Ania Holubecki
@aniaholubecki.bsky.social
81 followers 190 following 18 posts
studying social cognition regions via iEEG, stimulation, and precision fMRI PhD Candidate @NUIN | Formerly RC @ Braga Lab, #Fulbrighter @ Jagiellonian University, BA @ Northwestern | (she/her)
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aniaholubecki.bsky.social
I’m very excited to share my FIRST first-author preprint - the result of my Northwestern graduate school lab rotation with Lisa Johnson!

We detected HFB in babies (1-4 months) noninvasively using scalp EEG, distinguishing wake from sleep states. 👶

Link: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
High frequency broadband activity detected noninvasively in infants distinguishes wake from sleep states
High frequency broadband activity (HFB; 70-150 Hz) indexes local brain activity. It is predominantly studied using invasive measures due to signal drop off from skull attenuation. We hypothesized that...
doi.org
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
Congrats @josephsalvo.bsky.social! 🧠🎓

Happy to have helped collect this dataset.
rodbraga.bsky.social
📣 New preprint from the Braga Lab! 📣

The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network

Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results

Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning?

Thread 🧵 ⬇️
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
jingnandu.bsky.social
Our new paper is out now in Neuron! 🎉 With @vaibhavtripathi.bsky.social @maxwellelliott.bsky.social Joanna Ladopoulou, Wendy Sun, Mark Eldaief, and Randy Buckner

Paper link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
marekpedziwi.bsky.social
End of August means ECVP! This year, I am here (in beautiful Mainz) with a special mission - to find postdocs who will join us in (equally beautiful) Krakow, PL! Drop me a DM if you are interested!
@ecvp.bsky.social
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
pessoabrain.bsky.social
Are there good neuro/neuroimaging journals that still accept brief communications, i.e., short papers focused on 1-2 results? Interesting results but not "major impact".
#neuroskyence
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
High frequency broadband activity detected noninvasively in infants distinguishes wake from sleep states https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.08.668962v1
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
Overall, we found that noninvasive HFB detection is not only possible at sites where the skull hasn’t fully developed, but sufficiently robust to enable systematic investigation of early cognitive development!

Thanks to my co-authors, as well as to the Dynamic Brain Lab for their support! 🙂
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
At the single-baby level, the same wake > sleep effects were detected with 60% reliability using as few as 50 seconds of data per state. Although this reliability is lower than the 90% group-level reliability, 60% is higher than reliabilities seen in other developmental scalp EEG studies.
Plot of how the reliability of the wake > sleep effect at the single-baby level relates to the number of trials used in analyses. Shading represents the standard error of the mean.
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
We found that when varying both the number of trials and babies included in group analyses, the reliability of the wake > sleep effect stabilized at ~90% at around 25 seconds of data per state, with as few as 10 babies (see panels A and C) and even fewer babies for occipital channels (see panel D)!
Subject-by-trial reliability plots for midline (Fz, Cz, Pz), frontal (F3, F4), central (C3, C4), and occipital (O1, O2) channels. Darker red colors represent greater reliability (>50%), and darker grayscale colors represent lower reliability (<50%). White on the right portions of plots represents missing data resulting from channel exclusion within individual babies due to low data quality.
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
At the group level, we found that HFB power was greater in wake versus sleep states in midline and central channels near fontanelles, as well as occipital channels over thin skull. This was replicated 9/10 times (90% reliability) using as little as 25 seconds of data per state!
Topographic plots comparing HFB power between 25 seconds of wake data versus 25 seconds of sleep data per baby, across 18 babies. More red regions represent greater HFB power during wake states, and darker grayscale regions represent greater HFB power during sleep states. Significant channels are marked with larger black dots. There are 10 topographic plots because analyses were done 10 times for reliability analyses.
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
We analyzed scalp EEG data from 18 babies during wake and sleep states (5-second trials). Past intracranial work has shown that HFB is greater in wake vs. sleep states, so to see whether we could detect this signal in babies, we compared HFB power between these two states. 😴👶
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
iEEG electrode implantation is extremely rare in babies because they have fontanelles (see pink regions in image) and thin skull. However, scalp EEG channels over these regions may be able to detect HFB since they are closer to brain tissue, allowing for less signal drop off!
Schematic of estimated fontanelle and suture locations (in pink), overlaid with scalp EEG channels arranged according to the international 10-20 system.
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
HFB indexes local brain activity and is predominantly studied invasively using iEEG. This signal is tricky to detect with scalp EEG because it is attenuated as it passes through skull.

HFB has been studied across development, but to our knowledge, not in babies - why not?
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
I’m very excited to share my FIRST first-author preprint - the result of my Northwestern graduate school lab rotation with Lisa Johnson!

We detected HFB in babies (1-4 months) noninvasively using scalp EEG, distinguishing wake from sleep states. 👶

Link: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
High frequency broadband activity detected noninvasively in infants distinguishes wake from sleep states
High frequency broadband activity (HFB; 70-150 Hz) indexes local brain activity. It is predominantly studied using invasive measures due to signal drop off from skull attenuation. We hypothesized that...
doi.org
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
drdamienfair.bsky.social
I still get chills

Meet Mike
*30+ years severe depression
*first hospitalized @ 13y
*20 meds
*3 rounds of ECT
*2 near-fatal suicide attempts

Mike felt joy for the first time in decades after we turned on his new brain pacemaker or PACE

see videos, read paper, follow thread
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
imagingneurosci.bsky.social
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Joseph J. Salvo, Rodrigo M. Braga, et al:

Intrinsic functional connectivity delineates transmodal language functions

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
SO exciting to see the first results from this project, which we started when the lab first opened! Collecting this dataset was my main focus during my RCship, and we’re very grateful to the epilepsy patients who gave much of their time to make this happen. Congratulations, Chris! 🧠
rodbraga.bsky.social
🚨 New Preprint 🚨

Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects

By Cyr et al.

***
Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES?

A: Yes!

🧵:
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
I’m hiring a full-time lab tech for two years starting May/June. Strong coding skills required, ML a plus. Our research on the human brain uses fMRI, ANNs, intracranial recording, and behavior. A great stepping stone to grad school. Apply here:
careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...
......
Technical Associate I, Kanwisher Lab
MIT - Technical Associate I, Kanwisher Lab - Cambridge MA 02139
careers.peopleclick.com
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
Congratulations Nate! BYU is lucky to have you. :)
rementurus.bsky.social
This fall, I'll be starting as an assistant professor at Brigham Young University in the Psychology Department. My lab will study memory and mental imagery and the brain networks that support them. I'm excited to engage with BYU students and collaborate with new colleagues!
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
kidsbrains.bsky.social
The Saxe Lab @ MIT is hiring! We seek one lab manager to start in summer 2025. Research in our lab focuses on social cognition (learn more on saxelab.mit.edu).

Please apply at: tinyurl.com/saxe2025 (Job ID 31993).

Review of applications starts on March 24, 2025.

Sharing appreciated. Thank you!
Saxelab Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at MIT |
saxelab.mit.edu
aniaholubecki.bsky.social
“Imagine publishing a preprint” :) Congrats @rementurus.bsky.social!
rodbraga.bsky.social
🚨 🧠
We have a new preprint out where we studied which brain networks are engaged during mental imagery and self-generated thought.

We used a precision fMRI approach along with multidimensional experience sampling (mDES) to get trialwise self-reports from each participant about what they imagined.
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
standupforscience.bsky.social
📣 Want to DONATE to help us Stand Up for Science on March 7th? *NEW LINK!*

Make a tax-deductible donation using the QR code below!

Direct link: www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/...

#scienceforall #sciencenotsilence #standupforscience2025
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Reposted by Ania Holubecki
Reposted by Ania Holubecki
standupforscience.bsky.social
☀️📣 Looking for a STATE LEAD and VOLUNTEERS to help us #standupforscience2025 in Illinois!

Know someone interested? Fill out this form: airtable.com/app4h5wUssMG...

#scienceforall #sciencenotsilence
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