Marieke van Vugt
mvugt.bsky.social
Marieke van Vugt
@mvugt.bsky.social
computational cognitive neuroscientist (assoc prof
@unigroningen.bsky.socialc) studying mind-wandering using cogsci and AI techniques, also amateur ballet dancer and Tibetan buddhist
Waste not: how researchers harness pee and poo for science www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Waste not: how researchers harness pee and poo for science
It might seem gross, but these materials are treasure troves for research.
www.nature.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Now out: new work by my PhD student Xinyu Li : Evaluating the impact of input noise and ERP-based penalties on the physiological plausibility of EEG generation using WGAN-GP authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
authors.elsevier.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
November 20, 2025 at 3:44 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Sad to see the CDC is now spreading fairly straightforward lies.
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
My new favorite kind of meme is "here are detailed instructions on how to turn off AI". 🔨
November 19, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
My lab is recruiting PhD students for fall 2026. Please reach out if interested!
November 19, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Recovery, relapse, and genetic risk in eating disorders.

A Danish study of more than 10,000 people with anorexia, bulimia, or EDNOS found that almost 9 in 10 reached a period of remission, and that genetic factors shaped who recovered and who relapsed.

#EatingDisorders #Genetics

🧵 THREAD
November 20, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Can we please discuss accessibility at conferences?

When organizers and schedules assume that everyone can walk fast and climb stairs, people with mobility issues (visible or invisible) might feel excluded.

/
November 20, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
How the Avalanche of Academic Papers Threatens Scientific Research, by Vince Bielski
'Editor-in-Chief Anna Stilz at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social led a revolt that culminated in the mass resignation of the journal’s entire editorial staff and board.'
www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/202...
How the Avalanche of Academic Papers Threatens Scientific Research
This is the third part of a series on academic publishing. Read part one here and part two here. For many years, the prestigious journal Philosophy & Public Affairs published about
www.realclearinvestigations.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
George Deane and Daphne Demekas win the € 20.000,- Computational Phenomenology of Pure Awareness Prize
mpe-project.info/wp-content/u...
for 2025 with this contribution:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
November 19, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Very interesting work on extending the usefulness of biophysical neural network models (towards performing tasks, fitting experimental data, or all of the above).
November 20, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Tomorrow 12pm (ET) at the MIT Consciousness Club. Consciousness Emerges From Neural Dynamics - Earl K. Miller (hey, that's me!). Join us via Zoom.
sites.google.com/view/mit-con...
#neuroscience
MIT Consciousness Club
The MIT Consciousness Club aims to foster interdisciplinary research on consciousness at MIT and in the broader Boston area by organizing a monthly event featuring an expert talk on consciousness foll...
sites.google.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Truly mind-blowing levels of hypocrisy from this admin on using government strong arming to threaten social media companies into censoring

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/3...
November 19, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
RL Debates 5: Anne "not everything is RL" Collins

Anne delivered an amazing synthesis of her extensive work on how working memory shapes reward-based learning in humans.

📜 Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41...
📽️ Watch the full presentation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEqZ...

🧠🤖🧠📈
November 19, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
November 19, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
if you are considering submitting an application for this position, you still have just under 2 weeks to do so

any and all suitable candidates, please apply. everyone else, pls share with your networks
📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd...

applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome

pls share with your networks
November 19, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Half your brain cells are astrocytes, oscillating and modulating activity without spiking, while cortical neurons spike sparsely. So nearly 100% of cells are oscillating almost all the time, but only a minority of cells emit rare spikes. Maybe spikes are the tail and oscillations are the dog.
November 19, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
LLMs destroy context. You used to be able to tell a crank website from a good source partly by its style.

But now we have a tool that puts careful research, incoherent garbage, and intentional shitposting through a kind of grammatical instagram filter, presenting them all with the same credibility
The bigger change is presentation, historically, these emails were visually chaotic: sudden colour changes, ALL CAPS, screenshots pasted at random. Classic signs of disordered thinking. Now they’re neat, structured, and grammatically consistent. The delusion hasn't changed, but the formatting has.
November 19, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
DecNef is a powerful tool for brain modulation, but it remains difficult to optimize; we built DecNefLab, a simulation framework using “virtual subjs” as ML generative models to prototype protocols before exps, & showed conditions in which DecNef fails to induce learning
arxiv.org/html/2511.14...
DecNefLab: A Modular and Interpretable Simulation Framework for Decoded Neurofeedback
arxiv.org
November 19, 2025 at 3:56 PM
"As academia becomes McDonaldized — subject to the fast-food industry principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control — one phrase becomes relevant: ‘Do you want cites with that?’" www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Introducing the j-metric: a true measure of what matters in academia
Science has become obsessed with publishing numbers. With this new satirical proposal, have we reached peak metric?
www.nature.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
«If you object that we’re not in a zombie movie because there are no brain-eating cannibals, let me reassure you, there are.»
@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
Turns out the zombie apocalypse isn’t as fun as they said it would be – Rebecca Solnit on our dangerously disconnected world
A population numbed, dazed, present-but-not-present – had it happened overnight it would be a sci-fi horror movie. And if you looked up from your phone for long enough, you might notice it’s started a...
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Exciting news from the chairs of Biomag 2026, Prof. Jiahong Gao and Prof. Huan Luo — the conference website is now live: biomag2026.scimeeting.cn The meetings take place in Beijing, 23–25 August 2026. Save the date and start thinking about ideas for posters and symposia! Please share with colleagues
BIOMAG 2025,在线会议,会议直播平台,网络会议直播,美迪康会务通,学术会议管理系统,会议活动管理,注册签到管理,会场幻灯片传输转播,PPT传输,会议网络直播,电子壁报管理系统,医学会,会员管理系统
biomag2026.scimeeting.cn
November 11, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Looking for a post-bac RA position focused on the brain bases of affective and psychotic illness?
@holmeslab-bhi.bsky.social is hiring!
@cahbir.bsky.social @rutgersbhi.bsky.social @rutgersu.bsky.social @sobp-org.bsky.social @hitop-system.bsky.social @ohbmofficial.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Marieke van Vugt
Whistles to warn your neighbours
Get your whistles be part of the solution ❤️‍🩹
No more ICE
So proud of my daughter, @katemacfarlane.bsky.social, who has been helping organize this project to distribute whistles that can alert immigrants and neighbors about ICE raids. Get your whistle and share with your friends at @wawhistles.bsky.social 1/
Seattle Neighbors Build Whistle Kits to Protect Immigrants From ICE share.google/Hrx677HzfH3v...

"ICE relies on shock tactics and moving in very quickly … it turns [an] otherwise pretty silent abduction into a loud, highly visible opportunity for neighbors to rally."
@wawhistles.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 5:30 PM