iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Tarana Nigam

The Rockefeller University @rockefeller.edu · 23/06/2026

Rockefeller's Winrich Freiwald is a 2026 winner of the Gertrud Reemtsma Foundation’s Prize for Translational Neuroscience! He is honored for his work deciphering complex neural processes in visual perception and social cognition. Congratulations!

mpg.de

Doris Tsao and Winrich Freiwald Receive the International Prize for Translational Neuroscience

Researchers are honored for their groundbreaking insights into the neural basis of face and object recognition

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Reposted by Tarana Nigam

Consciousness Commons @consc-commons.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

What makes Consciousness Commons different from a regular workshop? 👉🧵 1/

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Reposted by Tarana Nigam

Tim Behrens @behrenstimb.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I like journal clubs where you are only allowed to say positive things about a paper. They are so much more satisfying.

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Reposted by Tarana Nigam

The Rockefeller University @rockefeller.edu · 23/01/2026

A recent study from the #FreiwaldLab found that emotion-driven facial expressions activate the same cortical pathways as do voluntary movements, such as chewing. Learn more in this piece from @thetransmitter.bsky.social:

thetransmitter.org

Facial expressions less reflexive than previously thought

A countenance such as a grimace activates many of the same cortical pathways as voluntary facial movements.

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Congrats Peter!! Fantastic news ! Looking forward to the cool science you'll do :)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

My absolutely fantastic colleague @auksz.bsky.social just got awarded an ERC consolidator grant !!!!!!!!! Congrats Ryszard ! So well deserved and I can't wait to see the amazing things you will do and discover :) For PhDs/postdocs interested, I HIGHLY recommend ryszard as a supervisor!

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Lastly, our thanks to the funders Research Alliance Ruhr, @sfb1528.bsky.social @dfg.de @FACES_epilepsy @maxplanck.de Feel free to reach out if you have any feedback, questions or related ideas!

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

And a bigger thanks to my fantastic supervisor, Caspar Schwiedrzik who supported me through every part of this project, brought exciting new ideas and perspectives and for bringing this project to this final stage.

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

My big thanks to all my co-authors : Andrea Campos, @vanmedge.bsky.social ,Juan Vidal, Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti, Philippe Kahane, Thomas Thesen, Orrin Devinsky. My special thanks to the fantastic & inspiring Lucia Melloni @predictivebrainlab.bsky.social who conceived this project.

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

So my huge thanks to the patients who contributed to this study, & our multi-site collaboration with neurologists, neurosurgeons & the entire surgical teams across continents!

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

The interesting journey of this project has left me with many new questions related to the incredible & rapid flexibility we humans possess: how fast we learn & generalize. These avenues couldn't be answered without the unique possibility to record directly from the human brain.

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

⏳The cost? Interference. Task-specialization only emerges through repeated exposure, gradually refining representations and improving performance over time. (10/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🧩 Wonder why neural representations don’t instantly become task-tailored? A computational trade-off may explain it: reusing shared representations allows quick, “good-enough” performance across tasks. ⚡(9/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

💥We find that mental flexibility arises by reconfiguring multipurpose, shared neural representations in the sensory areas to rapidly perform multiple tasks. This happens much earlier in the cortical processing hierarchy than previously thought. (8/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

👁️Interestingly, we find gradual transformation for all the 3 tasks only in the ventral temporal cortex, which is traditionally thought to be a sensory area. This challenges the notion that sensory neural codes are stable, simply representing the external world. (7/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🌀 What we found was surprising! Participants performed the task one-shot, but neural representations don’t become task-tailored instantaneously in any of the brain areas. Instead, the representations become optimal through gradual refinement (6/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🧠Humans who do 3 different tasks, flexibly forming categories or abstract concepts on each trial - and we recorded neural activity intracranially from multiple brain areas. (5/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

❓Do neural representations reconfigure instantly for new tasks, or do neural patterns adapt gradually, needing repeated experience, as one would expect from distributed representations that in neocortex? (4/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🎯Humans generalize instantly-kids infer what a green apple looks like, never having seen it. This suggests instant task-tailored transformation. But hold on, let’s not break old knowledge based on 1 weird experience: this suggests neural representations change gradually (3/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

⚙️We achieve this by flexibly reuse prior knowledge (compositionality) &reshaping neural geometry. By expanding task-relevant dimensions and compressing irrelevant ones, the brain configures task-optimal geometries, allowing multiple tasks on the same inputs. (2/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🔥Humans can perform multiple, including entirely new tasks- just through verbal instructions. This rapid flexibility is a hallmark of human intelligence and lets us adapt to new situations and changing environments. How does the human brain do it? (1/10)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🎉 Excited to share one of my projects that I worked on with Caspar Schwiedrzik! Check out my latest preprint: Multiple task-demands flexibly optimize neural geometry in human ventral temporal cortex biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (0/10)

biorxiv.org

Multiple task-demands flexibly optimize neural geometry in human ventral temporal cortex

A hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to perform multiple tasks immediately upon instruction. Yet, the neural processes that implement such flexibility remain unclear. Using intracranial ele...

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/3... This position involves digital-twin modeling. It is supervised by Caspar Schwiedrzik & will be in collaboration with the experimentalists in the lab doing non-human primate & human work & with @sinzlab.bsky.social Fabian Sinz who is a deep learning expert.

jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

PhD student in computational modeling of highdimensional visual category learning (m/f/x)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Exciting computational cognitive neuroscience PhD position in our lab on Flexible Dimensionality of Representational Spaces in Category Learning! Caspar Schwiedrzik, my supervisor is an absolutely fantastic scientist & an incredible supervisor. I strongly recommend this position & working with him!

jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

PhD student in computational modeling of highdimensional visual category learning (m/f/x)

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

My incredible friend & colleague @nedash.bsky.social has an interesting open position to use machine learning for predicting decision making of primates in naturalistic scenarios! She's a fantastic scientist, very supportive supervisor & has many ambitious & exciting projects going on in her lab!

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Reposted by Tarana Nigam

Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Now officially out in JML: "Shades of Zero: Distinguishing Impossibility from Inconceivability" (cool kidz summary below) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

My incredible ex-labmate , @auksz.bsky.social is advertising an interesting PhD position that he will be co-supervising ! Highly recommend Ryszard - He's a wonderful scientist and an absolutely lovely person!!

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

In case you missed my talk at Cosyne yesterday, drop by to hear me talk about my work on top-down flexibility through predictive context in the macaque face processing system. Where: Primate Neurobiology meeting @primatenzentrum.bsky.social When: 4th April at 9am Looking forward to more feedback!

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I'm looking forward to an exciting discussion in this workshop and input on my work! Join us on the 1st April ! toliaslab.org/workshop/cos...

toliaslab.org

Cosyne 2025 Object Centric Workshop

Website for the object centric workshop at 2025 COSYNE

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Tarana Nigam @tarananigam.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I'm giving a talk on dynamic code-switching and top-down flexibility in the neural codes for face processing in macaque monkeys at #Cosyne2025 @cosynemeeting.bsky.social in the exciting workshop on Object-centric representations! (organized by @katrinfranke.bsky.social & @mdiamantaki.bsky.social )

toliaslab.org

Cosyne 2025 Object Centric Workshop

Website for the object centric workshop at 2025 COSYNE

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