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Plasticity Lab

@plasticity-lab.bsky.social
732 followers 213 following 82 posts

We’re the Plasticity Lab at Cambridge University, led by Tamar Makin. We study the neural basis of hand function and dysfunction, exploring how technology can enhance movement functionality for able and disabled individuals of all ages: plasticity-lab.com

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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
We're looking for a motivated intern to join us this summer! Find the details below for this exciting opportunity to work on developing a neurotech podcast 🧠 🦾 Deadline is Monday 15th June (11:00am BST), so apply soon!
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Applications Open! We are looking for a motivated summer intern to support a podcast in development in collaboration with the Plasticity Lab, exploring what restorative, assistive, and augmentative neurotechnology reveals about hidden human capacity 🦾 Full details here: forms.office.com/e/PDjanEYkSE
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Can we use robotic augmentation limbs as flexibly as our natural limbs⁉️ 🧨 Our new study, just out in @currentbiology.bsky.social, tested this using the Third Thumb @daniclode.bsky.social: a wearable robotic extra thumb you control with your toes! www.cell.com/current-biol... ‼️‼️
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Markerless tracking shouldn’t feel like a coding project! We released TrackStudio (arxiv.org/abs/2511.07624), a fully graphical, open-source toolkit for markerless human motion tracking. It enables use of current 2D/3D tools and video synchronisation without coding.
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Our lab has been lucky to know and work with Kirsty Mason for many years - she’s an incredible woman whose strength and openness have taught us so much about recovery and resilience 💛 If you can, please check out her GoFundMe and show some support! gofund.me/0283e864d
gofund.me
Donate to From Trauma to Triumph: My 18-Year Life Day Journey, organized by Kirsty Mason
❤️‍ When Everything Changed As I type this, on the 7th November 2… Kirsty Mason needs your support for From Trauma to Triumph: My 18-Year Life Day Journey
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Nature @nature.com · 21/08/2025
A brain-imaging study of people with amputated arms has upended a long-standing belief go.nature.com/3Jp9NPG
go.nature.com
The brain’s map of the body is surprisingly stable — even after a limb is lost
Study challenges the textbook idea that the brain region that processes body sensations reorganizes itself after limb amputation.
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Super pleased to see this heroic effort finally in print!! Many thanks to Hunter, our amazing study participants, and everyone else who made this fantastic study come true.
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Sam McDougle @actlab.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Happy to announce that my lab @ Yale Psychology (actcompthink.org) will be accepting PhD applications this year (for start in Fall '26)! Come for the fun experiments on human learning, memory, & skilled behavior, stay for the best 🍕 in the US. Please reach out if you have any questions!
actcompthink.org
Homepage of the Action, Computation, & Thinking (ACT) Lab, Yale department of psychology
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Awesome to see our own @daniclode.bsky.social featured as a highlight of the UN #AIforGood Summit! Check out the summary of her talk—plus other key discussions on how AI can restore agency, enhance accessibility, and foster deeper human connection: www.linkedin.com/posts/ai-for...
linkedin.com
LIVE from the #AIforGood Global Summit! | AI for Good
LIVE from the #AIforGood Global Summit! What was just covered at Frontier Stage? AI for restoring agency, enhancing accessibility, and empowering deeper human connection. Here’s a summary of the sess...
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Can you control an extra robotic finger just by flexing your leg muscles? In our new study, we put EMG-based muscle control to the test, comparing it to traditional toe force sensor control for operating the Third Thumb (designed by @daniclode.bsky.social). 1/12
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Maggie Szymanska @maggieszymanska.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Great start to #IMRF2025 with Symposium 2 all about body representation and some amazing talks! Really enjoyed hearing about how sounds can affect it, e.g. with the auditory pinocchio illusion 🔊, something quite different than what I work on but so fun!
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Exciting day at the fascinating UN #AIforGood summit! @daniclode.bsky.social presented on designing for augmentation and the Third Thumb, Tamar then presented our research looking at the neural embodiment of robotic limbs! Smashing it 🦾
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Thrilled to share our most recent work led by our brilliant PhD student @mariamolinasan.bsky.social, exploring generalisation of motor learning with a robotic limb, featuring The Third Thumb 🦾
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Our PhD students @maggieszymanska.bsky.social and Julien Russ ready to present their posters today at #BRNet2025! Find them in the poster room at 2pm, talking about phantom limb pain and using EMG to control the Third Thumb 🧠
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Having a great time in Utrecht at #BRNet2025! Today, our very talented postdoc @celiafoster.bsky.social and amazing PhD student Ema Jugovic presented their posters. Really great work showcasing our new Third Thumb studies 🧠
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Maggie Szymanska @maggieszymanska.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Great talk by Matej Hoffman starting off Day 2 of #BRNet2025. Really exciting to see our BOLDkids research on congenital limb difference mentioned as well! Also - what an amazing venue 😊
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Our lab had a fantastic time this week presenting our current work at @uksensorimotor25.bsky.social in Oxford 🧠
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Tal Seidel Malkinson @seideltal.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
🧠New postdoc position - come work with us in France! 🥐👩‍🔬 Two-Year Postdoc Position on the Role of Temporal Integration in Visual Attention Using Human Intracerebral Recordings | EURAXESS euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/351721 📆Starting Date: October 2025 ⏱️Application deadline: 31 Aug 2025
Nancy, France
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Check-out our latest research! 🧠 @lucydowdall.bsky.social's PhD work looking at the sensory representation of an artificial limb is now up on bioRxiv! doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.16.658246 🦾 see her thread below highlighting some of our key findings
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Great video by @wired.com showcasing the Third Thumb! 👍👍👍We're super grateful to be able to work with the amazing Dani Clode and investigate how our brains 🧠 accomodate motor control of an extra robotic finger! The segment on the Third Thumb starts at 6:02 - you can watch here: rb.gy/t8gdhs
rb.gy
6 Arms, 3 Thumbs: I Tested The Future of Robotic Limbs | Superhuman | WIRED
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Hristo’s presenting his poster today and tomorrow at #NCMPan25! Come and check out his work on information content in sensorimotor cortex in controls and people with amputations at 2-F-72 @ncmsociety.bsky.social
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Come check out Celia’s poster today and tomorrow at #NCMPan25 and learn about touch localisation abilities with the Third Thumb! 1-F-73 @ncmsociety.bsky.social @celiafoster.bsky.social
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Applications close tomorrow for our summer internship position! plasticity-lab.com/internship
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Applications are open for the Plasticity Lab summer internship at the University of Cambridge @mrccbu.bsky.social 🦾 Work with an interdisciplinary team on motor augmentation and wearable tech, exploring enhancement of movement capabilities 🧠 Apply by April 15th: plasticity-lab.com/internship
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Claudia Clopath Lab @clopathlab.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Want to hear more about how feedback can guide learning in RNNs for motor adaptation. Here is our new paper in Nat. Com. with Barbara Feulner and @juangallego.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A neural implementation model of feedback-based motor learning - Nature Communications
How the brain adapts our movements to new conditions remains unclear. Here, the authors show that a recurrent neural network that controls its output using error-based feedback can learn to count...
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
We truly believe neurotechnology developments should be shaped by the end-users, not just the researchers! But how can we ensure ground-breaking developments are guided by the people whose lives they will impact the most? Read more here: rb.gy/7zjf6e
rb.gy
Neurotechnology developments shaped by researchers and end-users
Neurotechnology refers to a broad range of technologies designed to interface with the nervous system, with the aim of treating neurological disorders, enhancing cognitive function, and improving over...
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Our website contains even more information and curated resources to help support researchers in the aim of taking a more user-centered approach towards neurotechnology, in addition to details for how to get involved in this initiative www.inclusive-neurotech.co.uk
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Neurotech is rapidly evolving, but user-centred technologies can only succeed if their development actively involves the end user. We’ve published a basic roadmap for supporting inclusive design testing - highlighting key strategies, stakeholders, representation, and measurable outcomes rb.gy/ng1jus
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
1 week left to apply for our research assistant job! If you're interested in sensorimotor research and are pre-PhD, may be a perfect fit! More details at www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49393 🧠
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Very proud to share a new review (more like a long perspective), just out in Science Advances: rebrand.ly/mdbi8q8. Ilana Nisky and Tamar @cambridgeuni.bsky.social joined heads (brains) to reimagine how to make the most out of artificial haptic interfaces. A thread (1/8)
rebrand.ly
A neurocognitive pathway for engineering artificial touch
Neurocognitive congruence is key to designing artificial touch that best integrates with human perception and action.
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Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
really great thread by Blake. Each neuron in an artificial neural network (ANN) isn't supposed to accurately model a neuron in the brain. Instead, ANNs are good models of computation (through dynamics/manifolds) based on the collective activity of simpler "functions" (i.e., the neurons)
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Love this reading list, always has something interesting to read!
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Now you’ve met the lab, come work with us! We’re hiring a Research Assistant to join the Plasticity lab 🦾 in early 2025 at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge. Find out more information here: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49393/. Closing date 8th of January! 🧠
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Maggie Szymanska @maggieszymanska.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Had a blast working on this amazing project and the pre-print is now out 🎉! Interested in sensory remapping? We tested congenital limb difference children and adults to investigate how their brains differ and what role compensatory behaviour in childhood has on remapping 🧠 Read more in the thread!
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
We’re thrilled to share our new research article, "Shaping the developing homunculus: the roles of deprivation and compensatory behaviour in sensory remapping on bioRxiv: rebrand.ly/qbz6nal with @dorothycowie.bsky.social
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Great talk by our amazing postdoc @celiafoster.bsky.social at the #CBUMethodsDay! She introduced motion tracking methods available in neuroscience 🧠 and showed how she is setting up a real-time 3D motion tracking using a portable stereo camera! 🎥 It's a great way of tracking the third thumb!
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Plasticity Lab @plasticity-lab.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
I’m Tamar Makin, leader of the Plasticity Lab @CBU. As an intro to Bluesky, I asked my team to choose their favourite lab paper. My pick sums up a decade of the lab’s work: John Krakauer @JHU & I argue that one brain area can’t simply take over another, challenging remapping claims: rb.gy/n4dr03
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