iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alon Baram

@alonbaram.bsky.social

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Big thanks to our co-authors Hamed Nili, Ines Barreiros and Veronika Samborska. Finally: this dataset was collected by the formidable @mgarvert.bsky.social in 2017, before she left @behrenstimb.bsky.social lab, and has been lying around semi-orphan for many years. It’s never too late!

000

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

We then replicate this finding using RSA.

100

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Crucially, we scanned subjects twice, with several days between scans. The mPFC abstraction effect only emerged in the second scanning session.

100

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Using fMRI repetition suppression, we found that in the mPFC the strength of activation in response to a stimulus (object in context) strongly depended on the "cross-graph distance" from the previous stimulus - an abstracted relational map!

110

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Subjects learned two graphs in different contexts (blue and red). Both graphs contained the same objects and connections, but the distances between pairs of objects were decorrelated across graphs.

100

Alon Baram @alonbaram.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...

211640

Reposted by Alon Baram

Mathias Sablé-Meyer @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Good scientist, terrible designer? We feel you. Inspired by MetBrewer, the palette chooser for the connoisseurs, @sandra-neuro.bsky.social and I present EraBrewer: great looking colours for us Swifties! github.com/mathias-sm/E... cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

1144