I keep telling this to my students, thanks for describing it so clearly!

Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics
ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

Please don't hesitate to get in touch for more details: ingmar.devries@unitn.it

The CIMeC, it’s doctoral program and UNITN in numbers:
* UNITN ranks as a top Italian University
* 4-yr program (Nov. 1, 2026 - Oct. 31, 2030)
* English
* Salary: Net €1.600 per month
* Winners receive €8700 tax-free research/mobility budget

About CIMeC: www.cimec.unitn.it/en

For other PhD openings at CIMeC see: phd.unitn.it/drcimec/rese..., and: phd.unitn.it/drcimec/topi...

See below for practical information:

Details on the admissions process, link to call: phd.unitn.it/drcimec/116/...
Link to apply: webapps.unitn.it/Apply/it/Web...
Application summary: phd.unitn.it/drcimec/118/...
Deadline: Thursday May 7, 2026, at 4pm (Italian time)

Relevant papers:
1. De Vries, I.E.J., Wurm, M.F. (2023) Predictive neural representations of naturalistic dynamic input. Nat Commun 14, 3858
2. De Vries, I.E.J., De Lange, F.P., Wurm, M.F. (2025) Hierarchical priors enable neural prediction of perceived biological motion. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Requirements:
- MSc degree, ideally in cog neurosci with experience in neuroimaging (M/EEG or fMRI, MVPA/RSA), or related field
- strong programming skills (e.g., Matlab or Python)
- Very good English skills, a high level of motivation, reliability, independence, and enthusiasm to work in a team.

Besides this vibrant research environment, Trentino is an area filled with natural beauty with lots of outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, swimming in lakes and skiing. Additionally, you are only a train ride away from cultural cities such as Verona, Venice, Milano or Bologna.

The candidate will join an experienced and collaborative double-lab team (led by 2 PIs with FIS grants) with strong expertise in predictive processing in naturalistic dynamic input using M/EEG. We hold weekly lab meetings, biweekly journal clubs and biweekly M/EEG user meetings.

JOB ALERT: PhD opening in my lab!

@cimecunitrento.bsky.social
in Italy, as part of an Italian FIS3 starting grant.

The project will use advanced analysis methods of MEG data to investigate how our world's naturalistic hierarchical structure facilitates predictive neural processing.

📢 Workshop announcement.

We are super excited to announce the workshop Perceptual Inferences, from philosophy to neuroscience, organized by Alexander Schütz and Daniel Kaiser.

📍 Rauischholzhausen Castle, near Marburg, Germany
🗓️ June 8 to 10, 2026.
1/4

Thanks again for the invite @herbstso.bsky.social!

Hierarchical priors and stimulus familiarity facilitate neural prediction of naturalistic... YouTube video by Cognitive Neuroscience & Brain Imaging conferences

I recently had the pleasure to visit the great Neurospin institute in Paris where I presented my work on the neural prediction of naturalistic dynamic input:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywxt...

Some data from the talk is published at:

doi.org/10.1038/s414...
and
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

📢 PhD position in the NeuroAI of Language

Why can LLMs predict brain activity so well? We're hiring a PhD student to find out -- AI interpretability meets neuroimaging
Deadline March 20
Please RT 🙏
👇
mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-neuroai-language

📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling
(PLZ RT)

What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD!
mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-developmental-language @carorowland.bsky.social
@mpi-nl.bsky.social

The Human Brain as a Dynamic Mixture of Expert Models in Video Understanding The human brain is the most efficient and versatile system for processing dynamic visual input. By comparing representations from deep video models to brain activity, we can gain insights into mechani...

📢 New preprint, together with @sargechris.bsky.social!

Building on @sargechris.bsky.social's previous work, we benchmark 100+ image and video models 🤖 on brain representational alignment, this time to EEG data of humans 🧠 watching videos! 🧵⬇️

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

These findings reveal how low- and high-level priors jointly shape predictive neural processing of observed biological motion.

Main dynamic RSA results. Region of interest (ROI)-based analysis, with dRSA regression weights illustrated as latency plots. The three viewing conditions are displayed in rows with normal on top (A), inverted in the middle (B), and temporally scrambled at the bottom (C). Different stimulus models are displayed in columns with pixelwise motion reflecting optical flow vector direction in each pixel, and body motion reflecting 3D motion of 13 kinematic markers placed on the dancer. (D) Individual-participant peak magnitude in normal versus inverted condition. A dot in the upper left or lower right triangle indicates a larger peak magnitude in the inverted or normal condition, respectively. The red dot reflects the participant average. (E) Same as (D) but for normal versus scrambled condition (n = 37). ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. Results indicate that predictive representation for high-level view-invariant body motion is selectively attenuated with top-down inversion, indicating that such high-level prediction relies on holistic priors. Instead, temporal scrambling attenuates all predictive representation, indicating that view-dependent body and pixelwise motion prediction rely on kinematics priors.

Disrupting holistic priors by turning videos upside down selectively reduced high-level view-invariant motion predictions. Instead, disrupting kinematics priors by temporal scrambling eliminated all motion prediction, with neural activity merely reacting to, rather than predicting, visual input.

Under normal viewing conditions, neural representations were indeed predictive and followed an inverse hierarchy: high-level viewpoint-invariant body motion representations were visible before representations of viewpoint-dependent body motion and low-level visual features (Figure below).

We investigated this by comparing the dynamic representational geometry of human magnetoencephalography (MEG) activity and observed biological motion stimuli by means of dynamic representational similarity analysis (dRSA).

Biological motion perception is an essential skill that allows us to quickly infer how others move. While this is often cast as inherently predictive process, it remains unclear to what extent different priors shape neural processing of biological motion.

New Preprint alert ❗

Holistic and kinematics priors enable predictive neural representations during biological motion perception

With: @predictivebrain.bsky.social and
@moritzwurm.bsky.social

At: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🧠🧠🧠
@cimecunitrento.bsky.social
will soon open an MEG lab manager position!
The ideal candidate is a previous postdoc/phd student with MEG experience and a title in physics, engineering, neuroscience, or psychology.
Please spread the word and reach out to me if you are interested!

🧠🧠🧠 @cimecunitrento.bsky.social will soon open an MEG lab manager position!
The ideal candidate is a previous postdoc/phd student with MEG experience and a title in physics, engineering, neuroscience, or psychology.
Please spread the word and reach out to me if you are interested!

Frontiers | Disruptions in serotonin- and kynurenine pathway metabolism in post-COVID: biomarkers and treatment This opinion article attempts to connect knowledge about post-Covid syndrome (PCS) gained in neuropsychiatry and immunology. It discusses some misunderstandi...

PCP’s can prescribe SSRIs quite easily. As long as they build up the SSRIs very slowly and switch to another SSRI if there are too many side effects.
If you find it useful, please spread this article.

Kind regards, Carla Rus, MD, neuropsychiatrist

doi.org/10.3389/fneu...

Frontiers | Disruptions in serotonin- and kynurenine pathway metabolism in post-COVID: biomarkers and treatment This opinion article attempts to connect knowledge about post-Covid syndrome (PCS) gained in neuropsychiatry and immunology. It discusses some misunderstandi...

New interesting opinion article about post covid by my mum!
doi.org/10.3389/fneu...