Irena Arslanova
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neuroirena.bsky.social
Irena Arslanova
@neuroirena.bsky.social
270 followers 180 following 26 posts
Cognitive neuroscientist | 💗 - 🧠 interactions | ⏳ perception

@leverhulme.ac.uk Early-Career Fellow @rhulpsychology.bsky.social

irenaarslanova.com
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neuroirena.bsky.social
Irena Arslanova @neuroirena.bsky.social · Jan 14
My TEDx talk (9min) has found its home on TED's official website: go.ted.com/irenaarslanova 🧠🫀⏳

🧪 👩🏻‍🔬
#CogSci
#Neuroskyence
#SciComm
Does your heartbeat shape your sense of time?
Do you ever feel like time slows down when you’re bored but flies when you’re having fun? Cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova explores the ways your brain and heart shape your perception of time,...
go.ted.com
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
sarahgarf.bsky.social
** Recruiting a postdoc ** We are looking for a postdoc to work on emotion, mental health, and interoception, based in London at @ucl.ac.uk in my lab (Clinical and Affective Neuroscience). Part of a large Wellcome Grant (co-led with the brilliant @camillanord.bsky.social)
November 24, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
currentbiology.bsky.social
Some spiritual traditions believe the 'self' as a coherent, enduring entity to be an illusion, there is also a tangible 'bodily self' that forms the basis of this notion through somatosensation.

Fascinating Primer by Pattrick Haggard and @mattlongo.bsky.social

www.cell.com/current-biol...
October 30, 2025 at 4:43 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
On malleability of subjective time as read in literary works ⏳
[3]

#timeperception #literature #quotes
October 30, 2025 at 12:22 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
On malleability of subjective time as read in literary works ⏳
[2]

#timeperception #literature #quotes
On malleability of subjective time as read in The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes p. 122 (Vintage, 2012)
October 28, 2025 at 2:26 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
On malleability of subjective time as read in literary works ⏳
[1]

#timeperception #literature #quotes
On malleability of subjective time as read in The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes p. 3 (Vintage, 2012)
October 27, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
martinwiener.bsky.social
Hey, I wrote a thing. I (and others) think that our sense of time and mental well-being are linked. Here are my thoughts on it. Thanks @psyche.co for the invite!

psyche.co/guides/how-t...
How to alter the passage of time to feel fast or slow | Psyche Guides
Knowing the psychology behind why moments drag or whizz by can give you a degree of control over your experience of time
psyche.co
July 30, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
brainbodylab.bsky.social
Such a nice collection of brain-body interaction articles in the special issue of @currentbiology.bsky.social. Love the beautiful vagus nerve on the cover by Andreas Vesalius www.cell.com/current-biol...
October 22, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
theguardian.com
Huntington’s disease treated successfully for first time in gene therapy trial
Huntington’s disease treated successfully for first time in gene therapy trial
UCL trialled hours-long surgical procedure to treat disease which causes dementia and paralysis Huntington’s disease, a devastating degenerative illness that runs in families, has been treated successfully for the first time in a breakthrough gene therapy trial. The disease, caused by a single gene defect, steadily kills brain cells leading to dementia, paralysis and ultimately death. Those with a parent with Huntington’s have a 50% chance of developing the disease, which until now has been incurable. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
September 24, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
royalholloway.bsky.social
A Booker Prize shortlist to celebrate! 👏

We're delighted that Professor Ben Markovits, novelist and lecturer in our Department of English, has had his twelfth novel 'The Rest of Our Lives' shortlisted for the prestigious and world-renowned Booker Prize.

More: ow.ly/l4Vt50X1sIR
Professor Ben Markovits in brown shirt
September 24, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
silviaseghezzi.bsky.social
✨ Excited to announce the Women in Psychological Sciences Lecture 2025 at Birkbeck!
🎤 Speaker: Prof. Asifa Majid (Oxford)
📅 5 Nov 2025, 17:00–20:00
📍 Birkbeck, University of London
👉 Free & open to all: link in the comments to book your place
September 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
nature.com
First independent survey of deaths in Gaza reports more than 80,000 fatalities

The results align with other efforts to count the number of people killed amid the ongoing conflict.

https://go.nature.com/44nH0la
First independent survey of deaths in Gaza reports more than 80,000 fatalities
Results align with other efforts to count the number of people killed amid the ongoing conflict.
go.nature.com
June 27, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
jungheejung.bsky.social
New Open dataset alert:
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!

N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!

🧵below
September 4, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
mlisi.bsky.social
New registered report out in BJHP📣

How to reduce demand for antibiotics?

Using Signal Detection Theory, we show that clinician explanations & CRP point-of-care results reduce antibiotic expectations and improve discernment

doi.org/10.1111/bjhp...

#PsychSciSky @rhulpsychology.bsky.social
<em>British Journal of Health Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library
Objectives Patients' expectations for antibiotics are among the strongest predictors of clinicians' decisions to overprescribe antibiotics. In this registered report, we used a signal detection theo...
doi.org
September 2, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
silviaseghezzi.bsky.social
Our 2025–2026 Seminar Series is ready to begin 🎓✨
We’re kicking off on 1 October with a fantastic line-up of speakers from across the UK and beyond.
Join us on Wednesdays from 1–2 PM at Birkbeck. Light refreshments provided ☕️🥐
Here’s the full programme 👇 @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social
September 1, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
martinwiener.bsky.social
Thanks to NSF and BSF, we've received a CRCNS grant!! 🎉

I'll be working with the amazing @ayeletlandau.bsky.social and Yuval Benjamini to explore and understand how our sense of time and image memorability are linked. ⌛🧠

We have 2(!) post-doc opportunities available - details coming soon!
August 26, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
royalholloway.bsky.social
Congratulations to Professor Ben Markovits from our Department of English, whose latest novel, The Rest of Our Lives, has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025.

#RoyalHolloway #University
Prof Ben Markovits (left) and the cover of The Rest of Our Lives (right)
August 19, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
mkwittmann.bsky.social
📢 Job announcement: Two (!) 3-year postdoc jobs in our lab at UCL 📢

🧠💫🔊 We are looking for postdocs interested in the abstract mechanisms underlying social cognition. Modelling, fMRI and non-invasive ultrasound, a new deep-brain stimulation method.

Please RT

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
www.ucl.ac.uk
August 7, 2025 at 2:25 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
No effect of cardiac signals on conflict resolution, but evidence for systolic enhancement of phasic alerting 🫀🧠
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
w @pollydalton.bsky.social & @mtsakiris.bsky.social
@biolpsychology.bsky.social 📄

@rhulpsychology.bsky.social 🏡
@erc.europa.eu 💰
July 24, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
silviaseghezzi.bsky.social
@assc28.bsky.social @neuroirena.bsky.social so proud of my academic bestie & collaborator & flatmate & occasional PT ❤️
July 7, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
leverhulme.ac.uk
What will the Trust’s major new initiative fund?

From strengthening the UK’s world-leading research base to fostering innovative interdisciplinary inquiry, the Leverhulme Centenary Awards are designed to support exceptional research talent.

Read more here: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/100mill...
July 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
Off to @assc28.bsky.social with my partner in crime @silviaseghezzi.bsky.social 👩🏻‍🔬🧠 #ASSC28

Presenting new EEG results from @rhulpsychology.bsky.social w @mjaglinska.bsky.social and @mtsakiris.bsky.social. Kindly supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk & Bial Foundation.

See slides below and get in touch!
July 4, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
royalholloway.bsky.social
We asked Dr @neuroirena.bsky.social , Leverhulme Early-Career Fellow from @rhulpsychology.bsky.social, to tell us all about her research in 60 seconds ⏱ This is how it went.

#RoyalHolloway #University #Research
June 25, 2025 at 3:14 PM
neuroirena.bsky.social
Come study with us ! 🧠👩🏻‍🔬
@rhulpsychology.bsky.social
www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-her...
June 24, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Irena Arslanova
martinwiener.bsky.social
ONE WEEK LEFT to submit abstracts for #TRF4 in Tokyo! If you're doing work related to #time, #timing, #temporal_processing (broadly defined), you should join us! Funds available to support travel, keynotes confirmed, and a free half-day tour of Tokyo 🇯🇵

sites.google.com/view/trf4tok...
Timing Research Forum 4
Welcome to TRF4! The 4th Timing Research Forum Conference We are excited to welcome you to TRF4, the fourth international conference organized by the Timing Research Forum (TRF) community. TRF is a v...
sites.google.com
May 26, 2025 at 2:54 PM