Alex Hess (he/him)
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alexjhess.bsky.social
Alex Hess (he/him)
@alexjhess.bsky.social
460 followers 690 following 15 posts
doctoral student 👨‍🎓 in Computational Psychiatry at ETH Zurich | passionate about sports 🚴‍♂️🏒🏓🏋️🏂, food 🌮, causal inference ➡️⬅️, Bayesian stats 📊, and the brain 🧠
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alexjhess.bsky.social
Alex Hess (he/him) @alexjhess.bsky.social · Dec 23
🚨 new paper 📄 🚨
I received an early christmas present this year - the publication of my first first-author paper from my PhD 🥳🎁
doi.org/10.3390/e261...
1/n
Refining the Allostatic Self-Efficacy Theory of Fatigue and Depression Using Causal Inference
Allostatic self-efficacy (ASE) represents a computational theory of fatigue and depression. In brief, it postulates that (i) fatigue is a feeling state triggered by a metacognitive diagnosis of loss o...
doi.org
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
ethz.ch
A milestone for open AI: ETH Zurich and EPFL will release a fully open multilingual language model, trained on CSCS’s “Alps” supercomputer. Built for the public good, this model promotes transparency, inclusion, and innovation.

Read more:
A language model built for the public good
ETH Zurich and EPFL will release a large language model (LLM) developed on public infrastructure. Trained on the “Alps” supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the new LLM ma...
ethz.ch
July 9, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
timkietzmann.bsky.social
Exciting new preprint from the lab: “Adopting a human developmental visual diet yields robust, shape-based AI vision”. A most wonderful case where brain inspiration massively improved AI solutions.

Work with @zejinlu.bsky.social @sushrutthorat.bsky.social and Radek Cichy

arxiv.org/abs/2507.03168
arxiv.org
July 8, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
danasmall.bsky.social
For the past couple of years I met weekly with 3 amazing younger scientists @lilweb.bsky.social @debyee.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social to share ideas and teach each other. No agenda. It was often the favorite part of my week. Then we started writing. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning
Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide l…
www.sciencedirect.com
June 11, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
debyee.bsky.social
Excited for our @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social workshop at the intersection of #NeuroAI and Aging. Tomorrow from 9 AM -1 PM in LTEE 3 in Hamilton Building, hope to see you there!
Representational Alignment and Aging at RLDM2025. Bridging the gap between socioemotional function in human and artificial intellgence
June 11, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
katherinestiles.org
◽MedSky◽
For the first time, researchers have created genetically modified fruit flies that can become addicted to cocaine. The flies will self-administer cocaine if given the option.
How Cocaine Hijacks the Brain - Neuroscience News
In a groundbreaking study, researchers have engineered fruit flies that voluntarily consume cocaine, creating the first fly model for cocaine addiction.
neurosciencenews.com
June 3, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
Survey Statistics: it is the people
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/06/01/s...
Survey Statistics: it is the people | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
June 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
eurocim.bsky.social
EuroCIM2025 came to an end! Thank you to all speakers, participants, and partners who made this year's conference a success. See you next year in Oxford!
April 11, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
robustnessreports.bsky.social
We are live!

Introducing the "Journal of Robustness Reports" – a Diamond Open-Access journal dedicated to publishing short reanalyses of empirical findings.

Check out our website and blog post about the journal:
🌐 scipost.org/JRobustRep
📄 www.bayesianspectacles.org/introducing-...
[Editorial: Introducing the Journal of Robustness Reports]
April 17, 2025 at 3:13 PM
alexjhess.bsky.social
Are you new to the field of Computational Psychiatry or just looking for resources on applying Bayesian models of cognition to behavioural data? Then check out our new paper "Bayesian Workflow for Generative Modeling in Computational Psychiatry": doi.org/10.5334/cpsy...
1/6
Bayesian Workflow for Generative Modeling in Computational Psychiatry | Computational Psychiatry
doi.org
March 25, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
kordinglab.bsky.social
Announcing a new week-long program for young computational neuroscience/ behavior professors to talk about rigorous science, mentoring, lab management, and networking in a stunning retreat setting. Do great science as a community and have fun doing so.
January 21, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
algonautsproject.bsky.social
(1/4) The Algonauts Project 2025 challenge is now live!

Participate and build computational models that best predict how the human brain responds to multimodal movies!

Submission deadline: 13th of July.

#algonauts2025 #NeuroAI #CompNeuro #neuroscience #AI

algonautsproject.com
The Algonauts Project 2025
homepage
algonautsproject.com
January 6, 2025 at 10:08 AM
alexjhess.bsky.social
🚨 new paper 📄 🚨
I received an early christmas present this year - the publication of my first first-author paper from my PhD 🥳🎁
doi.org/10.3390/e261...
1/n
Refining the Allostatic Self-Efficacy Theory of Fatigue and Depression Using Causal Inference
Allostatic self-efficacy (ASE) represents a computational theory of fatigue and depression. In brief, it postulates that (i) fatigue is a feeling state triggered by a metacognitive diagnosis of loss o...
doi.org
December 23, 2024 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
maartenvsmeden.bsky.social
Let us start 2025 in a positive mood: here are 10 methods things researchers can worry *less* about in 2025
a countdown clock with the number 10 in the center
ALT: a countdown clock with the number 10 in the center
media.tenor.com
December 23, 2024 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
michaelgaebler.com
📣 Come join us for the #MindBrainBody Symposium 2025!

📆 March 10-12, 2025
📍 Berlin & online
🔎 mindbrainbody.de

Keynotes:
- Ivan de Araujo
- Nadine Gogolla
- Maria Ribeiro @ribeironeuro.bsky.social
- Markus Ullsperger
- Tor Wager
- Veronica Witte @veronicawitte.bsky.social

#interoception
Logo of the MindBrainBody Symposium
November 25, 2024 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
debyee.bsky.social
Excited to see this Special Focus at @jocn.bsky.social on Neural and Computational Mechanisms of Motivation and Decision-Making finally out!

Full collection here: direct.mit.edu/jocn/issue/3...
November 25, 2024 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
cogcompneuro.bsky.social
After a great conference in Boston, CCN is going to take place in Amsterdam in 2025! To help the exchange of ideas between #neuroscience, cognitive science, and #AI, CCN will for the first time have full length paper submissions (alongside the established 2 pagers)! Info below👇
#NeuroAI #CompNeuro
November 12, 2024 at 9:27 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
kvwellstein.bsky.social
I'm putting together a Computational Psychiatry Starter Pack, still tiny!

Drop a comment if you feel like you should be added :)

go.bsky.app/5PTy9Zj
November 10, 2024 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
nicolaslegrand.bsky.social
📄Unlocking Dynamic Neural Networks for Bayesian Modelling with PyHGF

Curious about new interplays between neural networks and Bayesian modelling? Check out our latest preprint on dynamic predictive coding networks 👇

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2410.09206
Code: github.com/ilabcode/pyhgf
October 21, 2024 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
mehr.nz
this is pretty amazing: @lucinauddin.bsky.social is taking on the giant, hugely profitable publishers of academic journals, on grounds of antitrust

If you'd like to join the case as a plaintiff you can sign up at www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/ac...

summary of the case:
The Publisher Defendants’ Scheme has three primary components. First, the Publisher Defendants agreed to not compensate scholars for their labor, in particular not to pay for their peer review services (the “Unpaid Peer Review Rule”). In other words, the Publisher Defendants agreed to fix the price of peer review services at zero. The Publisher Defendants also agreed to coerce scholars into providing their labor for nothing by expressly linking their unpaid labor with their ability to get their manuscripts published in the Publisher Defendants’ journals. In the “publish or perish” world of academia, the Publisher Defendants essentially agreed to hold the careers of scholars hostage so that the Publisher Defendants could force them to provide their valuable labor for free. Second, the Publisher Defendants agreed not to compete with each other for manuscripts by requiring scholars to submit their manuscripts to only one journal at a time (the “Single Submission Rule”). The Single Submission Rule substantially reduces competition among the Publisher Defendants, substantially decreasing incentives to review manuscripts promptly and publish meritorious research quickly. The Single Submission Rule also robs scholars of negotiating leverage they otherwise would have had if more than one journal offered to publish their manuscripts. Thus, the Publisher Defendants know that if they offer to publish a manuscript, the submitting scholar has no viable alternative and the Publisher Defendant can then dictate the terms of publication. Third, the Publisher Defendants agreed to prohibit scholars from freely sharing the scientific advancements described in submitted manuscripts while those manuscripts are under peer review, a process that often takes over a year (the “Gag Rule”). From the moment scholars submit manuscripts for publication, the Publisher Defendants behave as though the scientific advancements set forth in the manuscripts are their property, to be shared only if the Publisher Defendants grant permission. Moreover, when the Publisher Defendants select manuscripts for publication, the Publisher Defendants will often require scholars to sign away all intellectual property rights, in exchange for nothing. The manuscripts then become the actual property of the Publisher Defendants, and the Publisher Defendants charge the maximum the market will bear for access to that scientific knowledge.
September 14, 2024 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
olivia.science
Published! Forgot to share, but @samhforbes.bsky.social reminded me! 😊 I really hope people engage with this because it's so widespread not to be willing to teach women, including a lot of self harming ideas and of course more external sexism.

doi.org/10.5117/TVGN...
September 14, 2024 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
tyrellturing.bsky.social
1/ Here's a critical problem that the #neuroai field is going to have to contend with:

Increasingly, it looks like neural networks converge on the same representational structures - regardless of their specific losses and architectures - as long as they're big and trained on real world data.

🧠📈 🧪
September 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Alex Hess (he/him)
ashleytyrer.bsky.social
Had an absolute blast as always at #CPCZurich2024 - thanks so much to everyone who came to my DCM for Evoked Responses tutorials yesterday 🙏🧠
September 15, 2024 at 9:50 AM