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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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George Blackburne @rhizoqualia.bsky.social · 5h
Excited to share our latest work, unifying the large-scale neuroscience of psychedelics 🧠: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Psychedelics restructure information in the human brain
How do psychedelic drugs alter human brain function? Answering this question relies on our ability to understand how information is stored, transferred, and transformed across the cortex. Here, we lev...
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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
Beautiful work from @joannakuc.bsky.social @rosmcalpine.bsky.social, @rhizoqualia.bsky.social, Amelia Sellers, & @daniellametti.com 👏🎉.
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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 · 22/03/2025
We've gone on holiday by mistake.
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
I feel like a pig shat in my head!
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
👏
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
We are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell.
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
More!
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The world is made of language. Terence McKenna
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
I also see the words fall, they come from up above, as if they were little luminous objects falling from the sky, the language falls on the sacred table, falls on my body, then with me hands, I catch word after word Maria Sabina as quoted by Allyson Grey
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Words are not ... facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world ... so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers. J L Austin
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
I am impressed by the inadequacy of language to express our conscious thought. Alfred North Whitehead
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The map is not the territory ... Words are not the things they represent... To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness. Alfred Korzybski
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
the word... overwhelms or at least covers over the delicate and fugitive impressions of our individual consciousness. Henri Bergson
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
We believe that when we speak of trees, colours, snows, and flowers, we have knowledge of the things themselves, and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities. Friedrich Nietzsche
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
there lies in words no power to explain the nature of things Francisco Sanches
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
whatever we say of God is not true, and what we do not say of Him is true Meister Eckhart
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
spoken word is an imitation Plotinus
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
a name ... due to the absence of substance in things, is insubstantial and therefore empty Nāgārjuna
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The Way has never known boundaries ... But because of ‘this,’ there came to be boundaries. Zhuang Zhou
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. Lao Tzu
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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
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The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Samesies.
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