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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

@thelablab.bsky.social
2.4K followers 2.6K following 89 posts

We study the neurobiology of language and its relationship to consciousness, mental health, and wellbeing using neuroimaging and psychedelics at UCL 🧠 🗣️ www.lab-lab.org UCL Centre for Consciousness Research www.uccr.uk

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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Magda Jaglinska @mjaglinska.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
New meta-analysis by @thelablab.bsky.social and team! We argue consciousness isn’t localised to one privileged brain region; it’s distributed and context-dependent. Interestingly, functions tied to bodily state and affect (!) contributed most to explaining consciousness-related brain activity.
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George Blackburne @rhizoqualia.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The neuroscience of consciousness often feels like imperialist geography; theories laying claim a universally privileged terrain in the brain, as the seat of subjective experience. We provide evidence from >500 neuroimaging studies for a distributed, decentred, and context-sensitive alternative:
biorxiv.org
What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness
Consciousness is often studied by asking whether particular brain regions or systems are privileged. We tested a distributed, decentred and context-sensitive alternative using 579 consciousness-focuse...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Egor Levchenko @egorlevchenko.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
💥 Our paper on NNDb-3T+ is out in Scientific Data 🧵 A dataset that puts naturalistic movie-watching and controlled sensory mapping in the same 40 people, so you can link someone's individual brain topography to how they respond to a story 👇👇👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A neuroimaging dataset combining movie-watching, eye-tracking, sensorimotor mapping, and cognitive tasks - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - A neuroimaging dataset combining movie-watching, eye-tracking, sensorimotor mapping, and cognitive tasks
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
The UCL Centre for Conscious Research (@uccr.bsky.social) is investigating how psychedelics and meditation influence visual imagery and aphantasia. If you have relevant experience, please contribute to their research at: tinyurl.com/vinos-study
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Dan Lametti @daniellametti.com · 29/06/2026
New work led by @thelablab.bsky.social out in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. "Inner Speech and the Neurobiology of Psychosis". Highlights below. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The image shows a bullet point list of highlights from the paper:
• First meta-analysis mapping inner-speech systems onto brain differences in psychosis
• Psychosis shows increased premotor activity, preferentially engaged by covert speech
• Psychosis shows reduced auditory and ACC grey matter, more engaged by overt speech
• Covert premotor and overt auditory regions form inversely coactive networks
• Results bridge predictive, salience, and self-monitoring accounts of hallucinations
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megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
check out the inaugural cohort of @neuromatch.bsky.social AI Sentience Scholars! this is a seriously impressive bunch!
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Inner speech and the neurobiology of psychosis: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... with @daniellametti.com
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Please help if you've taken a psychedelic, its anonymous! tinyurl.com/pfs-study 👽 🍄
tinyurl.com
Online Survey Software | Qualtrics Survey Solutions
Qualtrics sophisticated online survey software solutions make creating online surveys easy. Learn more about Research Suite and get a free account today.
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Dan Lametti @daniellametti.com · 27/05/2026
New paper in the Journal of Psychopharmacology led by UCL PhD student @joannakuc.bsky.social and the @thelablab.bsky.social "Speech markers of psychological change following a psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT retreat". journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Following 5-MeO-DMT, speech markers revealed increased cognitive language, decreased social words, and altered voice quality
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andrea e. martin @andreaeyleen.eurosky.social · 29/09/2025
Ode to the original language model, or: Give me literally Anything* instead of Large Language Models (LLMs) *(no predictive coding either!) By Lady Byronadrea LLMartin 1/n
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Inner speech and the neurobiology of psychosis biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With @daniellametti.com and David Green
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speechpapers.bsky.social @speechpapers.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
Inner speech and the neurobiology of psychosis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Fernando Rosas @frosas.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Preprint time: “Compatibilist emergence for the science of consciousness” osf.io/preprints/ps... On how a multifaceted understanding of emergence can illuminate the link between consciousness and life!
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Oris Shenyan @orisshenyan.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Very happy that our study looking at complex hallucination proneness across the lifspan is new out in Cortex! @georgiamneuro.bsky.social @mlisi.bsky.social @jagreenwood.bsky.social @thelablab.bsky.social @tessamdekker.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Reduced susceptibility to experimentally-induced complex visual hallucinations with age
Visual hallucinations occur across many clinical conditions, but can also be induced experimentally in healthy individuals, using high-frequency flick…
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
A psychedelic drug disorganizes cortical traveling waves. Groovy work. Complex slow waves in the human brain under 5-MeO-DMT doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... #neuroscience
doi.org
Redirecting
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Call for papers @jneurolang.bsky.social: Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Relationship Between the Neurobiology of Language and Consciousness. 🧠🗨️ direct.mit.edu/DocumentLibr... ☎️ DM me for more details.
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viktorkewenig.bsky.social @viktorkewenig.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Our multimodal transformer tool for automating word-concreteness ratings is published today 📝 C-ratings are used in research across Cognitive Science 💶 They take time and money to collect ⚙️ Automation solves this + we get in-context ratings for free! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
A multimodal transformer-based tool for automatic generation of concreteness ratings across languages - Communications Psychology
This resource presents a tool to use multimodal transformers to generate reliable, context-sensitive concreteness ratings for single words and multi-word expressions across languages.
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Oris Shenyan @orisshenyan.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
The second study of my PhD is out as a preprint, exploring experimentally-induced hallucination proneness across the lifespan! w/ Laura Haye @georgiamneuro.bsky.social @mlisi.bsky.social @jagreenwood.bsky.social l @thelablab.bsky.social @tessamdekker.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Reduced susceptibility to experimentally-induced complex visual hallucinations with age
Visual hallucinations occur across many clinical conditions, but can also be induced experimentally in healthy individuals, using high-frequency flicker (Ganzflicker) and sensory deprivation (Ganzfeld...
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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Reduced susceptibility to experimentally-induced complex visual hallucinations with age www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Reduced susceptibility to experimentally-induced complex visual hallucinations with age www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
1st mobile phone based study tracking longitudinal changes in language & voice for #psychedelics ☎️🗣️⏲️🪷: We find 5-MeO-DMT induces a shift from external focus to introspection, predicting psychological transformations, e.g., in #wellbeing ❤️‍🩹. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Speech markers of psychedelic-induced psychological change www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
You feel closer to AI when it exhibits psychological traits similar to your own. 👏🥂
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Institute of Art and Ideas @iai.tv · 21/03/2025
“Ultimately, language is both an enhancement and a constraint, a double-edged sword that structures thought while simultaneously obscuring other modes of being,” argues Jeremy I Skipper. | iai.tv/articles/lan... #philsky #langsky #consky
iai.tv
Language creates an altered state of consciousness | Jeremy I Skipper
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The neurobiology of language is an altered state of consciousness. 🗣️🧠🍄👾 iai.tv/articles/lan...
iai.tv
Language creates an altered state of consciousness | Jeremy I Skipper
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 01/03/2025
Tired but happy to say this is out w @andreaeyleen.bsky.social: Are Neurocognitive Representations 'Small Cakes'? philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/ We analyse cog neuro theories showing how vicious regress, e.g. the homunculus fallacy, is (sadly) alive and well — and importantly how to avoid it. 1/
In order to understand cognition, we often recruit analogies as building blocks of theories to aid us in this quest. One such attempt, originating in folklore and alchemy, is the homunculus: a miniature human who resides in the skull and performs cognition. Perhaps surprisingly, this appears indistinguishable from the implicit proposal of many neurocognitive theories, including that of the 'cognitive map,' which proposes a representational substrate for episodic memories and navigational capacities. In such 'small cakes' cases, neurocognitive representations are assumed to be meaningful and about the world, though it is wholly unclear who is reading them, how they are interpreted, and how they come to mean what they do. We analyze the 'small cakes' problem in neurocognitive theories (including, but not limited to, the cognitive map) and find that such an approach a) causes infinite regress in the explanatory chain, requiring a human-in-the-loop to resolve, and b) results in a computationally inert account of representation, providing neither a function nor a mechanism. We caution against a 'small cakes' theoretical practice across computational cognitive modelling, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, wherein the scientist inserts their (or other humans') cognition into models because otherwise the models neither perform as advertised, nor mean what they are purported to, without said 'cake insertion.' We argue that the solution is to tease apart explanandum and explanans for a given scientific investigation, with an eye towards avoiding van Rooij's (formal) or Ryle's (informal) infinite regresses.

Figure 1 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/Box 1 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/Box 2 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Goodbye T. Robbins, you transformed me. 🐐👍 A cherished moment was receiving this message after I wrote you the absurd: '...that I mostly wear only bejeweled pink flip-flops can be tied by some tendril back to your writing. Your characters have often served as my role models...' 💎 Namo Amitabha 🪷
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
🐐🪷
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
👋 We show that #wellbeing, like other high-level constructs, e.g., ‘language’, is fundamentally a dynamic, whole brain process, with big-ol' individual differences, supported by distinct networks. 🧠 🗣️ 🫀 Amazing work from the formidable @yumengma.bsky.social. 🥂 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
🗣️ Language is widely distributed throughout the brain 🧠 In a recent correspondence in @natrevneurosci.bsky.social, we suggest that there is no 'language network' in the brain. What appears as such is an inevitable illusion created in part by the methods we use. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
⭐ Do you have experience with #psychedelics 🍄 or #meditation 🪷? ⭐ 🆘 Please help us understand how these practices shape the experience of emotions in our bodies. 🔬 Contribute to science by taking part in a quick, 20-min anonymous online experiment. 🖱️ Click here to participate: bit.ly/3DYMEkb
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UCL News @uclnews.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
A psychedelic drug, DMT, is being tested as a novel way to reduce problematic alcohol consumption, in an ongoing study led by Prof Ravi Das and Prof Jeremy Skipper @uclpals.bsky.social @uclbrainscience.bsky.social. Article by @hannahdevlin.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
theguardian.com
Psychedelic drug DMT to be trialled on UK volunteers to tackle alcohol misuse
Exclusive: Scientists at UCL hope one-off dose of powerful hallucinogenic could help drinkers reduce intake
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 17/01/2025
Psychedelic drug DMT trialled on patients to treat alcohol addiction
theguardian.com
Psychedelic drug DMT trialled on patients to treat alcohol addiction
Exclusive: Scientists at UCL hope one-off dose of powerful hallucinogenic could help drinkers reduce intake A powerful psychedelic that is used in healing ceremonies by Indigenous groups in the Amazon is being trialled as a pioneering approach to reduce…
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Please share this @theguardian.com article about our work (@theunityproject.bsky.social) using the #psychedelic compound 'DMT' to help heavy drinkers drink less: www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
theguardian.com
Psychedelic drug DMT to be trialled on UK volunteers to tackle alcohol misuse
Exclusive: Scientists at UCL hope one-off dose of powerful hallucinogenic could help drinkers reduce intake
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Dan Lametti @daniellametti.com · 07/01/2025
The neurobiology of language does not operate in a vat. An important perspective from the @thelablab.bsky.social and colleagues: "Language is widely distributed throughout the brain" www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Language is widely distributed throughout the brain - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Language is widely distributed throughout the brain
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Linda Drijvers @lindadrijvers.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Thanks for engaging with our (w/ @slsmall.bsky.social & @thelablab.bsky.social ) critique, here is a link to the original and PDF for those interested (link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...; pdf: pure.mpg.de/pubman/item/...)
nature.com
Language is widely distributed throughout the brain - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Language is widely distributed throughout the brain
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Memories of co-speech hand movements are tied to the speech they are learned with. From @daniellametti.com and friends 🤲 link.springer.com/article/10.3...
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
👏🥂
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Johannes Fahrenfort @fahrenfort.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
🎉 Our paper "Criterion placement threatens the construct validity of neural measures of consciousness" is now out in eLife! 🎉 TL;DR: Both simulations and empirical data show that you should not post-hoc sort neural data based on subjective measures of consciousness. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
elifesciences.org
Criterion placement threatens the construct validity of neural measures of consciousness
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Annette Glotfelty @arglotfelty.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
I’ve been dreaming about today for a long time… And it was AMAZING!!!! 👩🏻‍🎓🤩
Annette being hooded at her PhD graduationAnnette, her spouse, and her PhD advisor after graduationAnnette and her mom after graduationAnnette and her family at a celebratory dinner
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Context is everything, isn't it? 👁️👂🫀🧠 Nice commentary on the below. elifesciences.org/digests/9152...
elifesciences.org
Context is everything
How the brain processes concepts is influenced by contextual information, such as what a person is seeing, suggests new study.
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Naturalistic encoding of concepts in the brain @viktorkewenig.bsky.social shows that, while concepts generally encode habitual experiences, the underlying neurobiological organisation is not fixed but depends dynamically on available contextual information. 👏🍾🐐 elifesciences.org/articles/91522
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
👏🍾
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
👏🍾
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Bradley Love @profdata.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
"Large language models surpass human experts in predicting neuroscience results" w @ken-lxl.bsky.social and braingpt.org. LLMs integrate a noisy yet interrelated scientific literature to forecast outcomes. nature.com/articles/s41... 1/8
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Who ChatGPT 4o thinks we are.
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Dr David Luke @drdluke.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
looking for boozers in London, which seems highly feasible..
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