iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Why do our visual systems have “shortcut” connections (V1-V4)? What do they add beyond the classic hierarchical (V1-V2-V3-V4) pathway?   The lab’s latest study takes activity flow modeling to the next level to answer this question, led by @alextzalav.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

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Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Inspired by Edinburgh’s legacy of big ideas (e.g., Hume), on a train leaving the city, I crafted a proposal for a book about big ideas in network neuroscience—how brain activity flows generate representations that together compose our minds. The rest is history, and this new book: shorturl.at/3p100

press.princeton.edu

Brain Flows

A pioneering theory of how brain network flows compose the neural symphonies that make us who we are

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Understanding these distributed pathways provides a new lens for clinical conditions like concussion-related oculomotor dysfunction. It’s not just about one damaged region; it’s about how the whole network communicates. 7/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

By testing participants across separate scanning sessions, we found that these network signatures are stable. The brain's intrinsic architecture for convergent eye movements is a robust blueprint that reliably supports functional responses. 6/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

The Heavy Lifters: VIS and DAN 🏋️ Which networks drive this flow? Our results showed that the Visual and Dorsal Attention networks dominate the propagation of signals during convergent eye movements. 5/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

We focused on the Cortical Circuitry of Convergence, including the primary visual cortex and frontal/parietal and supplementary eye fields. When we excluded these core regions from the model's "source," the rest of the brain's network connectivity accurately regenerated their activity. 4/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

We used Activity Flow Mapping to model how task activations arise from the propagation of activity across distributed connectivity pathways and showed that activity-flow-generated activation patterns closely match the actual task activations during convergent eye movements. 3/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Coordinated activity across both eyes is essential for maintaining single visual perception, supporting everyday activities such as reading and interacting with digital screens. Impairments in this system can result in significant functional limitations, also seen in neurological disorders. 2/8

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Our recent study, "Distributed cortical network dynamics of binocular convergent eye movements in humans" is out in Network Neuroscience, where we move beyond simple brain mapping to show that binocular convergence is driven by the flow of activity across distributed neural networks. 1/8

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Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Ravi Mill @ravimill.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Excited to see our paper with @mwcole.bsky.social finally out in peer-reviewed form @natcomms.nature.com! We examine how the human brain learns new tasks and optimizes representations over practice…1/n

Schematic depicting cortical-subcortical interactions during multi-task learning

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Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Lab’s latest is out in Imaging Neuroscience, led by Kirsten Peterson: “Regularized partial correlation provides reliable functional connectivity estimates while correcting for widespread confounding”, where we demonstrate a major improvement to standard fMRI functional connectivity (correlation) 1/n

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Farzin Hajebrahimi @farzinha.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Stories no one had heard in years…

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Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

“Cognitive flexibility as the shifting of brain network flows by flexible neural representations”, a solo paper by yours truly, making the case that brain activity flow shifts are essential to mental flexibility (and quite interesting too!) Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by Farzin Hajebrahimi

Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Lab’s latest at PLOS Comp Biol, led by Carrisa Cocuzza: “Distributed network flows generate localized category selectivity in human visual cortex”. This one changed how I think the brain works! Even "localized" functions are likely generated by distributed processes doi.org/10.1371/jour...

doi.org

Distributed network flows generate localized category selectivity in human visual cortex

Author summary A fundamental question in neuroscience has persisted for over a century: to what extent do distributed processes drive brain function? The existence of category-selective regions within...

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