iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Consistent with lots of previous distraction-by-emotion work in fMRI, and a nice demonstration of emotion effects in early visual cortex. Can't share these new results without noting the task was heavily influenced by Wieser, McTeague, & Keil 2012 (doi: 10.1037/a0027069) : )

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Happy to share a new publication. We use frequency tagging to show competition between *simultaneous* and *spatially overlapping* emotional faces and a task-relevant (and otherwise boring and non-emotional) Gabor patch in the calcarine fissure and PFC. direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

direct.mit.edu

Affective face biases in visual and prefrontal cortex measured with visual entrainment

Abstract. Facial expressions are ubiquitous and reliable social cues. Research has shown that affective faces attract attention at the cost of competing visual information, with functional neuroimagin...

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

A really cool thing about the gamma pre-SMA result: we found the same effect for negative > positive faces in a recent paper (academic.oup.com/scan/article...). As many before me have said: it is essential to consider how the brain is “moving the body” during emotion processing!

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Happy to share a new publication showing stronger theta, alpha, and gamma responses to negative vs positive images. Alpha effects were in several primary and extended visual regions, while gamma effects were in parietal and pre-SMA cortex. See all results -> www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Affective info involves visual and limbic regions, but ALSO systems involved in motor planning.

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

NEW paper looking at oscillatory responses to affective faces. some main findings: Stronger beta for affective faces across visual regions. Stronger gamma to angry faces in presupp motor cortex. academic.oup.com/scan/article...

academic.oup.com

Oscillatory brain dynamics underlying affective face processing

Abstract. Facial expressions are ubiquitous and highly reliable social cues. Decades of research has shown that affective faces undergo facilitated process

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Reposted by Nathan M Petro

Institute for Human Neuroscience @boystown-ihn.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: Undergrad Posters for #IHN Summer Symposium! Nomination Deadline 4/25/25 Complete the form👉 forms.office.com/r/m9yTYEEWJW #Neuroscience #PhD #GraduateSchool #Faculty #Mentorship #STEM #HigherEd #neuroimaging

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Overall, screen time or social media use didn’t “matter”, but specific problematic behaviors. With prior lit, suggests that social media provides more (i.e. constant) opportunity to engage in behaviors problematic to mental health, lead to different trajectories of brain development.

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Nathan M Petro @nathanpetro.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Happy to share a new paper where we show, in later pubertal stages, using social media to make social comparisons relates to 1) weaker extended visual alpha, prefrontal beta power and 2) more symptoms of anxiety and attention problems. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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