Matthias Nau
@matthiasnau.bsky.social
5.7K followers 590 following 230 posts
Cognitive Neuroscientist | Assistant Prof at VU Amsterdam | Active vision, memory, imagery | Multi-task studies, fMRI, eye tracking | https://matthiasnau.com
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Reposted by Matthias Nau
Reposted by Matthias Nau
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Why do we remember emotional events so vividly? Our new paper @nathumbehav.nature.com suggests that emotional arousal enhances memory by strengthening integration across large-scale brain networks! Led by the amazing @jadynpark.bsky.social & @ycleong.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
jadynpark.bsky.social
Out now in @nathumbehav.nature.com! We applied graph theoretic analyses to fMRI data of participants watching movies/listening to stories. Integration across large-scale functional networks mediates arousal-dependent enhancement of narrative memories. Open access link: rdcu.be/eKKAw
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Congratulations, Megan! 🎉 So amazing to have you in Europe!
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Why do we remember emotional events so vividly? Our new paper @nathumbehav.nature.com suggests that emotional arousal enhances memory by strengthening integration across large-scale brain networks! Led by the amazing @jadynpark.bsky.social & @ycleong.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
jadynpark.bsky.social
Out now in @nathumbehav.nature.com! We applied graph theoretic analyses to fMRI data of participants watching movies/listening to stories. Integration across large-scale functional networks mediates arousal-dependent enhancement of narrative memories. Open access link: rdcu.be/eKKAw
matthiasnau.bsky.social
This is one of those papers that just deserves a post every now and then. Half a century old, with a message still relevant today: Cognition won't be understood one variable at the time.

You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Just a video of an #MRI exploding after its vacuum insulation is compromised. By Travis Sylvester. Cheers! #everydaythings 💥
youtu.be/SWnXJFAGk2Y?...
MRI explosion
YouTube video by Travis Sylvester
youtu.be
Reposted by Matthias Nau
kevinjkircher.com
Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.
sites.stat.columbia.edu
Reposted by Matthias Nau
sampendu.bsky.social
Long time in the making: our preprint of survey study on the diversity with how people seem to experience #mentalimagery. Suggests #aphantasia should be redefined as absence of depictive thought, not merely "not seeing". Some more take home msg:
#psychskysci #neuroscience

doi.org/10.1101/2025...
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Important new resource for all Hippocampus lovers!👌👇
borismontreal.bsky.social
🚨 New paper in Nature Methods:
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus

Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)

Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social

docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Matthias Nau
jorge-morales.bsky.social
Imagine an apple 🍎. Is your mental image more like a picture or more like a thought? In a new preprint led by Morgan McCarty—our lab's wonderful RA—we develop a new approach to this old cognitive science question and find that LLMs excel at tasks thought to be solvable only via visual imagery. 🧵
Artificial Phantasia: Evidence for Propositional Reasoning-Based Mental Imagery in Large Language Models
This study offers a novel approach for benchmarking complex cognitive behavior in artificial systems. Almost universally, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform best on tasks which may be included in th...
arxiv.org
Reposted by Matthias Nau
zoedrayson.bsky.social
When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions
AI Overview: "Dental realism"refers to the philosophical debate about whether teeth exist independently of human perception, a concept rooted in metaphysical realism. While realism asserts an objective reality for teeth, idealist philosophies contend that teeth's existence is tied to our consciousness and perception. Philosophers use this idea, for example, to discuss the ethics of tooth extraction, examining whether a procedure impacts a real entity or merely a subjective experience.
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Amazing news! Congratulations Ondrej!!
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Looking for cognition? It's right in front of your nose. Well, above it! 👀
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Incredible study by Raut et al.: by tracking a single measure (pupil size), you can model slow, large-scale dynamics in neuronal calcium, metabolism, and brain blood oxygen through a shared latent space! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Matthias Nau
clykken.bsky.social
1/8
How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Very cool and strong effect for me!
It reminded me of this amazing fovea visualizer that I saw on the other platform a few years ago. Open it, make full screen, and see the extent of your fovea! 👀 www.shadertoy.com/view/4dsXzM
Reposted by Matthias Nau
gangchen6.bsky.social
Data only shows associations. Turning those into claims about mechanism or causation? That requires a Rosetta Stone of prior knowledge + theory. Resting-state fMRI is purely observational; correlation is its currency. From this, plenty of "theoretical toys" about brain function can be built...
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Resting-State fMRI and the Risk of Overinterpretation: Noise, Mechanisms, and a Missing Rosetta Stone https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.676611v1
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Finally, Huan Luo discussed how to dissociate content from structure of experiences, and how eye movements may signal these factors during retrieval. mgv.pku.edu.cn/english/peop... 4/4
matthiasnau.bsky.social
Second, Eva Berlot showed how to use language models to study gaze behavior, and explored why we make eye movements even in non-visual tasks. www.predictivebrainlab.com/people/eva-b... 3/4
Eva Berlot
E-mail Address [email protected]
www.predictivebrainlab.com