very fun collab with team UCLA Ed Van Veen and Steph Correa! We use a specialized optical reporter and show that this is possible and actually very easy! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A study co-authored by Princeton researchers finds that human brains process spoken language in a way that "closely mirrors the layered architecture of advanced AI language models."

How can carbon atoms make both graphite and diamonds? 💎🧪 The answer lies in atomic structure, how those carbon atoms are arranged. @princeton.edu neuroscientist Sebastian Seung explains how this simple shift unlocks dramatic differences in material properties. Watch here:

Our new paper is out in @natneuro.nature.com How do large-scale brain networks route information about where/what to attend at fast timescales? High-frequency bursts facilitate fast communication for human spatial attention www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you for having me on BrainInspired, Paul @braininspired.bsky.social! It was such an honor to be on my favorite show—a rare place where we can leisurely talk about manifolds, latent circuits, power laws, and other esoteric ideas, and still be taken seriously in knowing they are all real.

In this episode of @braininspired.bsky.social, @engeltatiana.bsky.social discusses her modeling approach to discovering the connections between structure and function in the vast connectivity and activity patterns in the brain. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/brain-inspir...

Biological brains have the upper hand over AI in at least one crucial domain: flexibility. New work from the lab of @princeton.edu's @timbuschman.bsky.social finds "cognitive Legos"— reusable patterns of brain activity—support rapid, efficient learning in primates. pni.princeton.edu/news/2025/co...

Congrats to Kirsten Ziman and Isaac Christian on their two recent fMRI publications coming out of the Graziano Lab! @princetonneuro.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/jocn/article... academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

How do you pinpoint the moment when a brain makes up its mind about a decision? @racheltompa.bsky.social wrote a lovely short article for the general public on answers found by @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and @timkimd.bsky.social when they were in my lab. @simonsfoundation.org bit.ly/43DiM70

Super happy to see this review out! We ask why people are so reluctant to abandon goals and how this commitment could be understood computationally. Work with Jill O'Reilly & @yaelniv.bsky.social

Our work with @pawa-pawa.bsky.social is out in Nature Machine Intelligence! The choice of activation function affects the representations, dynamics, and circuit solutions that emerge in RNNs trained on cognitive tasks. Activation matters! www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Congratulations to @tinakim-neuro.bsky.social on being named one of the 2025 "Rising Stars in Neuroscience" by @thetransmitter.bsky.social! Kim was recognized for her many early career scientific contributions and dedication to mentoring and community building 🌟 📰: pni.princeton.edu/news/2025/tr...

Thank you @emilysingerneuro.bsky.social ! Yes, please share your research stories! So many great things to showcase to the public! bsky.app/profile/carl...

Looks like some good times in San Diego! 🫶 #SfN25

Congratulations to Nobel laureate and Princeton professor emeritus John Hopfield and alumna @drfeifei.bsky.social '99 who received the 2025 @qeprize.bsky.social for “their pioneering contributions to the development of modern machine learning.”

New Princeton research gives insight into human cognition and could help scientists build better AI models: https://bit.ly/3Lp6J74

Congrats to the whole BICAN team on an exciting raft of papers, including work from the lab of PNI's @fennak.bsky.social!

The best write up on the state of AI in a while, from James Somers, with input from my Princeton colleagues Ken Norman, Uri Hasson, Jon Cohen, and many others. Coding with LLMs was a striking moment for me too www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

On Oct 24, more than 60 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students gathered for the first Rutgers Brain Health Institute x Princeton Neuroscience Institute Social Science Mixer — a new initiative designed to strengthen scientific & social connections across New Jersey’s two major #neuroscience hubs.

A new paper from @princetonneuro.bsky.social scientists shows people will forgo short-term rewards in favor of investing more effort when the opportunity for learning arises. The results could help researchers build better AI. Read now: ai.princeton.edu/news/2025/hu...

Congrats to PNI postdoc @jessiemuir10.bsky.social (@tinakim-neuro.bsky.social lab) + neuroscience PhD alumnus @sdorkenw.bsky.social *23 (Murthy + @sebastianseung.bsky.social labs) on being recognized as two of @statnews.com's 2025 Wunderkinds! 📰: statnews.com/wunderkinds/ #STATWunderkinds

One year ago, the team at FlyWire led by Princeton's Mala Murthy and @sebastianseung.bsky.social published the first-ever complete connectome of an adult female fruit fly brain. @thetransmitter.bsky.social talks with scientists about how they're using FlyWire's data to make their own discoveries.

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

NYT is looking for scientists to tell them about their projects that were cut by the administration for a new series on “lost science”: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/c...

Congrats🥂 to Callan O’Shea, a MolBio M.D./Ph.D student and newest recipient of the New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science Award (NJ ACTS) T32 Fellowship. O'Shea is advised by associated faculty member Sam Wang. molbio.princeton.edu/news/2025/os...

To celebrate the first anniversary of the release of FlyWire, we asked nine neuroscientists to share how they are using connectome data in their research and what they hope is in store for the future of fly connectomics. By @franciscorr25.bsky.social #neuroskyence bit.ly/3Wx5nt3

Congratulations to PNI's @tinakim-neuro.bsky.social on being named a @hhmi.org Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, which will support her research on how modifications in brain cells result in long-lasting changes in behavior!! engineering.princeton.edu/news/2025/10...

We're hiring! The Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology invite applications for a joint hire Assistant Professor in human cognitive neuroscience 🧠 Review of applications begin Oct 15. More details here: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...

⏰ Deadline approaching — apply for the PNI C.V. Starr Fellowship by Oct 10! 🧠 Up to 3 years of salary and research support, along with world-class faculty mentorship and facilities. 🔗 Learn more: pni.princeton.edu/apply/postdo...

With the help of AI, Princeton’s @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and @carlosbrody.bsky.social can now pinpoint the exact moment a rat makes up its mind — just by reading its brain activity 🧠🐀 pni.princeton.edu/news/2025/wh...

Love how this project came together with the amazing @endoeartha.bsky.social ! Have you wondered about the role that testosterone plays in the ability to re-pattern social behavior when you are at home in your "territory" vs away? We have answers for you...

Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪 1/12

Looking for a neuroscience postdoc opportunity with competitive salary + research funds? Apply for PNI's C.V. Starr Fellowship, which offers collaboration, mentorship, and up to 3 years of support! Applications due Oct 10. Learn more 🔗 pni.princeton.edu/apply/postdo...

Thank you @nancyrmack.bsky.social and @princetonneuro.bsky.social for a great explainer about our paper! pni.princeton.edu/news/2025/wh...

What happens in your brain when you make up your mind? Postdoc (soon faculty at U. of Utah) @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and ex-grad student (now Shanahan Fellow at Allen Institute) @timkimd.bsky.social have some answers in this new paper out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 1/6