Sign in

Michael W. Cole

@mwcole.bsky.social
2K followers 514 following 97 posts

Professor, director of lab at Rutgers University – neuroimaging, cognitive control, network neuroscience, NeuroAI Author of “Brain Flows: How Network Dynamics Compose The Human Mind”: bookshop.org/a/119653/9780691265995 www.colelab.org

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Transmitter's summer reading list highlights upcoming neuroscience books and other notable titles from this year—with books by @romainbrette.bsky.social, @susanacarmona.bsky.social, @markdhumphries.bsky.social, David Susillo and more. #neuroskyence By @franciscorr25.bsky.social bit.ly/4qz0oXj
thetransmitter.org
The Transmitter’s reading list for 2026
Our summer reading list includes books on the Human Brain Project, the neuroscience of motherhood and the career of a Huntington’s disease researcher.
03113
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
My latest post to Neural Flows! "Fluidized brain flows and the dynamics of consciousness" A new model from my forthcoming book (Brain Flows) that may help explain the purpose of the brain’s "dark energy"
neuralflows.substack.com
Fluidized brain flows and the dynamics of consciousness
A new theory that may help explain the purpose of the brain’s “dark energy”
040
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
SfN Journals @sfnjournals.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
#JNeurosci: Findings from Leach et al. provide evidence that the frontoparietal cortex influences behaviors, dynamically adjusting communication between brain networks as decisions progress. doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0594-26.2…
Diagram of cognitive task with color cues, probe, and feedback. Buttons labeled Female, Male, City, Landscape.
0169
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I think we're mostly on the same page here. I focus more on functional than structural connectivity, and I agree that physical connections are mostly possibility not destiny. Yet, even if the conclusion is mostly correct, I think this study's evidence supporting that conclusion is weak.
120
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I think traveling waves are very important in cortical processing. Yet they likely propagate via physical connections. Thus, even if there were a spatial basis set that describes their propagation, that spatial basis needs to interact with the connectome to account for traveling waves.
141
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
These dynamics are what I'm interested in explaining, too. The key issue for me is the claim that a spatial basis set out-performs connectome organization in accounting for task-evoked activity. I'm skeptical that the spatial basis set is a mechanism; it's more of a description than an explanation.
111
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Thanks. I didn't see anything in the paper about this. How was this verified? Were they monitored continuously?
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
While I respect these authors (and traveling wave theories), I remain skeptical of these results. Nearly any basis set can be used to "explain" any complex data, including brain data. Like how a Fourier transform of time series data isn't explanatory, so this spatial decomposition isn't explanatory.
141
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I think this is a serious issue for the study. It seems plausible that distraction led to less compliance with instructions not to scratch, such that scratching or rubbing the site during the distraction condition led to a greater immune response. Any controls for this not mentioned in the paper?
110
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Interesting study! Maybe this is in the paper (I couldn’t find it), but did you monitor for absent-minded scratching or rubbing of the site during distraction?
120
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 17/08/2026
I am proud of this paper. Since it came out in 2022 it has received 0 citations (yes that's a zero). But multiple young scientists have found it useful! (from other labs, so they were not coerced...). Perhaps you will find it useful too? SOME TIPS FOR WRITING SCIENCE doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
doi.org
Some Tips for Writing Science
When preparing a scientific paper, we typically write with coauthors who have different backgrounds and styles, and we target readers who have little time and patience. To help both readers and writer...
616554
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I'm looking forward to #CCN2026 Check out the posters from our lab!
031
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
My latest post to Neural Flows! “What’s generative about generative network neuroscience" Introducing a new field of network neuroscience covered in my forthcoming book Brain Flows Gaining fundamental understanding of cognition by modeling connectivity-constrained neural generative processes
neuralflows.substack.com
What’s generative about generative network neuroscience
Getting to a new level of understanding in neuroscience and cognitive science
0104
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I think your logic is a bit off here: Are you saying thoughts caused the observed brain activity? Is that not a dualist perspective? It seems more plausible to me that spontaneous brain activity (which is what is of interest in resting state scans) causes thoughts, not vice versa.
120
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
My latest post to Neural Flows! “Generative network neuroscience" Gaining fundamental understanding of cognition by modeling connectivity-constrained neural generative processes A perspective shift in neuroscience and the (other) cognitive sciences
open.substack.com
Generative network neuroscience
Gaining fundamental understanding of cognition by modeling connectivity-constrained neural generative processes
0194
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
#OHBM2026
000
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
The Cole Neurocognition Lab has a poster at OHBM 2026 It's poster 2206 (June 17 & 18): Network flow dynamics linked to dimensionality via collider motifs in human visual cortex ohbm.floq.live/event/ohbm-2...
190
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Rebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
The OMB has proposed rules that would, among other things, have political appointees override peer review and allow sudden grant termination. This morning I wrote a comment on this proposal in my own words. It only took a few minutes. You can do the same: www.regulations.gov/document/OMB...
regulations.gov
Regulations.gov
0166
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Annika Barber @annikabarber.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Megathread resources now compiled in a Google doc. Send it to your friends. Share with your departments and trainees. And share with non-scientists! I also have a template for non-scientist comments, because this is an all-taxpayer, all medical service user issue. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Submit an OMB Comment!
SAVE AMERICAN SCIENCE (Please! 💜 Annika @annikabarber.bsky.social) What are the proposed changes to scientific grant review and award? Read the Federal Register directly here: Regulation for Federal...
29254
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
My latest Neural Flows newsletter post! “Enhancing scientific inference with evidence quality maps” Automated inference as a scalable engine of discovery
neuralflows.substack.com
Building evidence quality maps to transform science
Automated inference as a scalable engine of discovery
040
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
My latest Neural Flows post: “Living in a compositional universe is a prerequisite for intelligence” Brain flow dynamics take advantage of our environment’s compositionality to accomplish goals
neuralflows.substack.com
Living in a compositional universe is a prerequisite for intelligence
How brain flows take advantage of our environment’s compositionality
193
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Interesting! Sounds like synesthesia? That’s a plausible hypothesis for what generates synesthesia
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Yes, we’re already starting to test this for the extended visual system, with plans to test it more globally (involving cognitive control networks) during goal pursuit
010
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Thanks to first author Alexandros Tzalavras (@alextzalav.bsky.social) and coauthors! @osherlab.bsky.social @carrisacocuzza.bsky.social Lakshman Chakravarthula, @ravimill.bsky.social and Kirsten Peterson The paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 15/n
biorxiv.org
132
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Together, these results validate a new method to test complementary roles of distinct flow pathways: direct visual pathways rapidly generate detailed visual information, while hierarchical pathways gradually build up integrated/compressed representations (e.g., shapes rather than lines). 14/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Consistent with this, we also found that the hierarchical pathway is important for integrating/compressing information across the entire visual field 13/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Compression was significantly different for direct vs. hierarchy pathways: The direct pathway maintained high dimensionality (i.e., more representational detail), while the hierarchical pathway reduced dimensionality (i.e., generating higher-level/abstract representations). 12/n
110
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We next quantified visual processing in terms of dimensionality, determining that dimensionality reduces overall along the visual hierarchy, perhaps consistent with compression of visual information (e.g., representations of shapes rather than collections of lines). 11/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We were finally ready to test direct vs. hierarchical contributions to visual information processing. We applied in silico lesioning to the direct and hierarchical pathways in turn, first determining that the direct pathway was more accurate faster. The direct pathway has a speed advantage 10/n
110
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Building on these results, we next validated our brain activity flow model. Using the same connections and V1 activity as earlier analyses, the activity flow model accurately generated downstream visual-evoked time series. The model also accurately generated population receptive field estimates. 9/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Importantly, systematic differences in region-level processing showed up in the dynamics RSMs (representational similarity matrices) 8/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Similarly, representational distance recovered the V1-V2-V3-V4 hierarchy. We used a new dynamic RSA approach for this – each time point became a stimulus dimension. The visual system faithfully represented the complex stimulus dynamics of the retinotopic mapping paradigm. 7/n
110
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
As expected, network distance recovered the V1-V2-V3-V4 hierarchy, even when taking direct connections into account. 6/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We identified hierarchy in 2 ways: 1) representational distance from visual input region V1, and 2) direct functional connectivity distance from V1. We then combined the two into an empirical neural network (brain activity flow model) to identify the roles of direct vs. hierarchical flow routes 5/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We used 7T MRI for the study, combining retinotopic mapping fMRI, resting-state fMRI, and diffusion MRI (structural connectivity) to confirm the direct functional connections. We verified that both direct and hierarchical connections are present in the human visual system 4/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We developed a new functional connectivity method to find direct connections between mesoscale neural populations (voxels/vertices) (GC-PCR). This gave a confound-controlled vertex-level dense connectome, which we could use to investigate direct vs. indirect/hierarchical brain activity flows 3/n
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We started by testing whether direct and hierarchical connections both contribute to visual processing. We couldn’t use standard functional connectivity, however, since it doesn’t give us direct connections! 2/n
100
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
23115
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Opposing BOLD signals and oxygen metabolism largely arise from statistical uncertainty in metabolic estimates www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
13424
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
My latest Neural Flows post: “Using evidence quality to restructure incentives in science” Metrics will inevitably bias science, so let’s use metrics that reflect what science should be biased by
open.substack.com
Using evidence quality to restructure incentives in science
Metrics will inevitably bias science, so let’s switch to metrics that reflect what science should be biased by
151
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
My latest post to Neural Flows! “Reorienting neuroscience around brain flows” A perspective shift to enhance both activity-focused (e.g., manifold, representations) and connectivity-focused (e.g., connectome) neuroscience open.substack.com/pub/neuralfl...
open.substack.com
Reorienting neuroscience around brain flows
A perspective shift to enhance both activity-focused (e.g., manifold, representations) and connectivity-focused (e.g., connectome) neuroscience
071
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Dan Yamins @dyamins.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
I think we finally made really significant progress on the biggest unsolved "developmental AI" problem: learning from human-scale data. Key idea: zero-shot world models that support concept extraction via approximate causal inference. amazing collab w/ @mcxfrank.bsky.social @khaiaw.bsky.social
14111
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
There is one! The "Citing Authors" tab on Semantic Scholar: www.semanticscholar.org
semanticscholar.org
Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool
Semantic Scholar uses groundbreaking AI and engineering to understand the semantics of scientific literature to help Scholars discover relevant research.
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Today I am relaunching my newsletter as Neural Flows, inspired by my forthcoming book "Brain Flows" The newsletter asks: How does the improvised symphony of flows inside our heads generate our minds? Check out the intro post to the new newsletter here: open.substack.com/pub/neuralfl...
open.substack.com
Welcome to Neural Flows
A newsletter inspired by the book Brain Flows
153
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 03/04/2026
Quick bit of advice for everyone on Bluesky: We should switch to using the For You feed as our default feed. It will make things better
4103
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
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
13710
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
13710
Reposted by Michael W. Cole
Brendan Harris @brendanjohnharris.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
How does the visual cortex coordinate neural activity over spatial and temporal scales? We found broad θ waves organize local γ bursts and spiking, forming a flexible spatiotemporal code to multiplex feedforward/feedback signals. Now out in full @natcomms.nature.com: doi.org/10.1038/s414... 🧵
Schematic of theta waves and gamma packets recorded from the mouse visual cortex
23412
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Thanks for the clarifications. I have been uncertain if there's really a distinction here – I think it's an empirical question. Does the activity-level-dependent decreased variability that drives reduced covariance also result in reduced interareal coupling? Does your study look at that at all?
100
Michael W. Cole @mwcole.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Cool results! I'm curious, how does this relate to the common observation that noise correlations in neural recordings go down as spiking activity goes up? We found this effect also for fMRI functional connectivity here: Ito et al. (2020) PLOS Comp Bio www.colelab.org/pubs/2020_It...
colelab.org
100