Alina Studenova
@studenova.bsky.social
PhD candidate, MPI CBS, MPSCog,
brain oscillations, cortical microstructure
https://alinastudenova.com/
brain oscillations, cortical microstructure
https://alinastudenova.com/
There was a paper recently stating that functional connectivity in EEG/MEG is mostly aperiodic and not oscillatory. And I thought, what if it is oscillatory but from transients (that don't show clear peak in the spectrum)? This preprint suggests that it could be the case👏, at least for some tasks.
Inter-areal coupling for cognition through coincident oscillatory transients https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.21.689181v1
November 23, 2025 at 1:38 PM
There was a paper recently stating that functional connectivity in EEG/MEG is mostly aperiodic and not oscillatory. And I thought, what if it is oscillatory but from transients (that don't show clear peak in the spectrum)? This preprint suggests that it could be the case👏, at least for some tasks.
I use ICA for "source" extraction. For some participants, it works well, while for others, it miserably fails. Here, I tried to obtain the right and left M1/S1.
#brainmovies
#brainmovies
November 21, 2025 at 2:37 PM
I use ICA for "source" extraction. For some participants, it works well, while for others, it miserably fails. Here, I tried to obtain the right and left M1/S1.
#brainmovies
#brainmovies
Propagation of activity in LFP was termed "traveling waves" (TW)🙂↕️. But then people took this concept and began calling EEG phase lags TW🤨. This review delineated these two types, introducing first-order and second-order TW. Also, the authors review possible origins of two types (distinct origins!).👏
🚨New publication!
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Traveling waves across scales: Different mechanisms but same canonical computation?
The review proposes a novel mechanistic distinction between first- and second-order traveling waves that subserves a same canonical computation by ordering neuronal processing to impose a computationa...
elifesciences.org
November 20, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Propagation of activity in LFP was termed "traveling waves" (TW)🙂↕️. But then people took this concept and began calling EEG phase lags TW🤨. This review delineated these two types, introducing first-order and second-order TW. Also, the authors review possible origins of two types (distinct origins!).👏
In this study, alpha power was found to be decreasing over the course of the experiment, while previous studies demonstrated an increase over time. The manuscript is scarce in the methods section, so it's hard to tell what exactly has been done. But if it is true, it requires explanation.🤔
Posterior Cortex Isolation Enhances Detection of Alpha Desynchronization During Sustained Attention https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.17.688558v1
November 19, 2025 at 9:18 AM
In this study, alpha power was found to be decreasing over the course of the experiment, while previous studies demonstrated an increase over time. The manuscript is scarce in the methods section, so it's hard to tell what exactly has been done. But if it is true, it requires explanation.🤔
Aging mice and humans with multiple sclerosis have the same failure in the oligodendrocyte differentiation program. This study identified a transcription factor cascade that fails to drive oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Fascinating world of glia! Are white matter hyperintensities due to the same?
Dysregulation of transcription networks regulating oligodendrogenesis in age-related decline in CNS remyelination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.14.688494v1
November 17, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Aging mice and humans with multiple sclerosis have the same failure in the oligodendrocyte differentiation program. This study identified a transcription factor cascade that fails to drive oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Fascinating world of glia! Are white matter hyperintensities due to the same?
V. informative and practically useful piece! In fact, philosophy (epistemology) is factual field. The author lists 200 facts that he terms "epistemic preventable medicine"💯. Some facts are more obvious than others. My personal favorites are 38, 13-17, 165-168.
I wish the same for philosophy of mind.
I wish the same for philosophy of mind.
Bryan Frances just dropped one helluva good paper on philpapers (forthcoming in Philosophical Studies). It lists 200 elementary facts from epistemology and on that basis draws interesting conclusions about the nature and progress of philosophy philarchive.org/rec/FRAPAF-2
Bryan Frances, Philosophy as Fact-Based Discipline: 200 Philosophical Facts - PhilArchive
I list 200 straightforward facts directly about philosophical matters that virtually all philosophers know and non-philosophers don’t know. We have seriously underestimated the straightforward epistem...
philarchive.org
November 16, 2025 at 11:14 AM
V. informative and practically useful piece! In fact, philosophy (epistemology) is factual field. The author lists 200 facts that he terms "epistemic preventable medicine"💯. Some facts are more obvious than others. My personal favorites are 38, 13-17, 165-168.
I wish the same for philosophy of mind.
I wish the same for philosophy of mind.
Today, I introduce developmental rhyme,
What happens in the womb with brain parts over time?
Let’s first consider stage when brain looks like three balls,
That formed from neural tube, when neural plate was closed.
What happens in the womb with brain parts over time?
Let’s first consider stage when brain looks like three balls,
That formed from neural tube, when neural plate was closed.
November 14, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Today, I introduce developmental rhyme,
What happens in the womb with brain parts over time?
Let’s first consider stage when brain looks like three balls,
That formed from neural tube, when neural plate was closed.
What happens in the womb with brain parts over time?
Let’s first consider stage when brain looks like three balls,
That formed from neural tube, when neural plate was closed.
Objectively measured time can be very different from subjectively perceived time. However, Buzsáki argues that both time in physics and subjective time relate to motion (or speed, or change). He suggests that internal speed is attention.🙂↕️ This review also covers neuronal mechanisms of time-tracking.
Time, space, memory and brain–body rhythms — a Perspective by György Buzsáki
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Time, space, memory and brain–body rhythms - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Understanding how the brain represents experienced time and how representations of space and time are integrated to form episodic memories has been a goal of much neuroscientific research. In this Per...
www.nature.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Objectively measured time can be very different from subjectively perceived time. However, Buzsáki argues that both time in physics and subjective time relate to motion (or speed, or change). He suggests that internal speed is attention.🙂↕️ This review also covers neuronal mechanisms of time-tracking.
Beta oscillations can be subdivided into low beta (13-20 Hz) and high beta (20-30 Hz). This paper nicely demonstrates dissociation using Hidden Markov Models. While low beta is completely suppressed during movement, high beta shows variability. Post-movement rebound is dominated by low beta. Cool!👍
Time- and frequency-resolved decomposition of beta brain activity reveals two functionally distinct beta bands https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.682052v1
November 11, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Beta oscillations can be subdivided into low beta (13-20 Hz) and high beta (20-30 Hz). This paper nicely demonstrates dissociation using Hidden Markov Models. While low beta is completely suppressed during movement, high beta shows variability. Post-movement rebound is dominated by low beta. Cool!👍
Neurons x time points is higher-dimensional data. It can be reduced to a lower-dimensional manifold. This review gives an introduction, explanation, and summary of current evidence on neuronal manifolds. I appreciated the discussion of emergence: is the manifold more than the sum of its parts?
New review on neural manifold and population activity in the brain-
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience
Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...
www.nature.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Neurons x time points is higher-dimensional data. It can be reduced to a lower-dimensional manifold. This review gives an introduction, explanation, and summary of current evidence on neuronal manifolds. I appreciated the discussion of emergence: is the manifold more than the sum of its parts?
Plateau potential is exactly what it sounds like: the neuron membrane potential that increases a bit and stays in this depolarized state for ~500 ms. This paper found that pyramidal neurons in V1 L5 have those plateau potentials, and they are related to behavioral plasticity. V. weird but cool!👏
Plateau potentials are instructive signals for behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity in the neocortex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.07.687250v1
November 8, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Plateau potential is exactly what it sounds like: the neuron membrane potential that increases a bit and stays in this depolarized state for ~500 ms. This paper found that pyramidal neurons in V1 L5 have those plateau potentials, and they are related to behavioral plasticity. V. weird but cool!👏
Recently, I was playing with extracting brain activity using ICA (I know that some use SSD, but I use ICA).
Here's one example from the dataset with somatosensory stimulation. There are several components over the right somato-motor area (where the brain responds to stimulation).🧐
#brainmovie
Here's one example from the dataset with somatosensory stimulation. There are several components over the right somato-motor area (where the brain responds to stimulation).🧐
#brainmovie
November 7, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Recently, I was playing with extracting brain activity using ICA (I know that some use SSD, but I use ICA).
Here's one example from the dataset with somatosensory stimulation. There are several components over the right somato-motor area (where the brain responds to stimulation).🧐
#brainmovie
Here's one example from the dataset with somatosensory stimulation. There are several components over the right somato-motor area (where the brain responds to stimulation).🧐
#brainmovie
Aperiodic spectra under anti-epileptic drugs (presumably reduced excitation). No good news for 1/f slope, but the offset was decreased. Cool!👏 Found something for myself: alpha power seems to be reduced under lamotrigine but not levetiracetam, and only in eyes-open but not in eyes-closed condition.🤔
Investigating the Influence of Anti-Seizure Medications on Aperiodic EEG Activity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.02.686141v1
November 5, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Aperiodic spectra under anti-epileptic drugs (presumably reduced excitation). No good news for 1/f slope, but the offset was decreased. Cool!👏 Found something for myself: alpha power seems to be reduced under lamotrigine but not levetiracetam, and only in eyes-open but not in eyes-closed condition.🤔
Proposed model returns uncertainty representations (confidence) based on input sensory signals. Tested on auditory perception. Cool!👍 It means that if one has data without confidence ratings, the model can give at least an estimate. I wonder how easy it could be to adapt it to somatosensory domain.
Task-optimized models of sensory uncertainty reproduce human confidence judgments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.31.685933v1
November 4, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Proposed model returns uncertainty representations (confidence) based on input sensory signals. Tested on auditory perception. Cool!👍 It means that if one has data without confidence ratings, the model can give at least an estimate. I wonder how easy it could be to adapt it to somatosensory domain.
I like this channel! Scrolling through titles and reading abstracts gives me a very unusual milieu.
Not everything is directly related to my research, but there are gems like this👇
Not everything is directly related to my research, but there are gems like this👇
New on the Archive:
Savage, C. Wade, ed. (1978) Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 9 . University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27080/
Savage, C. Wade, ed. (1978) Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 9 . University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27080/
November 3, 2025 at 3:53 PM
I like this channel! Scrolling through titles and reading abstracts gives me a very unusual milieu.
Not everything is directly related to my research, but there are gems like this👇
Not everything is directly related to my research, but there are gems like this👇
Reposted by Alina Studenova
Last week I was being trained as a #MNE-Python TrainEErs at #PracticalMEEG2025 - it was a lot of fun to look behind the scenes and learn how to run a good workshop :) thanks to @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for hosting and Marijn van Vliet and @nschawor.bsky.social for organizing this amazing workshop!
November 2, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Last week I was being trained as a #MNE-Python TrainEErs at #PracticalMEEG2025 - it was a lot of fun to look behind the scenes and learn how to run a good workshop :) thanks to @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for hosting and Marijn van Vliet and @nschawor.bsky.social for organizing this amazing workshop!
Noradrenaline is involved in motor learning. And not just as a background unspecific signal but actually refined and precise, both temporally and spatially. This study demonstrated it using two strains of mice and optogenetic stimulation. Cool!👍 I wonder what part of this learning is attention...
Temporal dynamics of noradrenaline release at fine spatial scales during motor learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.29.685016v1
November 1, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Noradrenaline is involved in motor learning. And not just as a background unspecific signal but actually refined and precise, both temporally and spatially. This study demonstrated it using two strains of mice and optogenetic stimulation. Cool!👍 I wonder what part of this learning is attention...
Today at #PracticalMEEG2025 Nick @willenjoy.bsky.social and I will be conducting a tutorial on how to simulate EEG/MEG data with our toolbox meegsim. If you happen to be around, come to our virtual booth; we will tell scary stories.👻
October 30, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Today at #PracticalMEEG2025 Nick @willenjoy.bsky.social and I will be conducting a tutorial on how to simulate EEG/MEG data with our toolbox meegsim. If you happen to be around, come to our virtual booth; we will tell scary stories.👻
Reposted by Alina Studenova
Noise as a Signal – Moritz Gerster, Vadim Nikulin & Arno Villringer analysed data from 119 patients & discovered a new electrical signature of #Parkinson’s Disease, now published in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social: www.cbs.mpg.de/2412209/2025...
#parkinsontherapy #clinicalstudy
#parkinsontherapy #clinicalstudy
Noise as a Signal – A New Electrical Signature of Parkinson’s Disease
Noise as a Signal – A New Electrical Signature of Parkinson’s Disease
www.cbs.mpg.de
October 30, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Noise as a Signal – Moritz Gerster, Vadim Nikulin & Arno Villringer analysed data from 119 patients & discovered a new electrical signature of #Parkinson’s Disease, now published in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social: www.cbs.mpg.de/2412209/2025...
#parkinsontherapy #clinicalstudy
#parkinsontherapy #clinicalstudy
Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) can capture a 140 Hz retinal response to a flash of light. Super!👏 It's not that I study high gamma at 200 Hz or high frequency oscillations at 600 Hz, and it's not that I have convenient access to OPMs, but it's encouraging to see the OPMs' increased bandwidth.
High frequency oscillations measured with optically pumped magnetometers from the human retina https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.27.683907v1
October 28, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) can capture a 140 Hz retinal response to a flash of light. Super!👏 It's not that I study high gamma at 200 Hz or high frequency oscillations at 600 Hz, and it's not that I have convenient access to OPMs, but it's encouraging to see the OPMs' increased bandwidth.
Diazepam increases the effects of GABAa in the brain. It also changes alpha rhythm. The most pronounced change occurred in somatomotor regions. Good news!👏I wish they would have recorded structural MRI...
Diazepam alters the shape of alpha oscillations recorded from human cortex using EEG https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.24.684311v1
October 27, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Diazepam increases the effects of GABAa in the brain. It also changes alpha rhythm. The most pronounced change occurred in somatomotor regions. Good news!👏I wish they would have recorded structural MRI...
Another book summary/opinion. This time I read Andy Clark's recent book. The book is written well and reads fast. However, predictive processing as an explanation for everything sounds too good to be true.
www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...
www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...
Alina Studenova - the-experience-machine
I speak two languages and am currently learning the third. Often, the search for the term in the right language miserably fails. For instance, I speak English but will insert a word or two in German. ...
www.alinastudenova.com
October 26, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Another book summary/opinion. This time I read Andy Clark's recent book. The book is written well and reads fast. However, predictive processing as an explanation for everything sounds too good to be true.
www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...
www.alinastudenova.com/home/blog/bo...
Reposted by Alina Studenova
learn about advanced electrophysiology-related toolboxes (>20 to choose from) at this online event, in lectures or hands-on tutorials:
📅 Wednesday, October 30th at 2 pm (CET)
cuttingeeg.org/practicalmee...
very cool concept! 🙂 free but registration required.
#PracticalMEEG2025
📅 Wednesday, October 30th at 2 pm (CET)
cuttingeeg.org/practicalmee...
very cool concept! 🙂 free but registration required.
#PracticalMEEG2025
Bouquet | PracticalMEEG2025
cuttingeeg.org
October 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
learn about advanced electrophysiology-related toolboxes (>20 to choose from) at this online event, in lectures or hands-on tutorials:
📅 Wednesday, October 30th at 2 pm (CET)
cuttingeeg.org/practicalmee...
very cool concept! 🙂 free but registration required.
#PracticalMEEG2025
📅 Wednesday, October 30th at 2 pm (CET)
cuttingeeg.org/practicalmee...
very cool concept! 🙂 free but registration required.
#PracticalMEEG2025
Nice piece about extreme multiverse analysis! The exemplar study performed 3.6 billion regression models. The author argues against this approach and suggests that multiverse analysis should only include valid models selected based on theories. Statistical inference requires thinking before acting🤓
October 25, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Nice piece about extreme multiverse analysis! The exemplar study performed 3.6 billion regression models. The author argues against this approach and suggests that multiverse analysis should only include valid models selected based on theories. Statistical inference requires thinking before acting🤓
People come and people go,
In a monotonic flow.
Finally, I have a guest,
Demonstrating interest.
I would show him alpha waves,
How they are dispersed in space.
Then the myelin content maps,
Cut across the cortex’s depths.
And relation that I found
With interpretation round.
In a monotonic flow.
Finally, I have a guest,
Demonstrating interest.
I would show him alpha waves,
How they are dispersed in space.
Then the myelin content maps,
Cut across the cortex’s depths.
And relation that I found
With interpretation round.
October 24, 2025 at 10:39 AM
People come and people go,
In a monotonic flow.
Finally, I have a guest,
Demonstrating interest.
I would show him alpha waves,
How they are dispersed in space.
Then the myelin content maps,
Cut across the cortex’s depths.
And relation that I found
With interpretation round.
In a monotonic flow.
Finally, I have a guest,
Demonstrating interest.
I would show him alpha waves,
How they are dispersed in space.
Then the myelin content maps,
Cut across the cortex’s depths.
And relation that I found
With interpretation round.