Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
jiahou-poh.bsky.social
Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
@jiahou-poh.bsky.social
Research Asst Professor, National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

Cognitive neuroscientist curious about Motivation and Memory.

https://poh-brainmemlab.github.io/BrainMemLab/
Pinned
How does motivation shape learning and memory? In a new review w @ralisonadcock.bsky.social, we propose that under different motivational ‘moods', neuromodulators set distinct neural contexts to determine information processing and memory formation.
doi.org/10.1146/annu...
#psychscisky #neuroskyence
Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation
Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational ...
www.annualreviews.org
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Agency reorganizes memory around relevant decisions. This was collaboration the deeply missed Sarah DuBrow and steer-headed by our grad students @lindsayrait.bsky.social and Elizabeth Horwath.

p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
Agency alters memory organization during free recall - PubMed
This study examined how agentic decisions in the absence of explicit rewards influence memory organization. Participants studied lists of items to assign as gifts to two characters-either choosing freely (Choice group) or following instructions (Fixed group). During free recall, participants in the …
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
January 7, 2026 at 2:05 AM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Fresh off the press from all-star post-doc Blake Elliott: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We show that the HPC supports coincidence detection across VTA and lPFC in service of novelty-evoked invigoration. Stay-tuned for how these circuits are altered in psychosis risk.
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
January 7, 2026 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
What if we could tell you how well you’ll remember your next visit to your local coffee shop? ☕️

In our new Nature Human Behaviour paper, we show that the 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 can be measured with neuroimaging – and 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸.
January 5, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵

rdcu.be/eVZ1A
Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization
Nature Neuroscience - Parcellation of the cortex into functionally modular brain areas is foundational to neuroscience. Here, Hayden, Heilbronner and Yoo question the central status of brain areas...
rdcu.be
December 23, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
fMRI signals “up,” but neural metabolism might be going “down.”

In our @natneuro.nature.com paper, we demonstrate that about 40% of voxels with robust BOLD responses exhibit opposite oxygen metabolism, revealing two distinct hemodynamic modes.

rdcu.be/eUPO8
funds @erc.europa.eu
#neuroskyence 🧵:
December 16, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
(1/5)
🧵Our new preprint shows how the brain develops to transform how kids, teens & adults represent & navigate their world: shifting from local, moment-to-moment memories in childhood to integrated, global cognitive maps in adulthood 🧠

Paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
December 16, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
How does cortisol tune brain networks to form strong emotional memories? Excited to share new work led by amazing former RA Flory Huang w collabs Rajita Sinha and @toddc.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dynamic brain mechanisms supporting salient memories under cortisol
The stress-related hormone cortisol alters dynamic brain networks predicting memory and arousal to promote emotional memories.
www.science.org
December 11, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Representational Momentum Transcends Motion
Dillon Plunkett & Jorge Morales (2025) Psychological Science
subjectivitylab.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
🧠 New paper alert (the 1st one from our new lab)!
Led by 1st author & VR wizard @jaquent.bsky.social

@natcomms.nature.com

How do our brains distinguish novel from familiar places as we explore our environments, e.g., a new city?

🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s414...

🧵 Thread below with key findings ⬇️
December 9, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
New study out today in Nature Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41..., in which we set out to test whether ultrasound could influence the reward-related learning computations of the nucleus accumbens, building on decades of work on dopaminergic prediction error and reinforcement learning. And it did.
Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human nucleus accumbens impacts reward sensitivity - Nature Communications
This study shows that non-invasive ultrasound to the human nucleus accumbens can modulate deep brain activity and enhance reward-guided learning, offering a potential alternative to invasive neuromodu...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Just published my "Programming for Psychologists" course! 👩‍💻 github.com/Naubody/prog...

Designed for Psychology & Cognitive Neuroscience Master's students starting their programming journey at @vuamsterdam.bsky.social.

Feel free to share! Feedback welcome!
November 24, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Very cool new work from the Iglesias group at MGH: A probabilistic histological atlas of the human brain for MRI segmentation (also available at OpenNeuro - openneuro.org/datasets/ds0...) : www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A probabilistic histological atlas of the human brain for MRI segmentation - Nature
NextBrain is an open source, probabilistic atlas of the entire human brain, assembled using artificial-intelligence-enabled registration and segmentation methods to reconstruct the multimodal serial h...
www.nature.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning
Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.
rdcu.be
November 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
New paper from our lab by Ricardo Morales-Torres (@rmt93.bsky.social) on the visual and semantic properties that shape the vividness of mental representations for events past.

psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

The short answer to the title, "What Makes Memories Vivid?" is ... meaning!
November 10, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Good news everyone: #Duke Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP) are back!! We are now accepting applications for SSNAP 2026, which will take place from May 26 to June 6, 2026. #neuroscience #philosophy #brain Please spread the word! ssnap.submittable.com/submit
SSNAP Applications Manager
SSNAP Applications Manager Powered By Submittable - Accept and Curate Digital Content
ssnap.submittable.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
New issue of Nature - with NINE studies on #brain #development from the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) 🧠🧪🔬

An amazing set of resources for all scientists working on the brain!

🧠 Immersive feature:
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

🧠 Perspective:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 5, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Alright, let my first action on this platform be to share our new paper.

"Sleep Reactivity Amplifies the Impact of Pre-Sleep Cognitive Arousal on Sleep Disturbances"

Led by Noof Shaif /w Ju Lynn Ong, Julian Lim, Anthony Reffi, and Michael Chee
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
<em>Journal of Sleep Research</em> | ESRS Journal | Wiley Online Library
This study investigates how sleep reactivity moderates the ‘stress-pre-sleep arousal-sleep’ pathway in university students. At the within-individual level, both high and low sleep-reactive groups sho...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 3, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
I wrote a thing on episodic memory and systems consolidation. I hope you all enjoy it and/or find it interesting.

A neural state space for episodic memories

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
A neural state space for episodic memories
Episodic memories are highly dynamic and change in nonlinear ways over time. This dynamism is not captured by existing systems consolidation theories …
www.sciencedirect.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
If you missed this event and you want to catch the replay, videos are up at this link:
www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...

See this thread for Day 1 highlights, and the next post for Day 2.
Today and tomorrow 11a-3p EST, I'll be live posting this terrific workshop. It's open to all! So register at this link if you'd like to watch too (or follow this 🧵 for the highlights).

Agenda: 16 presentations + overviews, discussions, recaps and reviews.

www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...
November 1, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
We've just launched the first large, site-less (home, direct to participant) randomized trial for treatment of #LongCovid, testing tirzepatide (a GLP-1 drug) vs placebo. Please help spread the word
www.scripps.edu/news-and-eve...
Scripps Research scientists launch new digital clinical trial to test repurposed drug for long COVID symptom relief
www.scripps.edu
October 31, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Our experience of time is powerfully shaped by boundaries between events (i.e., going from one meeting to the next). But what about time *within an event*? In new work, we find reliable distortions of time based on internal event structure (e.g., beginnings, middles, and ends)! tinyurl.com/n8mn2sn7
Unfolding event structure distorts subjective time
Our experience of time is often distorted in striking ways. Although prior work has shown that boundaries between events can shape temporal perception…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
My co-authors have yet to move to Bluesky, so I'm pleased to announce our latest work has just been published in @nature.com Neuroscience. Amazing work led by Junheng Li, revealing that falling asleep follows a predictable bifurcation pattern #neuroskyence #sleep
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Falling asleep follows a predictable bifurcation dynamic - Nature Neuroscience
Li et al. propose a conceptual framework to study the phenomenon of falling asleep based on electroencephalogram data. They show that a tipping point marks the brain’s nonlinear wake-to-sleep transiti...
www.nature.com
October 28, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com
Interactive Cognition Lab | USC
Interactive Cognition Lab at USC, led by principal investigator, Dr. Nina Rouhani.
rouhanilab.com
October 24, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
I’m excited to share my recent preprint on a neural network model of free recall that learns multiple memory strategies including the memory palace!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 21, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Jia-Hou (JH) Poh
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM