Attention fluctuates over time and across contexts—how is this reflected in the brain?🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we show that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects changes in attention. Out in @natcomms.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very happy that this paper from our lab is now out in @pnas.org! What happens when the *same* person experiences the *same* information with a *different* interpretation? Nearly the whole 🧠—well, at least nearly all association cortex—changes how it represents that information! tinyurl.com/p8chj2j7

#CNS2026 Young Investigator Award Lecture 1 - Neural Signatures of Sustained Attention Across Time Scales and Individuals, Monica Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Monday, March 9, 2026, 1:30 - 2:00 pm

Find out more: www.cogneurosociety.org/young-invest...

@cogneuronews.bsky.social

A neural network with episodic memory learns causal relationships between narrative events Humans reflect on past memories to make sense of an ongoing event. Past work has shown that people retrieve causally related past events during comprehension, but the exact process by which this causa...

How does the brain🧠 make causal inferences and use memories to understand narratives🎬?

We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do!

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

w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇

Ongoing thoughts at rest reflect functional brain organization and behavior Resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC)-brain connectivity observed when people rest with no external tasks-predicts individual differences in behavior. Yet, rest is not idle; it involves streams...

New preprint! 🧠

Our mind wanders at rest. By periodically probing ongoing thoughts during resting-state fMRI, we show these thoughts are reflected in brain network dynamics and contribute to pervasive links between functional brain architecture and everyday behavior (1/10).
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

#neuroskyence #academicsky #psychskyscience #psychology

Brain network dynamics predict moments of surprise across contexts bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

New preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We’re surprised in many situations, like surprise parties, lab tasks, & suspenseful basketball games. Despite being in completely different situations, does our brain process unexpectedness similarly? 1/9

For my first post on bsky I am thrilled to advertise an NIMH-funded open postdoc position in my lab in collaboration with Jen Wildes at UChicago. Please spread the word! For more info and instructions to apply, please see: bakkourlab.uchicago.edu/join-us/post...

Hippocampal differentiation of competing memories predicts the precision of preparatory coding in vi... bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

How do we resolve competition between memories to behave adaptively?

Hippocampal differentiation of competing memories predicts the precision of preparatory coding in visual cortex during memory-guided attention

Excited to share this work by the inimitable Serra Favila!

#neuroskyence #PsychSciSky

Ah ya the film I was thinking of has no talking, but is totally abstract so not really what you're looking for!

If it's more important that the film has no narrative, datasets using Inscapes would work (but the film has audio) www.headspacestudios.org/inscapes (fcon_1000.projects.nitrc.org/indi/hbn_ssi..., www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....)

Hippocampal mechanisms support cortisol-induced memory enhancements Stress can powerfully influence episodic memory, often enhancing memory encoding for emotionally salient information. These stress-induced memory enhancements stand at odds with demonstrations that st...

Stress tends to enhance memory for emotional events. Yet stress is also thought to hurt the hippocampus (which supports episodic memory). With @evgoldfarb.bsky.social & others, we explore this paradox and demonstrate how cortisol can *enhance* hippocampal function to support emotional episodic mems!

First post! I'll be starting as an assistant professor at Northwestern next year!

I'm recruiting PhD students this cycle! I'll be reviewing applications through the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition area in Northwestern's Department of Psychology. Apply!

Learn more about the lab here: nucatslab.com

I’m excited to announce the Adaptive Memory Lab is moving to Univ. of Oregon summer 2024. I’ve been a lucky duck to forge such great relationships at Temple and am looking forward to developing new ones. I’ll be recruiting grad students next year so feel free to reach out. #OMG/OregonMemoryGroup

Functional networks in the infant brain during sleep and wake states Abstract. Functional brain networks are assessed differently earlier versus later in development: infants are almost universally scanned asleep, whereas adults

Resting state, or sleeping state? We know that wakefulness matters for adult functional brain network organization. In our new paper, we show that wakefulness can also be important in infant fMRI! 1/9

First empirical pub from the lab! Fear generalization - spreading ⚡️ assoc to similar stimuli - characterizes anxiety. Here we show that 🍷 assoc also spread to similar stimuli for indiv engaging in risky drinking pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37682597/