Now out in PNAS with @jaeyoungson.bsky.social, Alice Xia, @apaxon.bsky.social & @orielf.bsky.social. Medial temporal lobe encodes predictive representations of people's real-world social networks which afford them key advantages in social navigation. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.
Join us for a postdoc @ the Donders Institute; application deadline March 24.
www.ru.nl/en/working-a...
So glad to *finally* have this out!!
Major thanks to both Clare and Emily
New lab preprint!
Human Navigation Behaviour and Brain Dynamics in Real-world Contexts
with co-authors: @pfvelasco.bsky.social and @antoinecoutrot.bsky.social
arxiv.org/pdf/2603.11347
New preprint from Lindsey Tepfer (@ltjaql.bsky.social) and me! We silenced portions of internal monologues in two films to manipulate participants' access to characters' thoughts. Using ISC and RSA, we found that this aligned later neural processing of the narrative & encoding of trait impressions.
Major congrats to @peterakirk.bsky.social for getting this out! It's an absolutely great read :)
My review with @caterinagratton.bsky.social is (apparently) open access for those who couldn't see it before:
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
We discuss individual differences in brain network organization and how to home in on and talk about commonalities in the face of such differences
For 15(!) years I’ve been teaching introductory #MRI to grad students, and struggled to find a textbook for a wide variety of backgrounds. I'm happy to share an online textbook I created, fully open source (including code for generating figures and plots shown):
larsonlab.github.io/MRI-educatio...
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
How does cortisol tune brain networks to form strong emotional memories? Excited to share new work led by amazing former RA Flory Huang w collabs Rajita Sinha and @toddc.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
photo of a human hand holding a tiny gold analog clock, two brain pictures showing fMRI results in medial parietal cortex on the inflated cortical surface (one brain map is thresholded, the other is not)
Now out in #JNeurosci -- we found changes in medial parietal cortex after manual exploration of everyday real-world objects
doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...
with Beth Rispoli, Vinai Roopchansingh & @cibaker.bsky.social
𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀, 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆?
@lucinauddin.bsky.social explains many of the challenges and controversies! Great discussion too.
Check out the latest Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon.
youtu.be/pP5swFPR0Ns
We are recruiting a lab manager/research assistant to start in early 2026! The successful candidate will conduct awake infant fMRI, meet cute babies, and join a fun team!
More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join...
Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
A new preprint "Anxiety Modulates Event Segmentation" with @yaelniv.bsky.social and colleagues!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
One of the papers I've been most excited about since starting the lab!
We adopt a network neuroscience approach to understand how arousal reconfigures large-scale functional network organization to support memory of complex narratives!
I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.
New Open dataset alert:
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!
N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!
🧵below
How does the human brain process the continuous world around us and transform it into distinct memories? Our latest research, recently published in Science Advances @science.org, uncovers how brain waves called high frequency oscillations (HFOs) may support this amazing feat! (1/n)
Thanks again for having me and all of the great feedback!
New preprint! Thrilled to share my latest work with @esfinn.bsky.social -- "Sensory context as a universal principle of language in humans and LLMs"
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Likely hiring one postbac trainee for @fmri-today.bsky.social's Section on Functional Imaging Methods. Give the relatively later start time for the search, I'm not yet sure how quickly this search will happen. If you are interested, apply and reach out ASAP. fim.nimh.nih.gov
New preprint! Excited to share our latest work “Accelerated learning of a noninvasive human brain-computer interface via manifold geometry” ft. outstanding former undergraduate Chandra Fincke, @glajoie.bsky.social, @krishnaswamylab.bsky.social, and @wutsaiyale.bsky.social's Nick Turk-Browne 1/8
New paper with @lexkidder.bsky.social, Ed Silson, and @cibaker.bsky.social! We show that recall of people, places, and objects engages distributed cortical regions, with medial parietal & ventral temporal cortices showing distinct functional organizations. 1/2 doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky
1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research
Open Access
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
🚨A four-year making @naturehumbehav.bsky.social with @UmitKeles @markthornton.bsky.social @Ralph Adolphs
Across large sets of mental states, traits, situations, faces, & participants in five continents🌎
face impressions shape mental state attributions in various situations
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
#Neuroimaging crowd, hear me out! 👀
Did you ever want to add #EyeTracking to your #fMRI study but found it too much hassle? Got existing data you’d love to add eye tracking to?
Consider trying out *MR-based eye tracking* (i.e. inferring gaze from eye voxels)!
Here is a 🧵 with a few options!👇 1/9
Excited to share our recent work investigating the temporal dynamics of object space! It’s been wonderful working with @tgro.bsky.social and @drquekles.bsky.social at @marcsinstitute.bsky.social on this fun project😊
Why do people process language differently from each other? In a new paper, @esfinn.bsky.social and I show that the “concreteness” of word meanings plays a central role in shaping our unique experiences of natural language.
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below! 1/9
