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mike freund

@mikefreund.bsky.social
735 followers 2.2K following 39 posts

forever a student currently a post-doc @ sites.brown.edu/badrelab curious about control of decision making, neural dynamics, multivariate stats mcfreund.github.io

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Reposted by mike freund
Jo Etzel @joetzel.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
#introduction I'm currently a staff scientist at Washington U in St Louis (USA), but (late 2026, early 2027) looking for a new position. I'm a big fan of task #fMRI, #BIDS, #baseR #Rstats (incl. graphics) and #knitr, #QC, and papers with very extensive #supplementary materials, but not AI.
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Wouter Kool @wouterkool.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I expect to recruit a PhD student this cycle! The Control and Decision Making Lab at WashU studies control, effort, and decision making, combining behavioral experiments with modeling and neuroimaging. If that sounds cool, check out our work: cdmlab.wustl.edu. How to apply: psych.washu.edu/apply
cdmlab.wustl.edu
Control and Decision Making Lab
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Cheng Xue @cxue.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Our work recently online in Nature Neuroscience: a neural reason why we err more when juggling tasks nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02430-w 🧵 Switching between tasks for different goals is an important form of cognitive flexibility.
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Atsushi Kikumoto @kikumotoatsushi.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm recruiting a PhD student for Fall 2027 at the University of Maryland — Cognitive Flexibility Dynamics Lab, studying cognitive control via brain recording (M/EEG, MRI), stimulation (TUS), and computational modeling. Please email me: cfd-lab.com/join
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annecollins.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Check out our new Trends In Cognitive Science paper on mechanisms of cognitive flexibility - a broad collaborative piece with Florian Bähner, Ali Hummos, Sarah Oh, Kai Sandbrink, and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility: a translational perspective
Cognitive flexibility allows us to adjust behavior when environmental rules change and to recombine prior knowledge in novel situations. However, the …
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Harrison Ritz @hritz.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Our task-switching paper is now out at Current Biology! www.cell.com/current-biol... We find that that our brains reset to a task-neutral state between trials, providing flexibility when the upcoming task is uncertain. RNNs also learn this strategy, but only when trained to switch tasks.
schematic of how a brain might reset to a neutral state between trials
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Monkeys learn to report their own sensory cortical population activity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Tobias Egner @tobiasegner.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
New paper out: Led by super grad student Jim Zhang and in collaboration with Greg Cogan, we review and synthesize Insights into the neural mechanisms supporting cognitive stability and flexibility from human intracranial electroencephalography. For free access: authors.elsevier.com/a/1nRYWY3M3p...
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Kevin J Miller @kevinjmiller.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Computational models are a key part of science but discovering new ones is hard! DataDIVER discovers concise models from data, which surface new mechanistic ideas and clear predictions for future experiments From Google Deepmind Neuroscience Lab + collaborators www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Gouki Okazawa @handle.invalid · 31/05/2026
New review with Cheng Xue at U Chicago @cxue.bsky.social in Trends Neurosci@cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social! We discuss the neural geometry of task-dependent computation: disentangled encoding, RNN modeling, switch cost, etc. www.cell.com/trends/neuro...
cell.com
The ‘neat’ and ‘messy’ in task-dependent neural geometry and computation
To solve diverse real-world tasks, the brain must flexibly switch between task rules and adjust computations. Recent advances in analyzing neural data and modeling neural networks have revealed their ...
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Rui Xu @rui-xu.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
New preprint as my first post! "Monosynaptic connections link functionally similar regions in human cortex." We use electrical stimulation + fMRI in epilepsy patients to map whole-brain monosynaptic connectivity at 42 cortical sites. doi.org/10.64898/202... 1/n
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Randolph Helfrich @randolph-helfrich.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Very excited to share our latest paper led by @nbinish.bsky.social in @natneuro.nature.com We demonstrate how a communication subspace channels higher-dimensional PFC dynamics into lower-D motor activity to enable efficient behavior using human iEEG. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroskyence
nature.com
A communication subspace relays context-dependent actions from human prefrontal to motor cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Context-dependent behavior selects actions according to task demands. Using direct brain recordings in humans, Binish et al. uncover how coordinated population activity efficiently channels informatio...
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Evan Gordon @gordonneuro.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics. It turns out I was wrong. Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Reza Shadmehr @rezashadmehr.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Today I received a note from a grad student who lives in Tehran. Her note gives you firsthand experience of what it’s like to live in a city that is being bombed, and what it’s like to be young and feel despair about your future. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/03/hope...
rezashadmehr.blogspot.com
Hopeless in Tehran
Essays on neuroscience
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Roselyne Chauvin @roselynechauvin.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
The 6x US memory champion – Nelson Dellis – can memorize a deck of cards in 40 seconds and knows the first 10K digits of pi. To figure out how, he let us peak inside his brain. Here is what we learned in our precision brain mapping study www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... youtube.com/shorts/MryMq...
youtube.com
how does his brain do it ? #neuroscience #memory #sport Nelson Dellis 6x US memory champion
YouTube video by Roselyne Chauvin
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
An Efficient Computing Theory of Prefrontal Structured Working Memory Representations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Kudos to the Brown University students who are posting continuous live updates, spaced just minutes apart, on the campus shooting. A lot of grace and professionalism under immense pressure. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
browndailyherald.com
Live updates: Two deceased in active shooter incident at Brown University
Serving the Brown University community since 1891
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Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Ellis starting the day off by reading out Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago" in its entirety.
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Christos Constantinidis @cconstan.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
New paper from the lab: www.nature.com/articles/s41... A brief thread (1/10)
nature.com
Longitudinal measures of monkey brain structure and activity through adolescence predict cognitive maturation - Nature Neuroscience
Working memory improves during adolescent brain development. Zhu et al. tracked monkeys through adolescence, revealing that maturation of white matter tracts and refinement of neural firing patterns s...
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 17/10/2025
I made a video about the shutdown, and why this government worker won’t be a pawn. When the president and Supreme Court are both acting lawlessly, Congress must stand up and stop it. US science is collapsing and Congress needs to act. 🧪 Full video here: www.instagram.com/reel/DP1tXXE...
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Thomas Luo @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
How does the brain decide? 🧠 Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc. After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up. rdcu.be/eGUrv
nature.com
Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature
Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
I'd like to commend the lawyers who wrote this complaint on behalf of the professors and employees of the University of California against the Trump administration. It's a sober legal document with strong claims, but also, this is a fight for public opinion, and this reads like the writers know it.
documentcloud.org
AAUP-UC-Trump Lawsuit -- Uploaded by Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times
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Roselyne Chauvin @roselynechauvin.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Want to know the behind the scenes of the "Disuse-driven plasticity in the human thalamus and putamen" paper? discover @ndosenbach.bsky.social and I interview by @cp-cellreports.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports...
cell.com
Q&A with Nico U.F. Dosenbach and Roselyne Chauvin
Nico U.F. Dosenbach and Roselyne Chauvin spoke with Cell Reports about their recent paper, in which they observed subcortical plasticity in humans following a 2-week arm/hand-casting paradigm with dai...
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Gaia Tavoni @gaia-tavoni.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
I will always be grateful for the immense -- and unique -- contribution the Swartz Program made in supporting theoretical neuroscience over the past 30 years. Its closure leaves a profound void. doi.org/10.53053/FPR...
doi.org
Long-standing theoretical neuroscience fellowship program loses financial support
Funding from the Swartz and Sloan Foundations helped bring physicists and mathematicians into neuroscience for more than 30 years.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
via Benedicto.Uribe on TikTok
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world. They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
It's a demoralizing time to be a US scientist but that is part of their strategy. My friend Jeff Dangl just emailed our faculty reminding us that NSF and NIH grant review panels are still being held and staff there want us to keep submitting. Stay engaged and keep fighting! 1/n
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Irina Barnaveli @barnaveliirina.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Our paper in @natcomms.nature.com, we show how cognitive maps in the hippocampal system could solve the general problem of representing and relating multiple alternative action plans.  doi.org/10.1038/s414... With @doellerlab.bsky.social, Patrick Haggard, @vigano.bsky.social, Daniel Reznik
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Carlos Brody @carlosbrody.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
we're crowd-sourcing a searchable repository of tangible benefits stemming from federally-funded research. Come enjoy the great stories; or send in an idea; or volunteer to join the team. publicusaresearchbenefits.com please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
Searchable database of tangible benefits that federally-funded research gave us.
A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.
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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
New work by @liushuze.bsky.social establishes an empirical link between policy complexity and neural dimensionality: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Neural and behavioral signatures of policy compression in cognitive control
Making context-dependent decisions incurs cognitive costs. Cognitive control studies have investigated the nature of such costs from both computational and neural perspectives. In this paper, we offer...
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
An open letter supporting the international bachelor’s psychology programs threatened for cuts. Proceeding with these cuts would damage some of the most important and impactful psychology departments globally. #supportdutchpsychology openletter.earth/against-lang...
openletter.earth
Against Language Barriers: A Call to Protect International Education in Dutch Academia
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Zach Reagh @zreagh.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Check out our new study by @atabk.bsky.social! He tweaked a word list memory task to have hidden rules at encoding, which shifted and created “event boundaries.” People recalled pre-boundary words more, and post-boundary words less. Other fun bits in the paper include a reinforcement learning model!
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Maddy Jalbert @maddyjalbert.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.
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mike freund @mikefreund.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
beautiful, heartbreaking words in this judge's rejection of trump's request The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.
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Paul Rohr @pevohr.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Discussions this weekend made it clear that folks don't necessarily realize that our existing "scientific pipeline" of federal funding for basic research didn't just happen. The entire approach was deliberately designed to work this way, on purpose Meet Vannevar Bush
Official government photo

Dr. Vannevar Bush
Chief of Scientific Research and Development
Office of Production Management
1940-1944

Black + white photo of a bespectacled man in a three-piece suit sitting at a shiny desk in a dark-paneled office, pencil in hand.  He's midway through a stack of paperwork + has a call bell nearby 

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.11801Vannevar Bush (/væˈniːvɑːr/ van-NEE-var; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He emphasized the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
MANY PROPOSALS WERE WITHDRAWN BY NIH ON THIS CYCLE FOR SIMILAR REASONS. Is this yet another mechanism to avoid funding research? I don't know. Chime in here if you know of other cases.
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MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
We're disappointed to see Ben Barres's powerful book "The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist" among the ~400 titles removed from the Naval Academy Library. Needless to say, we're proud to have published his book and will keep it — and his memory — alive.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
The Coming Out of a Transgender Scientist
"I know that I am making the right decision because whenever I think about changing my gender role, I am flooded with feelings of relief."
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Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Seeing a lot of anger over people in ICE detention having to eg file habeas claims on their own. There are existing efforts to support these folks: not just full legal rep, but partial assistance (easier to scale). Here’s one volunteer network (full disclosure: my org) immigrationjustice.us
immigrationjustice.us
Home - Immigration Justice Campaign
We believe in a society that sees migration as a tool for liberation and prizes the dignity and humanity of all people.
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Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
When a person is abducted, there's a number to call to report & identify. A habeas petition challenging the abduction is electronically filed in that district, by a lawyer admitted in that district, within 30 minutes of the call. Anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day. Nothing else is good enough.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Sackets Harbor, NY school principal Jaime Cook speaks to a reporter about protesting today for her three students who were abducted by ICE: www.wwnytv.com/2025/04/04/7...
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Anne Simon 🧪🌱🐴🦠🍊🇨🇦🇺🇦 @annealiz1.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Please circulate this free gift article widely. This is an incalculable loss to our country; a nightmare with generational consequences put in place by the stupidest of people who have no idea what they are doing and wouldn’t care if they did
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Tim Behrens @behrenstimb.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Science is under threat in the US. @elife.bsky.social have commissioned a series of articles discussing the implications and what we can do. The first three articles are now live. More to follow: elifesciences.org/articles/106... elifesciences.org/articles/106... elifesciences.org/articles/106...
elifesciences.org
Science Under Threat in the United States: How scientists and institutions should respond
Individual researchers and university leaders need to make the case for science to their elected representatives and to the public at large.
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
I gave a talk Wed on the "Grand Plan," and I ended it by describing why this paper is such a big deal. If you are interested in individual variability, precision medicince, or the RDoC agenda writ large, this is a terrific example of emergine ways to measure what we've never been able to before.
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Marino Pagan @marinopagan.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
1/7 Our paper on individual variability in decision-making is finally out in @nature.com! Inspired by the classic work by Mante and Sussillo, we trained many rats to solve context-dependent decision-making, and we found that different brains use different neural mechanisms to solve the same task!
nature.com
Individual variability of neural computations underlying flexible decisions - Nature
Behavioural experiments to study decision-making in response to context-dependent accumulation of evidence provide testable models that are consistent with the heterogeneity in neural signatures among...
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
This is a PhD student in *epidemiology*
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
I always hated the "this is the greatest country in the world" refrain, but it is striking to me that the things they are killing in government — an unrivaled scientific research enterprise, incredible public lands, etc — are some of the only things that made such a statement vaguely defensible.
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Rachael Sirianni, PhD @docsirianni.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 12/03/2025
Thank you very much @hhmijanelia.bsky.social and @hhmi.org for inviting me to give a seminar! That talk was supposed to be today, Tues Mar 11th. I would have talked about @lafosse.bsky.social's work on neural activation functions (con't below)... But I had to cancel due to the NIH travel ban. 🧪 1/
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/02/2025
When OMB head Russ Vought talks about deliberate efforts to put federal employees "in trauma" and make them quit their jobs, he's talking about people like Michelle, recently fired by Musk/Trump. www.sfgate.com/california/a...
Michelle Beutler cleared 67 trees off a U.S. Forest Service road in two days. It was the spring of 2023, after a record-breaking winter in the Stanislaus National Forest in California’s Sierra Nevada. Beutler, 59, worked alone with a chain saw to remove every fallen tree on a 10-mile stretch of road between the town of Long Barn in Tuolumne County and the popular Hull Creek Campground. She single-handedly finished the work so the road could open in time for Memorial Day.

As a recreation technician based out of the Summit Ranger Station in the Stanislaus National Forest, Beutler’s job was to clean toilets, pick up trash and maintain recreation sites and campgrounds up and down Sonora Pass. She’d typically drive her Forest Service truck 100 miles a day. She sprayed pit toilets with a fire hose. She wiped away graffiti and removed thousands of pounds of house trash, old furniture and useless stuff that people dumped in the forest. She extinguished hundreds of abandoned and illegal campfires. She assisted law enforcement during emergency accidents, helping officers navigate a swath of rugged forest land that she grew up on and knows intimately.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Bluetorial: The path to a new pain medication with little potential for addiction Perhaps a good story to share with folks who want to learn about how biomedical research works and where advances come from.
media.tenor.com
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
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