Friends (and friends-of-friends) in LA: Please help spread the word! On Saturday, November 15th 2p, @mameister4.bsky.social and I will be in conversation at the Burbank Library discussing bottlenecks and next steps for brain research. It's free! Register here: burbank.libnet.info/event/14639190

A heartwarming write-up in the Harvard Gazette about my recent visit to @harvardbookstore.bsky.social to discuss Elusive Cures. I'm grateful for these opportunities to spread the news about all the exciting developments happening in brain & mind research. news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Pandas, snow leopards...and bacteria. A newly formed team of scientists is setting out to conserve the world's diversity of microbes. Here's my story: nyti.ms/47vEfRC

Here's the newest piece in the @nytimes.com "Lost Science" series. @emilyanthes.bsky.social talks to a scientist who was learning about the minds of elephants--and how to use those insights to help the animals coexist with farmers. Gift link: nyti.ms/3KXVSAG

Why do brain networks vary? Do these differences shape behavior? If every 🧠 is unique, how can we detect common features of brain organization? @rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print): go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-... #neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky 🧵👇

📣 New preprint from the Braga Lab! 📣 The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning? Thread 🧵 ⬇️

UT Austin Linguistics is hiring in computational linguistics! Asst or Assoc. We have a thriving group sites.utexas.edu/compling/ and a long proud history in the space. (For instance, fun fact, Jeff Elman was a UT Austin Linguistics Ph.D.) faculty.utexas.edu/career/170793 🤘

🧠 This paper is a part of my first brain project, and I had a lot of fun working on it with the amazing @gretatuckute.bsky.social, @alexanderfung.bsky.social, Ashley Malkin, and @evfedorenko.bsky.social! Paper link: arxiv.org/abs/2508.11536 Code+data: github.com/ryskina/conc...

All of us (@kanishka.bsky.social @kmahowald.bsky.social and me) are looking for PhD students this cycle! If computational linguistics/NLP is your passion, join us at UT Austin! For my areas see jessyli.com

As our lab started to build encoding 🧠 models, we were trying to figure out best practices in the field. So @neurotaha.bsky.social built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets! We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it! 1/

The compling group at UT Austin (sites.utexas.edu/compling/) is looking for PhD students! Come join me, @kmahowald.bsky.social, and @jessyjli.bsky.social as we tackle interesting research questions at the intersection of ling, cogsci, and ai! Some topics I am particularly interested in:

Excited to share new work with @hleemasson.bsky.social , Ericka Wodka, Stewart Mostofsky and @lisik.bsky.social! We investigated how simultaneous vision and language signals are combined in the brain using naturalistic+controlled fMRI. Read the paper here: osf.io/b5p4n 1/n

Brown’s Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working in the area of AI and the Mind (start July 1, 2026). Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939 #AI #CognitiveScience #AcademicJobs #BrownUniversity

A fantastic piece by two of my favorite linguists!

📣@futrell.bsky.social and I have a BBS target article with an optimistic take on LLMs + linguistics. Commentary proposals (just need a few hundred words) are OPEN until Oct 8. If we are too optimistic for you (or not optimistic enough!) or you have anything to say: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Come join us at University of Toronto. We're hiring a Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience. #neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

‪@benhayden.bsky.social‬ @tyrellturing.bsky.social‬ @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social‬ @pessoabrain.bsky.social I see a lot of talk on here about how we should avoid "x does y" talk because the brain is "a dynamic, reverberant, reciprocally interconnected system". But this does not follow. A thread...

Harvard University won a crucial legal victory in its clash with the Trump administration on Wednesday, when a federal judge said that the government had broken the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds. Gift link: nyti.ms/41CEOWy

Let’s talk @storiesofwin.bsky.social. I’m flattered to be among their profiles (coming soon) & I want to elevate the team behind this terrific effort. /1 www.storiesofwin.org

📌 👉 The 14th International Construction Grammar conference will be held at Princeton, June 4-7, 2026 Usage-based analyses and Empirical methods Stay tuned for updates!

The rumors are true! #CCN2026 will be held at NYU. @toddgureckis.bsky.social and I will be executive-chairing. Get in touch if you want to be involved!

🤖 🧠 NEW PAPER ON COGSCI & AI 🧠 🤖 Recent neural networks capture properties long thought to require symbols: compositionality, productivity, rapid learning So what role should symbols play in theories of the mind? For our answer...read on! Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2508.05776 1/n

@awolna.bsky.social 😊

"The entire language network constitutes <1.5% of the brain volume and is about the size of a large strawberry." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

As of last month, there is no one left in the White House whose sole job is to keep the nation safe from biological threats. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

🚨 New Preprint 🚨 Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects By Cyr et al. *** Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES? A: Yes! 🧵:

Coming March 17, 2026! Just got my advance copy of Emergence — a memoir about growing up in group homes and somehow ending up in neuroscience and AI. It’s personal, it’s scientific, and it’s been a wild thing to write. Grateful and excited to share it soon.

Is the Language of Thought == Language? A Thread 🧵 New Preprint (link: tinyurl.com/LangLOT) with @alexanderfung.bsky.social, Paris Jaggers, Jason Chen, Josh Rule, Yael Benn, @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social, ‪@spiantado.bsky.social‬, Rosemary Varley, @evfedorenko.bsky.social 1/8

The language 🧠 areas are selective for language relative to many forms of reasoning (arithmetic, social, semantic, etc.). @hopekean.bsky.social has now shown that even formal logical reasoning—the domain that is perhaps the closest to language—neither engages nor requires the language system!

Just sent this as an email to my department but figured I'd share more broadly in case it is useful. This describes the procedure happening now for science funding in Congress (@davidimiller.bsky.social can correct me if I got this wrong). Importantly, there are still actions that can be taken.

Thanks for the opportunity, Because Language! 👇

🚨 New Preprint!! Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge. 1/ 🧵👇

NEUROCOG 2025 is taking place in Brussels Nov 17–18! The theme: AI and the Human Brain 🤖 🧠 We’re thrilled to welcome 6 amazing invited speakers: @evfedorenko.bsky.social, @nicoschuck.bsky.social, @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @jeffreybowers.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social & @mtoneva.bsky.social

Harvard president receives standing ovation during commencement.

If you haven't been looking recently at the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (oecs.mit.edu), here's your reminder that we are a free, open access resource for learning about the science of mind. Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!

Thank you, ‪@mcxfrank.bsky.social‬ and @asifamajid.bsky.social‬ for making the OECS happen, and Marina Bedny for section editing! Here is an article on the neuroscience of syntax: doi.org/10.21428/e27...

NIH killed grants on orders from Elon Musk’s DOGE. Story by @maxkozlov.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Breaking News: A judge blocked a Trump administration move to bar Harvard University from admitting international students, hours after the school filed suit.

This is fucking insane

Despite everything going on, I may have funds to hire a postdoc this year 😬🤞🧑‍🔬 Open to a wide variety of possible projects in social and cognitive neuroscience. Get in touch if you are interested! Reposts appreciated.

I am so heartened to this seriously AWESOME #SaveNSF website go up today!!!! Has a take action toolkit with: 1. Press outreach templates 2. Social media toolkit 3. Elected official outreach 4. Talking points Check it out and share widely!!!! Likely more to come. www.savensf.com

oh wow wow wow. Wow. It's officially out, after many years: "Loopholes: A window into value alignment and the communication of meaning" authors.elsevier.com/c/1k~vV_Ebvv... Read on for a brief summary, but I encourage you to read the thing itself.

While I would say my research is part of #NeuroAI, I don't actually thing it's very useful to define a research field as a constellation of methodologies. We should organize primarily around questions, and then use whatever methods best answer them.

The signatories include many leading figures in autism research. Among their key points: focus on what's unknown; don’t waste resources on questions that are already answered; acknowledge role of genetics; preregister the proposed study and invite expert comment; and don’t demean people with autism.

This is a spectacular talk by my colleague @judithfan.bsky.social 🧠 🎨 🤖 "Cognitive tools for making the invisible visible" 🎬: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF3X...

We have made some amazing discoveries (quantum mechanics), but we're still very bad at understanding animals. Read our paper in Ecology Law Quarterly for a discussion of legal ramifications that understanding animal communication brings. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We are presenting our work “Discriminating image representations with principal distortions” at #ICLR2025 today (4/24) at 3pm! If you are interested in comparing model representations with other models or human perception, stop by poster #63. Highlights in 🧵 openreview.net/forum?id=ugX...

Thanks to Evan Kidd, @mcxfrank.bsky.social & @asifamajid.bsky.social (Eds) for organizing the awesome *Open* Encyc. of Cog. Sci. and entrusting me with/ the honor of penning the entry on "Language" (in < 3500 words, so do see other entries for much, MUCH more!) oecs.mit.edu/pub/ho9e9c80...

I might be able to hire a postdoc for this fall in computational linguistics at UT Austin. Topics in the general LLM + cognitive space (particularly reasoning, chain of thought, LLMs + code) and LLM + linguistic space. If this could be of interest, feel free to get in touch!