Tommy Botch
@tommybotch.bsky.social
Reposted by Tommy Botch
Excited to be in Amsterdam for #CCN2025! Come learn about a project combining many of my favorite interests - naturalistic neuroimaging, development, & manifold learning (of course). Catch me at poster C181 on Fri - “Intrinsic dimensionality of brain activity manifolds across tasks and development”
August 12, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Excited to be in Amsterdam for #CCN2025! Come learn about a project combining many of my favorite interests - naturalistic neuroimaging, development, & manifold learning (of course). Catch me at poster C181 on Fri - “Intrinsic dimensionality of brain activity manifolds across tasks and development”
Reposted by Tommy Botch
Preprint⭐
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Geometry of neural dynamics along the cortical attractor landscape reflects changes in attention
The brain is a complex dynamical system whose activity reflects changes in internal states, such as attention. While prior work has shown that large-scale brain activity reflects attention, the mechan...
www.biorxiv.org
August 12, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Preprint⭐
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Tommy Botch
New preprint!
tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵
w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵
w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats
Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environme...
www.biorxiv.org
July 25, 2025 at 3:57 PM
New preprint!
tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵
w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵
w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Tommy Botch
What are the organizing dimensions of language processing?
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
May 23, 2025 at 5:00 PM
What are the organizing dimensions of language processing?
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
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...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
May 5, 2025 at 2:49 PM
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...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Tommy Botch
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
Accelerated learning of a noninvasive human brain-computer interface via manifold geometry
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) promise to restore and enhance a wide range of human capabilities. However, a barrier to the adoption of BCIs is how long it can take users to learn to control them. W...
doi.org
April 3, 2025 at 11:04 PM
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
Reposted by Tommy Botch
Have you wondered where scene perception and memory intersect in the brain?
Do you want to localize these areas?
In a preprint, @carolinerobertson.bsky.social, Deepa Prasad, Brenda Garcia, and I detail this topography and release these parcels and our localizer.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Do you want to localize these areas?
In a preprint, @carolinerobertson.bsky.social, Deepa Prasad, Brenda Garcia, and I detail this topography and release these parcels and our localizer.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
January 7, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Have you wondered where scene perception and memory intersect in the brain?
Do you want to localize these areas?
In a preprint, @carolinerobertson.bsky.social, Deepa Prasad, Brenda Garcia, and I detail this topography and release these parcels and our localizer.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Do you want to localize these areas?
In a preprint, @carolinerobertson.bsky.social, Deepa Prasad, Brenda Garcia, and I detail this topography and release these parcels and our localizer.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Tommy Botch
Thrilled to share new work w @taylorwwebb.bsky.social Shanka Mondal:
A Prefrontal Cortex-inspired Architecture for Planning in Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
LLMs struggle w multi-step planning.
We propose a solution inspired by brains: planning via recurrent interactions of PFC subregions.
🧵1/n
A Prefrontal Cortex-inspired Architecture for Planning in Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
LLMs struggle w multi-step planning.
We propose a solution inspired by brains: planning via recurrent interactions of PFC subregions.
🧵1/n
October 27, 2023 at 2:40 PM
Thrilled to share new work w @taylorwwebb.bsky.social Shanka Mondal:
A Prefrontal Cortex-inspired Architecture for Planning in Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
LLMs struggle w multi-step planning.
We propose a solution inspired by brains: planning via recurrent interactions of PFC subregions.
🧵1/n
A Prefrontal Cortex-inspired Architecture for Planning in Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
LLMs struggle w multi-step planning.
We propose a solution inspired by brains: planning via recurrent interactions of PFC subregions.
🧵1/n
Reposted by Tommy Botch
We review behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging evidence that converge to suggest that social interaction perception is visual and distinct from higher level social processes like theory of mind.
October 5, 2023 at 2:00 PM
We review behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging evidence that converge to suggest that social interaction perception is visual and distinct from higher level social processes like theory of mind.
Reposted by Tommy Botch
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
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
academic.oup.com
September 18, 2023 at 11:42 PM
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
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
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below! 1/9
Neural representations of concrete concepts enable identification of individuals during naturalistic...
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
www.biorxiv.org
September 15, 2023 at 3:55 PM
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
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below! 1/9