Looking forward to visiting your institute at Mt. Sinai focused on the Brain and Body!

In case anyone not attending the meeting is interested in reading along, we’re putting together a reading list from speakers and will post that. For a good entry book on the topic of consciousness, I’ve been enjoying Michael Pollan’s new book:

Very cool paper showing inhalation on increases visual perception and neural network activity. The evidence for moment-by-moment regulatory influences of peripheral signals on the brain’s perceptual processing keeps mounting

This meeting is sponsored by the UCLA Luskin Fund and by the wonderful folks at BrainMind and Unlikely Collaborators, without whom it would not be possible. 🙏🏻

We are also committed to extending the impact of this meeting beyond those in the room. Register your interest to receive curated insights and resources as they become available

Attendance is limited and primarily by invitation. A small number of additional spaces may become available. Register your interest via the website: embodiedminds.ai

As with the original summit, the format emphasizes short talks, extended discussion, and cross-disciplinary exchange. The pre-summit salon (day 1) includes an experiential exploration of embodied awareness followed by the scientific meeting (day2).

Our speakers: Olujimi Ajijola, Galia Avidan, Steve Cole, Jack Feldman, Justin Feinstein, Sarah Garfinkel, Eric Garland, Rajesh Kumar, Arash Javanbakht, Emeran Mayer, Martin Paulus, Frederike Petzschner, Mark Rapaport, Nicco Reggente, Xiling Shen, Kalyanam Shivkumar, Choong-Wan Woo, Fadel Zeidan

Our keynote speaker, Antonio Damasio, will address the role of interoception in shaping consciousness and intelligence, and its implications for AI.

At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence have brought a parallel question into focus: Can intelligence be understood—or built—without accounting for the body?

It is also increasingly recognized as a fundamental component of physical health, contributing to cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal function—and dysfunction. This meeting expands the scope to more fully engage these systems.

Since then, interoception has become central to understanding emotion and mental health, conscious experience, resilience, and human performance.

The resulting paper, Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29884281/), helped shape the emerging field of interoceptive neuroscience.

This meeting builds on a trajectory that began a decade ago at the #Interoception Summit, when a group of researchers convened to define the science of interoception.

I am pleased to announce the Embodied Minds Summit, a two-day gathering on interoception, consciousness, and the future of self-understanding in the age of artificial intelligence. May 2–3, 2026 | Los Angeles
embodiedminds.ai

We are still recruiting #Autistic adults to participate in our interview study on #interoception. Take the eligibility screener here: paloaltou.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Please share with your networks! #ActuallyAutistic #AutismAcceptance

For more than a century, the study of brain lesions has been central to understanding cognitive processes and normal brain function (e.g., Broca’s studies).

However, what electrophysiological signatures emerge following a brain lesion?

Graphical abstract showing four panels. Panel 1: a person in an MRI scanner with blue cognitive thought bubbles drifting from their head and pink body thought bubbles from their torso, with organs glowing inside. Panel 2: blue bubbles for cognitive items (Self, Words, Focus, Images, Future, Past) are larger than pink bubbles for body items (Breathing, Movement, Stomach, Heart, Skin, Bladder), with arrows showing body thoughts link to more negative and less positive emotion. Panel 3: physiological traces (EGG, ECG, respiratory) show higher arousal with body-wandering; a bar chart shows cognitive items (Past, Future, Repetitive, Vivid) correlate with more ADHD and depression symptoms while body items (Breath, Stomach, Skin, Heart) correlate with fewer. Panel 4: medial brain with thalamus, somatomotor cortex, and interoceptive regions highlighted, plus a chord diagram showing connectivity between these three regions.

New paper in PNAS! When the mind wanders, it often drifts to the body. We call this "body-wandering". These thoughts are often negative, but are associated with reduced ADHD & depression symptoms, driven by a distinct interoceptive-allostatic brain signature. pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520822123

UCLA BRAIN HEALTH SUMMIT Day 2: 8:15 am Saturday March 21, 2026 YouTube video by BRI UCLA

The updated YouTube livestream link for Day 2 of the UCLA Health Brain Health Summit (which is happening now) can be found here:
youtube.com/live/0Quufvj...

If you can't make the UCLA Brain Health Summit in person, the meeting will be live-streamed on Youtube here: teams.semel.ucla.edu/longevity/ev... (click on the hyperlink in the top right corner of the program).

UCLA Brain Health Summit Speakers on the Create and Grow Your Brain Capital YouTube video by Genein Letford

Looking forward to kicking off tomorrow's UCLA Brain Health Summit. To get things ready, Indira Subramanian and I recorded this podcast hosted by Genein Letford: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCdd...

New @bodybrainbehaviour.bsky.social preprint, and this is a big one for the lab: @teresaberther.bsky.social did the deepest of dives into #gut-brain coupling with MEG and HD gastrography.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A brief 🧵on our first trip into this corner of #brain-body #neuroskyence:

What are the new and emerging treatments for anxiety disorders?

We summarize these in a new review:
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Intestinal interoceptive dysfunction drives age-associated cognitive decline - Nature Age-related microbiome changes increase medium-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria, driving GPR84-mediated myeloid inflammation, impaired vagal signalling and hippocampal dysfunction; targeting this g...

Remarkable study from Christoph Thaiss and colleagues demonstrating a lifespan impact of a microbiome-vagal-CNS pathway dysfunction of gut interoception

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This looks like an excellent opportunity to advance the neurophysiologic understanding of cardiac interoception during threat processing. And working with Karin would be the icing on the cake!

We are hiring! www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

Thanks for the heads up!

Brain Body Physiology Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings & Courses -- a private, non-profit institution with research programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, bioinformatics.

Please consider joining us for a wonderful meeting on Brain Body Physiology at Cold Spring harbor this summer, organized with @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social and Asya Rolls. In CSHL tradition most talks are chosen from submitted abstracts. Abstracts due this Friday! meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

Deadline today! Submit and abstract and join us to discuss science in the exciting brain body interaction field!

Highway to the danger zone? A cautionary account that GLP-1 receptor agonists may be too effective for unmonitored weight loss - PubMed Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are revolutionizing obesity and type 2 diabetes treatment, delivering remarkable weight loss outcomes. These medications, leveraging the effects of the insulin-regulating hormone GLP-1 via actions on peripheral and central nervous system targets, hav …

Our recent paper on potential risks and conceptual pitfalls of GLP-1 therapies is cited in the article and explores these issues in more depth: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38320760/