Chris Chatham
@chchatham.bsky.social
Designing experiments to sort the universe of possible medicines for the mind.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
One of the main things neuroscientists do not like to deal with is degeneracy and the irreversibility of the activity -> function relationship, because that would force them to acknowledge that most analysis methods like decoding and functional connectivity are meaningless.
So functional cell types certainly exist in the spatial system. There is no doubt about this. However, this paper shows that you cannot know that you have found them by just decoding space, or even by showing spatial selectivity! This is a very important thing to tell the field.
November 29, 2025 at 1:03 AM
One of the main things neuroscientists do not like to deal with is degeneracy and the irreversibility of the activity -> function relationship, because that would force them to acknowledge that most analysis methods like decoding and functional connectivity are meaningless.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
🧠👀
'These findings reveal high-dimensional aspects of cortical representation undetectable with conventional methods, such as RSA, & contradict previous theories suggesting that high-level visual cortex representations are low-dimensional.' #neuroskyence
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
'These findings reveal high-dimensional aspects of cortical representation undetectable with conventional methods, such as RSA, & contradict previous theories suggesting that high-level visual cortex representations are low-dimensional.' #neuroskyence
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Universal scale-free representations in human visual cortex
Author summary The human cerebral cortex is thought to encode sensory information in population activity patterns, but the statistical structure of these population codes has yet to be characterized. ...
journals.plos.org
November 27, 2025 at 10:35 PM
🧠👀
'These findings reveal high-dimensional aspects of cortical representation undetectable with conventional methods, such as RSA, & contradict previous theories suggesting that high-level visual cortex representations are low-dimensional.' #neuroskyence
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
'These findings reveal high-dimensional aspects of cortical representation undetectable with conventional methods, such as RSA, & contradict previous theories suggesting that high-level visual cortex representations are low-dimensional.' #neuroskyence
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Please check out and RT this new position for an exciting collaborative project with @boninlab.bsky.social and @franckp.bsky.social on the links between human-specific mechanisms and neurodevelopmental disorders in cortical circuits.
Please repost widely. @vanderhaeghenp2.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc with expertise in sensory physiology and in vivo circuit imaging/manipulation. The project centers on human-specific brain development and SYNGAP1-related disorders. Call closing soon—apply ASAP
jobs.vib.be/j/119852/pos...
jobs.vib.be/j/119852/pos...
Postdoctoral Fellow / PhD Student in Systems Neuroscience - VIB
The Laboratory of Cortical Information Processing | Vision to Action at NERF (www.nerf.be) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow or PhD Student to work on a new research project funded by the...
jobs.vib.be
November 27, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Please check out and RT this new position for an exciting collaborative project with @boninlab.bsky.social and @franckp.bsky.social on the links between human-specific mechanisms and neurodevelopmental disorders in cortical circuits.
A structurally profound update to the most comprehensive closed-form model of working memory & RL-like interactions. Really excited to see this evolution - and to learn if this new model might tell us something different about experimental drugs tested with the older task+model. Congrats Anne
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
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 11:55 PM
A structurally profound update to the most comprehensive closed-form model of working memory & RL-like interactions. Really excited to see this evolution - and to learn if this new model might tell us something different about experimental drugs tested with the older task+model. Congrats Anne
Very proud to have played a part in this work. I am confident that measurements of speech contain signal of use for developing new therapeutics, transdiagnostically...
Conversational turn-taking feels effortless, but it's a complex dance. We find social context—who you're talking to and what you're talking about—fundamentally changes conversational dynamics in both autistic & TD children. 1/
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... w @chrismmcox.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... w @chrismmcox.bsky.social
Social Context Matters for Turn‐Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children
Engaging in fluent conversation is a surprisingly complex task that requires interlocutors to promptly respond to each other in a way that is appropriate to the social context. In this study, we dise...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 15, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Very proud to have played a part in this work. I am confident that measurements of speech contain signal of use for developing new therapeutics, transdiagnostically...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):
September 1, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):
Reposted by Chris Chatham
New paper using M/EEG to look at attractive and repulsive serial dependence in working memory, led by the excellent Jiangang Shan, with Jasper Hajonides.
In #memories, when does bias towards or away from a stimulus arise? New research shows that attractive serial dependence emerges during #decision-making, while repulsive biases originate during early sensory encoding. 🧪
plos.io/3JSztEg
plos.io/3JSztEg
Attractive serial dependence arises during decision-making
Our memory of a stimulus can be biased toward or away from previous stimuli, but when this bias arises is unclear. This study shows that attractive serial dependence emerges during decision-making, su...
plos.io
August 26, 2025 at 4:37 PM
New paper using M/EEG to look at attractive and repulsive serial dependence in working memory, led by the excellent Jiangang Shan, with Jasper Hajonides.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Proud of Amy and Nick, who review technical and theoretical gaps in timescales of dopamine fluctuations.
We argue that DA fluctuations are hierarchical control signals, and “tonic” DA relays goal alignment across planning horizons and C-BG hierarchy.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We argue that DA fluctuations are hierarchical control signals, and “tonic” DA relays goal alignment across planning horizons and C-BG hierarchy.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Timescales of dopamine release in the striatum as a window into hierarchical control
The reinforcement learning community has made significant progress in understanding dopamine (DA) in reward learning, cognitive control, and motivatio…
www.sciencedirect.com
August 23, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Proud of Amy and Nick, who review technical and theoretical gaps in timescales of dopamine fluctuations.
We argue that DA fluctuations are hierarchical control signals, and “tonic” DA relays goal alignment across planning horizons and C-BG hierarchy.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We argue that DA fluctuations are hierarchical control signals, and “tonic” DA relays goal alignment across planning horizons and C-BG hierarchy.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
This is an encouraging result for the use of EEG in a variety of applications going well beyond RSA.
August 21, 2025 at 6:28 PM
This is an encouraging result for the use of EEG in a variety of applications going well beyond RSA.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Reposted by Chris Chatham
I've updated my literature review of studies of aperiodic neural activity in clinical disorders, adding ~30 papers, taking it to 177 reports across 38 disorders!
It's got a review of results so far, discussion of themes & issues, & recommendations for future work!
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
It's got a review of results so far, discussion of themes & issues, & recommendations for future work!
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
A systematic review of aperiodic neural activity in clinical investigations
Aperiodic neural activity - activity with no characteristic frequency - has increasingly become a common feature of study, including in clinical work. Reports investigating aperiodic activity from pat...
www.medrxiv.org
August 21, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I've updated my literature review of studies of aperiodic neural activity in clinical disorders, adding ~30 papers, taking it to 177 reports across 38 disorders!
It's got a review of results so far, discussion of themes & issues, & recommendations for future work!
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
It's got a review of results so far, discussion of themes & issues, & recommendations for future work!
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
1/ New paper by Hame Park, (@AraziAyelet), Bharath Talluri, Marco Celotto, Stefano Panzeri, Alan Stocker & Tobias Donner published in Nature Communications – “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex”: rdcu.be/etlR7. Here is a summary:
Confirmation bias through selective readout of information encoded in human parietal cortex
Nature Communications - People often discard incoming information when it contradicts their pre-existing beliefs about the world. Here, the authors show that this discarded information is precisely...
rdcu.be
June 27, 2025 at 1:35 PM
1/ New paper by Hame Park, (@AraziAyelet), Bharath Talluri, Marco Celotto, Stefano Panzeri, Alan Stocker & Tobias Donner published in Nature Communications – “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex”: rdcu.be/etlR7. Here is a summary:
Super talented team working on an incredibly important problem. Congrats!
Excited and grateful to have received an R01 to expand our lab's work using passively collected data from smartphones and wearables to detect negative emotional states and predict depression risk in youth (working w/ Justin Baker, Habib Rahimi, and Boyu Ren)
April 2, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Super talented team working on an incredibly important problem. Congrats!
Denali describing their approach to shuttle large molecules as cargo across the blood brain barrier. We should see new clinical data from approaches like this already in 2025. Exciting time for neurotherapeutics for this and so many other reasons...
Dual targeting of transferrin receptor and CD98hc enhances brain exposure of large molecules https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.645085v1
March 25, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Denali describing their approach to shuttle large molecules as cargo across the blood brain barrier. We should see new clinical data from approaches like this already in 2025. Exciting time for neurotherapeutics for this and so many other reasons...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Dual targeting of transferrin receptor and CD98hc enhances brain exposure of large molecules https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.645085v1
March 25, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Dual targeting of transferrin receptor and CD98hc enhances brain exposure of large molecules https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.645085v1
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Intellectual ability and cortical homotopy development in children and adolescents https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.645014v1
March 25, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Intellectual ability and cortical homotopy development in children and adolescents https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.645014v1
Reposted by Chris Chatham
March 24, 2025 at 11:11 AM
How did these authors, reviewers and editors all entirely fail to note the fascinating discrepancy beween this finding and the protective effect of lithium for AD? bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... There's such an interesting discussion to be had on that! (1/n)
Antidepressant use and cognitive decline in patients with dementia: a national cohort study - BMC Medicine
Background Dementia is associated with psychiatric symptoms but the effects of antidepressants on cognitive function in dementia are understudied. We aimed to investigate the association between antid...
bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com
February 26, 2025 at 7:47 PM
How did these authors, reviewers and editors all entirely fail to note the fascinating discrepancy beween this finding and the protective effect of lithium for AD? bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... There's such an interesting discussion to be had on that! (1/n)
Incredibly talented group and super important work from these teams at Boston Children's - great training opportunity for new PhDs thinking about a postdoc.
Please share: Opportunity for soon to be graduating grad students with an interest in neurodevelopment and mental health - our T32 postdoc program in neurodevelopmental disorders at Boston Children’s is accepting applications: rsztnc.org/wp-content/u...
rsztnc.org
February 20, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Incredibly talented group and super important work from these teams at Boston Children's - great training opportunity for new PhDs thinking about a postdoc.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
As @dereklowe.bsky.social was asking, we need more pharma CEOs to speak up!
Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Amgen - where are your voices?!
(BTW- really read to the bottom of this).
Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Amgen - where are your voices?!
(BTW- really read to the bottom of this).
Recursion CEO Chris Gibson: Publicly funded research built the biopharma industry. Now it needs our help. Companies with resources must bridge the gap. 👏 $RXRX via @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/02/19/n...
Recursion CEO: Publicly funded research built the biopharma industry. Now it needs our help
If policymakers fail to act swiftly to restore medical research funding, then it’s up to those of us in the industry with the resources to bridge the gap, writes Recursion Pharmaceuticals CEO Chris Gi...
www.statnews.com
February 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
As @dereklowe.bsky.social was asking, we need more pharma CEOs to speak up!
Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Amgen - where are your voices?!
(BTW- really read to the bottom of this).
Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Amgen - where are your voices?!
(BTW- really read to the bottom of this).
Reposted by Chris Chatham
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
February 19, 2025 at 6:24 AM
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
Reposted by Chris Chatham
Will shadish had a great paper on this where participants were randomized to choose their condition or to be randomly assigned to condition www.statpower.net/Content/MLRM...
www.statpower.net
February 19, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Will shadish had a great paper on this where participants were randomized to choose their condition or to be randomly assigned to condition www.statpower.net/Content/MLRM...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
New guest post! Excluding "careless" responses is a routine practice in many contexts. But if careless responding itself is an outcome of the variables of interest, that may actually cause trouble.
February 18, 2025 at 1:01 PM
New guest post! Excluding "careless" responses is a routine practice in many contexts. But if careless responding itself is an outcome of the variables of interest, that may actually cause trouble.
Reposted by Chris Chatham
@briannosek.bsky.social I'm not sure if you're aware but your work on the reproducibility crisis is being cited by the Heritage Foundation to motivate the huge cuts to indirect costs we are seeing at NIH.
How do you respond to this?
www.heritage.org/sites/defaul...
How do you respond to this?
www.heritage.org/sites/defaul...
www.heritage.org
February 14, 2025 at 5:38 PM
@briannosek.bsky.social I'm not sure if you're aware but your work on the reproducibility crisis is being cited by the Heritage Foundation to motivate the huge cuts to indirect costs we are seeing at NIH.
How do you respond to this?
www.heritage.org/sites/defaul...
How do you respond to this?
www.heritage.org/sites/defaul...
Reposted by Chris Chatham
New preprint: elaborating the domain-general prediction error driven account of paranoia and delusion contents:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Awesome to work with @praveensuthaharan.bsky.social Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, @juliasheffield.bsky.social, Santiago Castiello, and @celiaheyes.bsky.social on this
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Awesome to work with @praveensuthaharan.bsky.social Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, @juliasheffield.bsky.social, Santiago Castiello, and @celiaheyes.bsky.social on this
February 13, 2025 at 7:12 PM
New preprint: elaborating the domain-general prediction error driven account of paranoia and delusion contents:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Awesome to work with @praveensuthaharan.bsky.social Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, @juliasheffield.bsky.social, Santiago Castiello, and @celiaheyes.bsky.social on this
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Awesome to work with @praveensuthaharan.bsky.social Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, @juliasheffield.bsky.social, Santiago Castiello, and @celiaheyes.bsky.social on this