Biophysical modeling to develop and test mechanistic hypotheses underlying pharmacological EEG biomarkers. Top: Modeling EEG biomarkers begins with picking a specific brain signal that is reliably different between patient populations. An example of a hypothetical EEG biomarker is an auditory event related potential (ERP) that is suppressed in post-treatment (red) relative to pre-treatment (blue). Middle: Biophysical modeling allows for testing mechanistic hypotheses that explain how EEG biomarkers emerge and change with drugs. Hypotheses about which drug mechanisms lead to distinct brain activity patterns must be constructed, and corresponding model parameters identified. Bottom: The default HNN model is used as a starting point to test hypotheses by either manually altering the values of the chosen model parameters, or using automated optimization and inference algorithms. Differences in parameter values pre-to post-treatment correspond to model-based predictions.

Happy to share a new preprint from the @hnnsolver.bsky.social team!🧠💻🎉

"Uncovering putative neural mechanisms of neurotherapeutic impacts on EEG using the Human Neocortical Neurosolver"

📝 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The Orange Cat Brain Atlas is here. 🧠🐈

Today, we published the first comprehensive cellular map of the orange cat brain. The new atlas reveals a single, specialized neuron responsible for behaviors like staring at walls, knocking objects off tables, and the 3am "zoomies."

Transient frontal spectral events from EEG predict antidepressant response to sertraline in depression Resting-state scalp electroencephalography (EEG) is a promising method for predicting patient outcomes of antidepressant treatments. Machine-learning-based EEG analysis of averaged power features (APF...

Slight but exciting departure from typical projects for me: I’m happy to share our paper finding that frontal beta event characteristics predict antidepressant response to sertraline (SSRI) has been accepted at J Psychiatric Research! 1/

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

#psychscisky #neuroskyence

Mental gymnastics meme. TOP: Regression mental gymnastics. The effect is significant...even when I adjust for...everything we have measured. BOTTOM: Causal Inference Mental Gymnastics. unmeasured confounds could explain the effect the sample might suffer from selection bias differential measurement error! SUTVA violation!

Almost done with my next lecture, so going back now to work on some new memes

Neuroscience has a species problem If neuroscience is serious about building general principles of brain function, cross-species dialogue must become a core organizing principle.

The biggest problem holding neuroscience back right now isn’t data or tools, thanks in large part to the BRAIN Initiative.

It’s fragmentation across species. I wrote this to hopefully spark discussion around an issue that can only be solved as a community👇

www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...

main goal for this year: find a new job! 🙂

looking for a role with fun & complex technical challenges & within a great community. my main expertise is in signal processing/EEG/MEG, but topic-wise I am quite flexible.

science/industry both great! starting mid-year. nschawor.github.io/cv

Neural representations of visual memory in inferotemporal cortex reveal a generalizable framework for translating between spikes and field potentials Translating neurophysiological findings requires understanding the relationship between common measures of brain activity in animals (spiking activity) and humans (local field potentials, LFP). Prior ...

🚨 New preprint!

Why do some insights from spikes translate to field potentials while others don't? In this paper we compare visual memory representations in spikes and LFPs to propose a general framework that answers this question.

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

🧵 (1/10)

🧠🟦 🧠💻

a woman says we have to work together in front of a wentworth sign ALT: a woman says we have to work together in front of a wentworth sign

Passionate about women's mental health?

Interested in brain stimulation?

Excited by cutting edge neurotech?

Come do a PhD with me!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

(thread)

I have so many issues with this podcast with @earlkmiller.bsky.social . I think that this podcast nicely shows why I have trouble with such approaches. Lets go through some of the claims.

If you are at #SfN2025, come see me at my poster LBP022.7 on Sun 8-12 to talk about the next generation HNN that we have been working on over the past year 🧠🧪also check out our new updated website & textbook built by @asoplata.bsky.social & Dylan Daniels @hnnsolver.bsky.social

The Jones comp neuro lab is at #SfN25! Come check out our talks and posters to learn about our latest & greatest Science with HNN! All poster presentation times & locations can be found at jonescompneurolab.github.io/textbook/res...

Joyce Gao will present the application of HNN to simulate single pulse TMS evoked potentials. We show generative predictions for double pulse TMS and pharmacological modulations. Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 1 PM - 5 PM, PSTR478.08

Excited to share our preprint on variability in patch leaving decisions! Check out the 🧵 below

Rhythmic light stimulation elicits multiple concurrent neural responses that separably shape human perception Rhythmic light stimulation offers solutions to innumerable cognitive and neurological disorders. However, like any neuromodulatory technique, responses to rhythmic light stimulation are highly variabl...

Delighted to share our new preprint!

We show that rhythmic light stimulation produces multiplexed oscillatory responses at fundamental and harmonic frequencies that are spatially, temporally, and functionally distinct.

Read on for the details [1/6]

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroskyence

Contents of visual predictions oscillate at alpha frequencies Predictions of future events have a major impact on how we process sensory signals. However, it remains unclear how the brain keeps predictions online in anticipation of future inputs. Here, we combin...

@dotproduct.bsky.social's first first author paper is finally out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! Her findings show that content-specific predictions fluctuate with alpha frequencies, suggesting a more specific role for alpha oscillations than we may have thought. With @jhaarsma.bsky.social. 🧠🟦 🧠🤖

Fast hierarchical processing of orthographic and semantic parafoveal information during natural reading - Nature Communications Combining MEG, eye-tracking, and representational similarity analysis, this study shows that readers rapidly and sequentially extract orthographic and semantic information from upcoming words before fixation, supporting efficient reading.

Ever wonder how you read so fast? Your brain gets a head start—processing the next word before your eyes move. Our MEG + eye tracking study out in Nature Communications study from @thechbh.bsky.social reveals orthographic & semantic previews predicting reading speed www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And a huge thank you to my other co-authors: Kim Shapiro, Simon Hanslmayr, Jeremy Wolfe, Yali Pan, Aleksandra Pastuszak and of course @olejensen.bsky.social for bearing with me over the past many years!

If you have followed my work more or less closely you may remember that there was a previous version of this paper that did not account for t-o-t. A huge thank you to @benjamingriffiths.bsky.social & @ajquinn.bsky.social who helped with the GLM and pulled me out of my confound misery.

We hypothesized that high alpha power would be associated with reduced RIFT responses. However, we could not find a robust relationship between alpha power in the sensors showing the reaction time effect and RIFT. Maybe the effect is linked to holding the search template in VWM and not gain control?

What's more, comparison of the reaction time and time-on-task regressors suggest that the peak frequency and sensors driving the relationship may be different. We argue that this suggests two generators of alpha - one associated with search and one with fatigue/boredom!

We show that alpha power negatively correlates with RT - higher alpha, faster responses. There was no difference in hit rate between high and low alpha, so participants were indeed better at the task!

Guided visual search is associated with target boosting and distractor suppression in early visual cortex Communications Biology - Magnetoencephalography in human participants paired with Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging reveals that excitability in early visual cortex is modulated to boost targets...

We analyzed data from our previous publication, where we showed that the RIFT signal is modulated in line with a priority map, to boost targets and suppress distractors. rdcu.be/eDbHY
Here, we fit a GLM-spectrum to the pre-search interval, accounting for confounds of alpha and RT with time-on-task.

At long last, the pre-print to our MEG study + RIFT study and the final paper from my Ph.D with @olejensen.bsky.social We show that strong pre-search alpha oscillations are associated with faster responses in visual search www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@thechbh.bsky.social #neuroskyence

Hellohello again! Tomorrow at 5:15pm I’m giving a short talk on our latest MEG study about our very well-loved oscillating perceptual predictions @meguki2025.bsky.social. Come by and talk brains!
There are amazing talks and very cool science happening all around! MEGUKI 2025👌

Huge thank you to my co-authors Kim Shapiro, Simon Hanslmayr, Jeremy Wolfe, Yali Pan, @benjamingriffiths.bsky.social and the best PhD supervisor @olejensen.bsky.social for bearing with me over the past many years. There will be a part 2 so stay tuned :)

Finally out in @commsbio.nature.com !
Using MEG and Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) in a classic visual search paradigm we show that neuronal excitability in V1 is modulated in line with a priority-map-based mechanism to boost targets and suppress distractors!

In the physical world, almost all information is transmitted through traveling waves -- why should it be any different in your neural network?

Super excited to share recent work with the brilliant @mozesjacobs.bsky.social: "Traveling Waves Integrate Spatial Information Through Time"

1/14

Most amazing piece of science communication by one talented @kermieeart.bsky.social :)

HNN Pre-Workshop Information Workshop Overview The Human Neocortical Neurosolver (HNN) is a user-friendly software tool for interpreting the cell and circuit level origin of human MEG and EEG signals. In this virtual event, we ...

We invite you to join us at our 2025 Spring Online Human Neocortical Neurosolver (HNN) Workshop! This workshop will be on Wednesday, April 9th from 9 AM - 3 PM (ET). Find out more and sign up 👉 tinyurl.com/hnn-workshop....
Seats are limited! #compneuro

If there is some science comm effort that tries to teach this I’d be happy to contribute. If not, I’d be happy to establish one! Potentially without a single host as the face of the show, but rather with many contributors. Would also reduce workload on the individual..