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CMC lab @cmc-lab.bsky.social · 13d

Oops, wrong time in the original post! It will be 15:30 CET 😉

CMC lab @cmc-lab.bsky.social · 13d

In our Learning Club @cmc-lab.bsky.social today (Sep 25, Thu, 2pm CET), @dengpan.bsky.social will tell us about his recent paper (👇) [joint work w/ Rushworth lab]. Want to attend, send an empty email to [email protected] to get the link!

Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans.

Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning.

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Kris Jensen @kristorpjensen.bsky.social · 14d

I’m super excited to finally put my recent work with @behrenstimb.bsky.social on bioRxiv, where we develop a new mechanistic theory of how PFC structures adaptive behaviour using attractor dynamics in space and time!

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

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Neuroengineering @neuroengineering.bsky.social · 24d

Might focused ultrasound one day replace DBS?

UK Scientists built a 256-panel focused ultrasound helmet that can precisely target deep brain regions. Using theta-burst TUS, they stimulated the LGN and found visual cortex activity with effects lasting up to 40 minutes.

#neuroskyence #ultrasound

Ultrasound system for precise neuromodulation of human deep brain circuits - Nature Communications

Modulating deep brain structure can lead to therapies for neurological conditions. Here, the authors show a transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) system featuring a 256-element helmet-shaped trans...

www.nature.com

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Tobias Hauser @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social · Aug 19

📢 We are hiring! 📢
For our @wellcometrust.bsky.social grant on information gathering biases in #OCD and #Schizophrenia, we are looking for a Postdoc in Computational Modelling, supervised by Peter Dayan and myself.
Interested? See all the details in the job advert here: devcompsy.org/wp-content/u...

a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application

ALT: a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application

media.tenor.com

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Elliott Wimmer @elliottwimmer.bsky.social · Aug 28

📢 We're hiring a Research Assistant in cognitive neuroscience & computational psychiatry! 📢

Join us at UCL to conduct an MEG study of reward & memory, exploring how brain signals link to variability in apathy and anhedonia.

🔗 apply from next week: lmdlab.github.io

🚨closes September 12th!

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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · Aug 27

Some scientists haven't yet internalized the "why" behind science writing for the public - not just as a service, but for themselves. (I didn't always get it). In this piece for @natrevneuro.nature.com, I draw on the neuroscience of curiosity & decision making to unpack its value.

rdcu.be/eCGr7

The unexpected value of communicating science to the public

Nature Reviews Neuroscience - As a group, our scientific community has a responsibility to unpack the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind our work for the public, not least because much...

rdcu.be

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans.

Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 30

Also check out the TUS study from @mkflugge.bsky.social lab! Hope TUS opens up a new avenue for exploring deep brain functions in healthy humans!

Miriam Klein-Flügge 🧠 @mkflugge.bsky.social · Aug 20

We are super excited about the first human transcranial ultrasound study from our lab which is now on BiorXiv, showing the amygdala‘s role in processing ambiguous emotions and showing TUS changed resting-state connectivity and metabolite concentrations (GABA) in the amygdala - a huge team effort! 🥳🙏🏼

Johannes Algermissen @johalgermissen.bsky.social · Aug 20

Very happy to share my first preprint from @oxexppsy.bsky.social @oxneuro.bsky.social ! We (me + co-first authors @lilweb.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social + PI @mkflugge.bsky.social + many others) used transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation (TUS/tFUS/LIFU) of the human amygdala ... (1/15)

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

See also our thread on X (formerly Twitter): x.com/DengPan18/st...

Deng Pan 潘登 on X: "🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans. Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning. https://t.co/2x3Efdrr57" / X

🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans. Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning. https://t.co/2x3Efdrr57

x.com

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

Full preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Causal necessity of human hippocampus for structure-based inference in learning

When meeting new individuals or encountering known individuals in new circumstances, we intuitively map out their relationships – not merely by direct experience, but by quickly inferring new connecti...

www.biorxiv.org

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

We also thank @mkwittmann.bsky.social, @marcelomattar.bsky.social, and people from Behrens Lab
@behrenstimb.bsky.social, for their helpful comments on this work!

Also had a lot of fun presenting this at #RLDM2025 and #CCN2025. We really appreciate all the generous feedback.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

Huge thanks to people in the Rushworth Lab and collaborators @oxexppsy.bsky.social who made this work possible:
@alimahmoodi.bsky.social @mkflugge.bsky.social @simonedambrogio.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social, Naomi Kingston, Pranav Sankhe, Shuyi Luo, and my incredible mentor Matthew Rushworth.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

6. 🚀 This is enabled by transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)—a safe, reversible, precise method to non-invasively probe deep brain function, which finally makes the hippocampus accessible in healthy humans.

Here is me being stimulated to test the TUS effect myself.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

5. 🌟Empirical evidence: Using TUS to temporarily modulate hippocampal activity in healthy humans, we primarily disrupted their ability to use relational knowledge for inference, confirming its causal necessity for relational structure learning.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

4. ⏩Computational predictions: An RNN trained on our task developed hippocampus-like units encoding relational structure. Lesioning these units selectively disrupted inference — predicting the hippocampus’s causal role.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

3. 🧠 Neural basis: using fMRI, we show that such relational knowledge is consistently represented in the hippocampus across diverse contexts, in a manner distinct from other brain regions.

Next, we asked: Is this representation causally necessary for structure-based inference?

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

2. 🤖 Our RL models show that only models with relational knowledge capture human behaviour, outperforming experience-only models.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

1. 👥 When meeting new people, we don’t learn about them from scratch — in our “Goalkeeper Game”, participants showed structure-based inference by leveraging relational knowledge to rapidly learn new relationships in changing environments.

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Deng Pan @dengpan.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans.

Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning.

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Reposted by Deng Pan

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Aug 19

Causal necessity of human hippocampus for structure-based inference in learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.664920v1

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Marco K Wittmann @mkwittmann.bsky.social · Aug 7

📢 Job announcement: Two (!) 3-year postdoc jobs in our lab at UCL 📢

🧠💫🔊 We are looking for postdocs interested in the abstract mechanisms underlying social cognition. Modelling, fMRI and non-invasive ultrasound, a new deep-brain stimulation method.

Please RT

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Marcelo Mattar @marcelomattar.bsky.social · Jul 2

Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature

Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...

doi.org

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Seongmin Park @seongminpark.bsky.social · Jul 10

🚨 We’re hiring! The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Virginia Tech is looking for a postdoc to join our team studying the neural + computational mechanisms of structure learning and flexible cognition: ccnvt.github.io#positions

CCN Lab

ccnvt.github.io

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Oxford University Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (OxCIN) @oxcin.bsky.social · Apr 28

We're excited to announce that WIN is now the Oxford University Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging: OxCIN! Our mission: developing and deploying neuroimaging and related technology to solve big challenges in basic neuroscience and brain health. oxcin.ox.ac.uk/about/vision

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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · May 22

Our study using layer fMRI to study the direction of communication between the hippocampus and cortex during perceptual predictions is finally out in Science Advances! Predicted-but-omitted shapes are represented in CA2/3 and correlate specifically with deep layers of PHC, suggesting feedback. 🧠🟦

Communication of perceptual predictions from the hippocampus to the deep layers of the parahippocampal cortex

High-resolution neuroimaging reveals stimulus-specific predictions sent from hippocampus to the neocortex during perception.

www.science.org

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