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mfranch.bsky.social
Melissa Franch, PhD
@mfranch.bsky.social
920 followers 1.7K following 32 posts
Postdoc in the Hayden lab at Baylor College of Medicine studying neural computations of natural language & communication in humans. Sister to someone with autism. she/her. melissafranch.com
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mfranch.bsky.social
Melissa Franch, PhD @mfranch.bsky.social · Feb 27
I am incredibly proud to share my first, first-author paper as a postdoc with @benhayden.bsky.social . How does the human hippocampus, known for encoding concepts, represent the meanings of words while listening to narrative speech?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
biotechniques.bsky.social
BioTechniques @biotechniques.bsky.social · 5d
Surviving isn’t enough; underrepresented groups in academia need to thrive.

In this STEM Tea episode, @phdgprotein86.bsky.social is joined by @brielleryan.bsky.social and @heydrdukes.bsky.social.
Learn why visibility is sometimes the most important step >>> www.biotechniques.com/podcasts/ste... 🧪
STEM Tea | Founding Black in Neuro
Brielle Ferguson and Angeline Dukes discuss Black in Neuro, the power of visibility in representation and critical lessons about mentorship.
www.biotechniques.com
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
tomerullman.bsky.social
Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 1d
New preprint!

"Non-commitment in mental imagery is distinct from perceptual inattention, and supports hierarchical scene construction"

(by Li, Hammond, & me)

link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

-- the title's a bit of a mouthful, but the nice thing is that it's a pretty decent summary
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
gershbrain.bsky.social
Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 1d
Really interesting work by Bakhurin and colleagues challenging the reward prediction error hypothesis of dopamine:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I love this figure which both echoes and undermines the famous figure from Schultz et al. (1997).
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
thetransmitter.bsky.social
The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 2d
Figuring out how the brain uses information from visual neurons may require new tools, writes @neurograce.bsky.social. Hear from 10 experts in the field.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...
Connecting neural activity, perception in the visual system
Figuring out how the brain uses information from visual neurons may require new tools. I asked nine experts to weigh in.
www.thetransmitter.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
jorge-morales.bsky.social
Jorge Morales @jorge-morales.bsky.social · 14d
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
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
kristorpjensen.bsky.social
Kris Jensen @kristorpjensen.bsky.social · 21d
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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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
qqzhang.bsky.social
Qingqing Zhang @qqzhang.bsky.social · 22d
Does predictive coding work in SPACE or in TIME? Most neuroscientists assume TIME, i.e. neurons predict their future sensory inputs. We show that in visual cortex predictive coding actually works across SPACE, just like the original Rao+Ballard theory #neuroscience
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
benhayden.bsky.social
Ben Hayden @benhayden.bsky.social · 22d
New manuscript from the lab!

"Mirror manifolds: partially overlapping neural subspaces for speaking and listening"

Led by superstar grad student Anilu Chavez (not on Bluesky)!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Mirror manifolds: partially overlapping neural subspaces for speaking and listening
Participants in conversations need to associate words their speakers but also retain those words general meanings. For example, someone talking about their hand is not referring to the other speakers ...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
ardemp.bskyverified.social
Ardem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · 26d
New preprint alert! The uterus expands ~500-fold in pregnancy, yet we know little about how pressures are sensed. Led by @yunxiao-dr.bsky.social, we show PIEZOs are required for contractions and birth in mice, with dual roles of PIEZO1 in muscle and PIEZO2 in neurons
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
PIEZO channels link mechanical forces to uterine contractions in parturition
Mechanical forces are extensively involved in pregnancy and parturition, but their precise roles and mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we identify mechanically activated ion channels PIEZO1 a...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
bio-emergent.bsky.social
Valentin Schmutz @bio-emergent.bsky.social · 26d
🎉 "High-dimensional neuronal activity from low-dimensional latent dynamics: a solvable model" will be presented as an oral at #NeurIPS2025 🎉

Feeling very grateful that reviewers and chairs appreciated concise mathematical explanations, in this age of big models.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
natrevneuro.nature.com
Nature Reviews Neuroscience @natrevneuro.nature.com · 29d
Multisensory coding of self-motion and its contribution to navigation — a Review by Dun Mao & Yong Gu

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#neuroscience #neuroskyence
Multisensory coding of self-motion and its contribution to navigation - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
As an animal moves within its environment, self-motion signals are generated by the inner ear vestibular organs and the retina and transmitted to the CNS. In this Review, Mao and Gu describe how these...
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
kirsten-adam.bsky.social
Kirsten Adam @kirsten-adam.bsky.social · 29d
New pre-print day! Distributed and drifting signals for working memory load in human cortex 🧠 (with Ed Awh & @serences.bsky.social)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Distributed and drifting signals for working memory load in human cortex
Increasing working memory (WM) load incurs behavioral costs, and whether the neural constraints on behavioral costs are localized (i.e., emanating from the intraparietal sulcus) or distributed across ...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
natcomputsci.nature.com
Nature Computational Science @natcomputsci.nature.com · 29d
📢Out now! @jixingli.bsky.social, @lamb-cityuhk.bsky.social and colleagues assess whether instruction tuning can enhance LLM's ability to capture linguistic information in the human brain. www.nature.com/articles/s43... #compneuro #ArtificialIntelligence
Increasing alignment of large language models with language processing in the human brain - Nature Computational Science
Larger LLMs’ self-attention more accurately predicts readers’ regressive saccades and fMRI responses in language regions, whereas instruction tuning adds no benefit.
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
insidehighered.com
Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 29d
Career Advice | Equity-Minded Mentorship as Courageous Action

As formal DEI efforts come under intense pressures, Kimberly A. Griffin and W. Brad Johnson offer advice for how faculty can still advance equity in higher ed through mentorship. https://bit.ly/4pq8H6x

#EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd
A drawing of a woman standing at the tips of a person's outstretched hand as she prepares to ascend a ladder into the sky.
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
marcociapparelli.bsky.social
Marco Ciapparelli @marcociapparelli.bsky.social · Sep 12
Happy to share that our work on semantic composition is out now -- open access -- in Cerebral Cortex!

With Marco Marelli (@ercbravenewword.bsky.social), @wwgraves.bsky.social & @carloreve.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1093/cerc...
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
liinapy.bsky.social
Liina Pylkkänen @liinapy.bsky.social · Sep 12
Spectacular talk by SNL Early Career Award winner Esti Blanco Elorrieta! Much NeLLab pride, congratulations Esti! 🎉🎉 #SNL2025 @snlmtg.bsky.social
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
arxiv-cs-cl.bsky.social
arxiv cs.CL @arxiv-cs-cl.bsky.social · Oct 2
Richard Antonello, Chandan Singh, Shailee Jain, Aliyah Hsu, Jianfeng Gao, Bin Yu, Alexander Huth
A generative framework to bridge data-driven models and scientific theories in language neuroscience
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.00812
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
gozziale.bsky.social
Alessandro Gozzi @gozziale.bsky.social · Sep 10
🚨 Excited to share the latest preprint form the lab ➡️https://tinyurl.com/32d3be9f

Here we tackle a long-standing chicken-or-egg 🐣🥚question in #autism and developmental neuroscience

➡️ Is excitation–inhibition (E:I) imbalance a "cause" or a "consequence" of #autism?

Check out what we found!
🧵1/n
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mfranch.bsky.social
Melissa Franch, PhD @mfranch.bsky.social · Sep 10
Really looking forward to presenting my new research on semantic coding in single neurons in autism this Sunday at the Society for Neurobiology of Language conference! Be sure to check out all the presentations from the Hayden lab! @benhayden.bsky.social @snlmtg.bsky.social
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
mottenhoff.bsky.social
Maarten C. Ottenhoff @mottenhoff.bsky.social · Sep 6
Check out our latest speech work!
mverwoert.bsky.social
mverwoert.bsky.social @mverwoert.bsky.social · Sep 5
Can we move beyond the motor cortex for speech neuroprosthetics? We've explored just this question in our paper published today in Cell Reports!🧠
Check it out! 👉https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124725010125
Moving beyond the motor cortex: A brain-wide evaluation of target locations for intracranial speech neuroprostheses
Speech brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer a solution for those affected by speech impairments by decoding brain activity into speech. Current neur…
sciencedirect.com
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
stevewcchang.bsky.social
Steve W. C. Chang @stevewcchang.bsky.social · Jul 29
Super excited to share this new work from the lab (led by Guangyao Qi)! We demonstrate compositional social gaze codes in the prefrontal-amygdala circuits, by testing three predictions from the compositionality hypothesis. 👇👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Compositionality of social gaze in the prefrontal-amygdala circuits
Each social gaze can be deconstructed into primitive components, including gaze content, social state, and gaze duration. To reduce dimensionality and facilitate generalization, the brain needs to rep...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
stevewcchang.bsky.social
Steve W. C. Chang @stevewcchang.bsky.social · Aug 10
Very excited to share a new collaborative work with @neuralnandy.bsky.social and Monika Jadi on using a novel ‘super-seasoning’ approach and dynamic Bayesian network modeling to reveal multi-area causal network dynamics underlying social interaction.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Causal Dynamics of Social Gaze in Primate Prefrontal-Amygdala Networks Revealed by Dynamic Bayesian Modeling
Social gaze is a fundamental channel of primate communication, shaping dynamic interactions and fostering mutual understanding. While prior studies have mapped the behavioral correlates of social gaze...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
stevewcchang.bsky.social
Steve W. C. Chang @stevewcchang.bsky.social · Aug 28
Super excited to share this new collaborative work - marmosets use diverse and highly flexible strategies when they cooperate. These strategies are powerfully determined by both social factors (sex, dominance, familiarity) & individual partner identity.

www.cell.com/current-biol...
Diverse and flexible strategies enable successful cooperation in marmoset dyads
Meisner and Shi et al. show that common marmosets flexibly coordinate with partners using both gaze-dependent and rhythmic strategies. Cooperation depends on active social monitoring and is shaped by ...
www.cell.com
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Reposted by Melissa Franch, PhD
dengpan.bsky.social
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 Melissa Franch, PhD
nicolecrust.bsky.social
Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · Aug 22
Reflecting on my journey with @mfranch.bsky.social, from how I chose my mentors and topics (excitement!), what inspired me to write a book (befuddlement) & then shift to mood research (opportunity). Also: how I interpret my own emotions (lean in). Thanks for having me, @storiesofwin.bsky.social!
storiesofwin.bsky.social
Stories of WiN @storiesofwin.bsky.social · Aug 22
Our latest profile is here! Dr. Nicole Rust (@nicolecrust.bsky.social) studies the neural representations of mood & has recently published a book about new ways we can conduct neuroscience research to better undersand mental illness. Learn more below:

www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...
Dr. Nicole Rust — Stories of WiN
studies the neural representations of mood and has recently published a book about new ways we can conduct neuroscience research to better undersand mental illness.
www.storiesofwin.org
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