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Ozan Vardal

@ozvardal.bsky.social
69 followers 188 following 8 posts

Neuroscience postdoc | ISTBI, Fudan University #shanghai | Studying learning & naturalistic decision-making | video games + neuroimaging + computational modeling

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Jörn Alexander Quent @jaquent.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My latest pre-print. If you're at #CNS2026 and wanna have a chat, come to my poster (P6/12). I will soon post a summary thread. 🧵
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Enny van Beest @ennyvb.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Textbook: tracking position during navigation is primarily the job of the hippocampus. Recent findings suggest a more complicated story. Recording >20k neurons brainwide, we indeed find spatial representations in every region! With @kenneth-harris.bsky.social and @carandinilab.net
Brainwide representations of a virtual corridor
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Deniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
How does the brain interpret artistic beauty? Here’s our new article in The Conversation, based on our recent study:
theconversation.com
Science uncovers how the brain interprets artistic beauty – new research
An MRI study zeroes in on the brain networks that underline collective appreciation of art.
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Jingnan Du @jingnandu.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
📣 New preprint: Multiple Nested Distributed Language Networks in the Human Brain. 📣 Brain regions specialized for language have been extensively described. But are they organized into one network, or multiple? Our new preprint provides evidence for the latter:
 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Multiple Nested Distributed Language Networks in the Human Brain
Brain regions specialized for language have been extensively described, yet their arrangement into one or multiple networks remains debated. Using precision functional mapping across three independent...
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Veronica Diveica @veronicadiveica.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
The default network is often thought to interfere with the selective deployment of attention—but our new @pnas.org paper shows a different story… 👉 Find the paper here: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... 1/🧵
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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
The hippocampus sits at the interface of perception & memory, allowing us to link past, present, & future through its role in generating predictions. Excited to share this theme issue in @royalsociety.org's Philosophical Transactions B, co-edited with @barense.bsky.social & @mariamaly.bsky.social
royalsocietypublishing.org
Volume 381 Issue 1954 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | The Royal Society
Influential themed journal issues across the life sciences.
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Neil Burgess @neilburgess10.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Ever wondered how the hippocampal cognitive map is read-out? @changmin-yu.bsky.social @zilong-ji.bsky.social with Jake & John, show that, during navigation, theta sweeps indicate remembered goal-directions (cf. current/next movements or perceptual targets) 1/2 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Decoded locations from place cell firing sweep towards a remembered goal location during each theta cycle irrespective of the current movement or head direction
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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...
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Deniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
What if much of human thought is navigation? 🧠 New open-access review: I argue that the DMN + hippocampal–entorhinal system form a domain-general engine for "mental navigation" across physical and abstract spaces (e.g. social, conceptual, and value). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Hugo Spiers @hugospiers.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Learning shapes neural geometry in the primate prefrontal cortex www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Learning shapes neural geometry in the primate prefrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Learning transforms prefrontal cortex activity from flexible, high-dimensional representations into compact, task-relevant and abstract codes, enabling efficient generalization of learned rules to new...
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Nature @nature.com · 21/06/2026
Researchers have tracked the electrical crackle of individual brain cells in real time during unscripted conversations, capturing how sentences are built before a single word is spoken go.nature.com/4uOEKii
go.nature.com
How the brain builds sentences, neuron by neuron
Nature - Neural maps reveal the specialized cells that produce speech.
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Neuroscientists were asked what they hate about "AI". The people have spoken 🤣 #OHBM2026 #NeuroAI
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
#OHBM2026 Come say hi at my poster on Wednesday and Thursday!
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Very excited to see new work on higher cognition using neuroimaging and video game paradigms!
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peterdoohan.bsky.social @peterdoohan.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
How do brains plan actions towards goals? To get at this question we studied mice navigating complex mazes as goals changed on every trial 🧵 Work with @thomasakam.bsky.social @behrenstimb.bsky.social @kristorpjensen.bsky.social now on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Structured and flexible representations in medial-frontal cortex support goal-directed navigation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Deniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
What makes an artwork beautiful, and can your brain's response decode such hidden dimensions of aesthetic appeal? We built a framework to find out 🎨 🧠 @natcomms.nature.com @cognizelab.bsky.social First author: @neocosmliang.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroaesthetics #DefaultMode
nature.com
Latent neural architecture organising shared aesthetic evaluations of visual artworks - Nature Communications
Using high-resolution brain imaging, researchers reveal that aesthetic preferences for visual artworks can be captured by two key dimensions, meaning and value, offering insight into how the brain org...
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
New paper from our lab! Awesome effort by @kaixiangzhuang.bsky.social and co.
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weigangcui.bsky.social @weigangcui.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Check out our new work on the relationship between glioma and system-level functional networks! We identify that nearly all gliomas localize within a common brain functional network, Action-Mode Network (AMN) . biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.05.697608v1
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Tom Stafford @tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 05/01/2026
Read my new piece in the @thetransmitter on @rougier's 1000 neuron challenge www.thetransmitter.org/computationa… models, brains, and the value of scientific competitions as sites of integration! #Neuroscience #CompNeuro
thetransmitter.org
The 1,000 neuron challenge
A competition to design small, efficient neural models may provide new insight into real brains—and perhaps unite disparate modeling efforts.
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Ishmail Abdus-Saboor @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Just finished Natural Neuroscience – a book I think will become an instant classic. This book can do for neuroscience what Schrodinger’s ‘What is Life’ did to usher in the golden age of molecular biology. Nachum Ulanovsky has given us a compelling call to arms to truly understand the brain.
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Deniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
🧠 New paper alert (the 1st one from our new lab)! Led by 1st author & VR wizard @jaquent.bsky.social @natcomms.nature.com How do our brains distinguish novel from familiar places as we explore our environments, e.g., a new city? 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s414... 🧵 Thread below with key findings ⬇️
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PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁? Don't miss the Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon. Earl Miller and team will discuss recent paper and we'll have plenty of discussion. Open to all. Sept 12, noon EST-US umd.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #neuroskyence @earlkmiller.bsky.social
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 01/08/2025
How do humans navigate unfamiliar environments? @denislan.bsky.social @lhuntneuro.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social show that humans & deep meta-learning networks combine ‘vector-based’ & ‘transition-based’ strategies for flexible navigation in similar ways @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/45uSwNm
Task design and experimental set-up. Top left: underlying structure of the 8 × 8 grid, unseen by participants. Every state is represented by an image of an object, and these objects and their positions change on every trial. Top right: schematic diagram of the ‘map reading’ phase of each trial. Participants see a top–down view of the grid with objects obscured and successively click on blue squares to reveal ‘landmark’ objects at the location. After 16 clicks have been completed, a yellow square appears. Clicking on the yellow square reveals the ‘goal’ object for the trial. Bottom: schematic diagram of the navigation phase of each trial. Participants start in a random, previously unobserved location and are tasked with navigating to the ‘goal’ object they had just learnt about (displayed at the top). They can navigate in two ways. First, they could choose a direction to travel in by clicking on the corresponding arrow (highlighted yellow). This is analogous to using a ‘vector-based’ strategy. Alternatively, they could choose an adjacent state to travel to by clicking on one of the associated images (displayed in a random order; highlighted blue). This corresponds to using a ‘transition-based’ navigation strategy.
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Absolute thrill to be part of this team and to be able to piggy-back on this post
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Hot off the press, by my brilliant colleague Ashley Zhou
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Last chance to have a chat about naturalistic decision-making by my poster! #OHBM2025
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Ozan Vardal @ozvardal.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Just arrived in Brisbane with the loveliest of teams. Can't wait to connect with fellow neuronerds at #OHBM2025!
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Armin Lak @laklab.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Our work, out at Cell, shows that the brain’s dopamine signals teach each individual a unique learning trajectory. Collaborative experiment-theory effort, led by Sam Liebana in the lab. The first experiment my lab started just shy of 6y ago & v excited to see it out: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
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Jascha Achterberg @achterbrain.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Now out 🚨 🧪 : our preprint describing dynamics of an extended frontal lobe network (4 cortical regions) in monkeys solving complex multi-step spatial problems! We observe distributed codes for goals, states, and planned moves across PFC! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroscience #compneuro 🧵👇
biorxiv.org
Neural dynamics of an extended frontal lobe network in goal-subgoal problem solving
Complex behavior calls for hierarchical representation of current state, goal, and component moves. In the human brain, a network of “multiple-demand” (MD) regions underpins cognitive control. We reco...
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