Heleen Slagter
@haslagter.bsky.social
Professor Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Director Institute Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, human brain and mind, attention, predictive processing, action, consciousness, meditation
www.heleenslagter.com
www.heleenslagter.com
Pinned
Heleen Slagter
@haslagter.bsky.social
· Nov 1
There is also my talk! "Meditation and the scientific study of consciousness: from consciousness to pure awareness to complete cessation of awareness" youtu.be/mQBKjPOgatw?... via @YouTube
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
🚨 New paper in @pnas.org to end 2025 with a bang!🚨
Behavioral, experiential, and physiological signatures of mind blanking
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
with Esteban Munoz-Musat, @arthurlecoz.bsky.social @corcorana.bsky.social, Laouen Belloli and Lionel Naccache
Illustration: Ana Yael.
1/n
Behavioral, experiential, and physiological signatures of mind blanking
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
with Esteban Munoz-Musat, @arthurlecoz.bsky.social @corcorana.bsky.social, Laouen Belloli and Lionel Naccache
Illustration: Ana Yael.
1/n
December 29, 2025 at 10:11 AM
🚨 New paper in @pnas.org to end 2025 with a bang!🚨
Behavioral, experiential, and physiological signatures of mind blanking
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
with Esteban Munoz-Musat, @arthurlecoz.bsky.social @corcorana.bsky.social, Laouen Belloli and Lionel Naccache
Illustration: Ana Yael.
1/n
Behavioral, experiential, and physiological signatures of mind blanking
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
with Esteban Munoz-Musat, @arthurlecoz.bsky.social @corcorana.bsky.social, Laouen Belloli and Lionel Naccache
Illustration: Ana Yael.
1/n
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
New paper outlining a spatial account of #FND and proposing an approach to the co-production of functional symptoms. It draws on my longstanding work on geographies of health knowledges, my recent health experiences, and emerging interdisciplinary conversations www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
December 22, 2025 at 8:15 AM
New paper outlining a spatial account of #FND and proposing an approach to the co-production of functional symptoms. It draws on my longstanding work on geographies of health knowledges, my recent health experiences, and emerging interdisciplinary conversations www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Conjunctive population coding integrates sensory evidence to guide adaptive behavior | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
December 30, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Conjunctive population coding integrates sensory evidence to guide adaptive behavior | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Human Brain Mapping | Neuroimaging Journal #contemplativeneuroscience #self #meditation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Decoding the Self: Single‐Trial Prediction of Self‐Boundary Meditation States From Magnetoencephalography Recordings
Meditation-induced self-boundary dissolution can be predicted from magnetoencephalography recordings using Lempel-Ziv complexity and oscillatory power as neural markers. We demonstrate significantly ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:09 AM
Human Brain Mapping | Neuroimaging Journal #contemplativeneuroscience #self #meditation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
While much of machine learning is retrospective (learn the past distribution) learning in biology is prospective (learn for the future) - here we discuss some implications for neuroscience (with @tdverstynen.bsky.social, Josh Vogelstein, Pratik Chaudhari): www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
Toward a science of prospective learning
In a constantly changing world, effective intelligence means anticipating future changes.
Kording et al. argue that organisms adapt prospectively, modeling how environments
and capabilities of the org...
www.cell.com
December 22, 2025 at 8:47 PM
While much of machine learning is retrospective (learn the past distribution) learning in biology is prospective (learn for the future) - here we discuss some implications for neuroscience (with @tdverstynen.bsky.social, Josh Vogelstein, Pratik Chaudhari): www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
Annual reminder that the book is open access.
How do we think of the brain as a deeply interconnected system with highly distributed, non hierarchical processing.
Want to learn about the brain from a fresh perspective?
#neuroskyence
mitpress.mit.edu/978026254460...
Annual reminder that the book is open access.
How do we think of the brain as a deeply interconnected system with highly distributed, non hierarchical processing.
Want to learn about the brain from a fresh perspective?
#neuroskyence
mitpress.mit.edu/978026254460...
The Entangled Brain
Popular neuroscience accounts often focus on specific mind-brain aspects like addiction, cognition, or memory, but The Entangled Brain tackles a much bigger ...
mitpress.mit.edu
December 28, 2025 at 5:56 PM
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
Annual reminder that the book is open access.
How do we think of the brain as a deeply interconnected system with highly distributed, non hierarchical processing.
Want to learn about the brain from a fresh perspective?
#neuroskyence
mitpress.mit.edu/978026254460...
Annual reminder that the book is open access.
How do we think of the brain as a deeply interconnected system with highly distributed, non hierarchical processing.
Want to learn about the brain from a fresh perspective?
#neuroskyence
mitpress.mit.edu/978026254460...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
A lovely Christmas present: this paper led by Henrik Röhr is now out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/YCJX8T...
In this paper, we predict on a single-trial level whether someone is practising a self-boundary dissolution meditation practice on the basis of their EEG data
In this paper, we predict on a single-trial level whether someone is practising a self-boundary dissolution meditation practice on the basis of their EEG data
Decoding the Self: Single‐Trial Prediction of Self‐Boundary Meditation States From Magnetoencephalography Recordings
You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 26, 2025 at 7:09 PM
A lovely Christmas present: this paper led by Henrik Röhr is now out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/YCJX8T...
In this paper, we predict on a single-trial level whether someone is practising a self-boundary dissolution meditation practice on the basis of their EEG data
In this paper, we predict on a single-trial level whether someone is practising a self-boundary dissolution meditation practice on the basis of their EEG data
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
In episode 1132, I talk with Dr. Kevin Mitchell (@wiringthebrain.bsky.social) about free will, his debates with Robert Sapolsky, the genomic code, and human embryo editing. #Neuroscience #Genetics #Science
youtu.be/euuhGjxVmTE
youtu.be/euuhGjxVmTE
#1132 Kevin Mitchell: Free Will, Robert Sapolsky, the Genomic Code, and Human Embryo Editing
YouTube video by The Dissenter
youtu.be
December 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
In episode 1132, I talk with Dr. Kevin Mitchell (@wiringthebrain.bsky.social) about free will, his debates with Robert Sapolsky, the genomic code, and human embryo editing. #Neuroscience #Genetics #Science
youtu.be/euuhGjxVmTE
youtu.be/euuhGjxVmTE
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Each year neuroscientists make fascinating, important and downright strange discoveries about how the human brain, one of the most complex objects in the known universe, works, and 2025 didn’t disappoint. Here are 10 of the most fascinating brain discoveries of this year:
#Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
#Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
The 10 Most Mind-Blowing Discoveries About the Brain in 2025
From glowing neurons to newborn memories, here are the most fascinating brain discoveries of 2025
spklr.io
December 28, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Each year neuroscientists make fascinating, important and downright strange discoveries about how the human brain, one of the most complex objects in the known universe, works, and 2025 didn’t disappoint. Here are 10 of the most fascinating brain discoveries of this year:
#Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
#Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
On the occasion of Mazviita Chirimuuta's new "Why are we still suffering from the blind spot?" 👇, here is @adamfrank4.bsky.social's talk "Beyond The Blind Spot" from two weeks ago!
youtu.be/agiytWBss-s
youtu.be/agiytWBss-s
December 27, 2025 at 9:55 PM
On the occasion of Mazviita Chirimuuta's new "Why are we still suffering from the blind spot?" 👇, here is @adamfrank4.bsky.social's talk "Beyond The Blind Spot" from two weeks ago!
youtu.be/agiytWBss-s
youtu.be/agiytWBss-s
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
BOLD signal changes can oppose oxygen metabolism across the human cortex
Nature Neuroscience (2025)
#neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nature Neuroscience (2025)
#neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
BOLD signal changes can oppose oxygen metabolism across the human cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Using quantitative brain imaging, the authors show opposite fMRI BOLD signal to metabolic activity due to variable oxygen extraction across the human cortex. This questions the canonical interpretatio...
www.nature.com
December 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
BOLD signal changes can oppose oxygen metabolism across the human cortex
Nature Neuroscience (2025)
#neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nature Neuroscience (2025)
#neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
"40 percent of MRI signals do not correspond to actual brain activity"; "Since tens of thousands of fMRI studies worldwide are based on this assumption, our results could lead to opposite interpretations in many of them.”
www.tum.de/en/news-and-...
www.tum.de/en/news-and-...
40 percent of MRI signals misinterpreted
Interpretation of numerous MRI data may be incorrect: blood flow is not a reliable indicator of brain activity.
www.tum.de
December 28, 2025 at 8:40 AM
"40 percent of MRI signals do not correspond to actual brain activity"; "Since tens of thousands of fMRI studies worldwide are based on this assumption, our results could lead to opposite interpretations in many of them.”
www.tum.de/en/news-and-...
www.tum.de/en/news-and-...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Online Now: On a confusion about there being two types of consciousness
On a confusion about there being two types of consciousness
Progress in the scientific study of consciousness has been impeded by several fundamental controversies. One pertains to a major divide between theories: sensory versus cognitive. Here, we argue that the key to resolving this controversy is to reevaluate the conceptual distinction proposed by Block in 1995 between phenomenal consciousness (P) and access consciousness (A). We propose that P and A should not be understood as two different types of consciousness, but as two necessary conditions for consciousness. We illustrate how this conceptual shift enables us to make substantial progress in answering several unresolved questions, such as the neural mechanisms and functions of consciousness, and the relationship between consciousness and attention. Our proposal motivates a selective unification across these different classes of theories.
dlvr.it
December 17, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Online Now: On a confusion about there being two types of consciousness
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
How experience shapes extraordinary beliefs
Review by Eli Stark-Elster (@eselster.bsky.social) & Manvir Singh (@manvir.bsky.social)
tinyurl.com/y9dbwaa5
Review by Eli Stark-Elster (@eselster.bsky.social) & Manvir Singh (@manvir.bsky.social)
tinyurl.com/y9dbwaa5
December 18, 2025 at 4:33 PM
How experience shapes extraordinary beliefs
Review by Eli Stark-Elster (@eselster.bsky.social) & Manvir Singh (@manvir.bsky.social)
tinyurl.com/y9dbwaa5
Review by Eli Stark-Elster (@eselster.bsky.social) & Manvir Singh (@manvir.bsky.social)
tinyurl.com/y9dbwaa5
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
🎄 New Xmas preprint 🎄
Portable, contact-free magnetomyography (MMG) can decode fine finger movements 🖐️ and recover EMG-like muscle 💪activations patterns, without electrodes or a shielded room!
A step towards MMG 🧲 as a practical tool for neuromuscular assessment and human-machine interface
🧵👇
Portable, contact-free magnetomyography (MMG) can decode fine finger movements 🖐️ and recover EMG-like muscle 💪activations patterns, without electrodes or a shielded room!
A step towards MMG 🧲 as a practical tool for neuromuscular assessment and human-machine interface
🧵👇
December 26, 2025 at 4:43 PM
🎄 New Xmas preprint 🎄
Portable, contact-free magnetomyography (MMG) can decode fine finger movements 🖐️ and recover EMG-like muscle 💪activations patterns, without electrodes or a shielded room!
A step towards MMG 🧲 as a practical tool for neuromuscular assessment and human-machine interface
🧵👇
Portable, contact-free magnetomyography (MMG) can decode fine finger movements 🖐️ and recover EMG-like muscle 💪activations patterns, without electrodes or a shielded room!
A step towards MMG 🧲 as a practical tool for neuromuscular assessment and human-machine interface
🧵👇
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
This is your brain on Ritalin. Got your attention? Stimulant medications like Ritalin (methylphenidate) do, but not in the way you might think. They don't act directly on the brain’s attention systems! Find out what's really happening in @cellpress.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
December 24, 2025 at 4:46 PM
This is your brain on Ritalin. Got your attention? Stimulant medications like Ritalin (methylphenidate) do, but not in the way you might think. They don't act directly on the brain’s attention systems! Find out what's really happening in @cellpress.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
A must-read review. It argues that brain areas are only one of several organizing principles and are not especially central, given their weak correspondence to function. Cytoarchitecture and connectivity are a starting point, not the endpoint.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience
Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization - Nature Neuroscience
Parcellation of the cortex into functionally modular brain areas is foundational to neuroscience. Here, Hayden, Heilbronner and Yoo question the central status of brain areas in neuroscience from the ...
www.nature.com
December 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
A must-read review. It argues that brain areas are only one of several organizing principles and are not especially central, given their weak correspondence to function. Cytoarchitecture and connectivity are a starting point, not the endpoint.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Honored to receive the Early Career Award by @brain-cognition-nl.bsky.social (NVP) and to give a prize lecture on the general principles of active vision, memory, and imagination. Huge thanks to the NVP community, my mentors, collaborators, and students that shaped this work over the years! 1/2
December 20, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Honored to receive the Early Career Award by @brain-cognition-nl.bsky.social (NVP) and to give a prize lecture on the general principles of active vision, memory, and imagination. Huge thanks to the NVP community, my mentors, collaborators, and students that shaped this work over the years! 1/2
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
At NVP today? Join our symposium “Cognition in Action” at 5.30pm in the Lamoraalzaal! Together with @haslagter.bsky.social, @jdkiverstein.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social, and Bernadette van Wijk, we’ll show why action should be central to studying cognition 🧠🚴♀️🏃♀️🏊
December 17, 2025 at 6:46 AM
At NVP today? Join our symposium “Cognition in Action” at 5.30pm in the Lamoraalzaal! Together with @haslagter.bsky.social, @jdkiverstein.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social, and Bernadette van Wijk, we’ll show why action should be central to studying cognition 🧠🚴♀️🏃♀️🏊
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
New preprint!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
As you are silently reading this, you may experience a little voice in your head. How is it represented in the brain, and what purpose does it serve? Our new study answers the questions.
Together with @adriendoerig.bsky.social and Radek Cichy.(1/8)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
As you are silently reading this, you may experience a little voice in your head. How is it represented in the brain, and what purpose does it serve? Our new study answers the questions.
Together with @adriendoerig.bsky.social and Radek Cichy.(1/8)
Auditory representations of words during silent visual reading
Silent visual reading is accompanied by the phenomenological experience of an inner voice. However, the temporal dynamics and functional role of the underlying neural representations remain unclear. H...
www.biorxiv.org
December 15, 2025 at 3:10 PM
New preprint!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
As you are silently reading this, you may experience a little voice in your head. How is it represented in the brain, and what purpose does it serve? Our new study answers the questions.
Together with @adriendoerig.bsky.social and Radek Cichy.(1/8)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
As you are silently reading this, you may experience a little voice in your head. How is it represented in the brain, and what purpose does it serve? Our new study answers the questions.
Together with @adriendoerig.bsky.social and Radek Cichy.(1/8)
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Representational Momentum Transcends Motion
Dillon Plunkett & Jorge Morales (2025) Psychological Science
subjectivitylab.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
The @springernature.com book "The Bodily Self, Emotion, and Subjective Time: Exploring Interoception through the Contributions of A.D. (Bud) Craig" is out: 22 authors, 16 chapters. Neurobiology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Neuroimaging, Musicology, Philosophy, ... link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
December 6, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The @springernature.com book "The Bodily Self, Emotion, and Subjective Time: Exploring Interoception through the Contributions of A.D. (Bud) Craig" is out: 22 authors, 16 chapters. Neurobiology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Neuroimaging, Musicology, Philosophy, ... link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
This guy’s not on bsky but the experiments are really interesting, and fit my sense that LLMs will reliably give good answers about things that only highly specialized nerds have ever written anything about, and do better the larger that community of nerds is and the more unique their jargon is. BUT
December 12, 2025 at 4:17 AM
This guy’s not on bsky but the experiments are really interesting, and fit my sense that LLMs will reliably give good answers about things that only highly specialized nerds have ever written anything about, and do better the larger that community of nerds is and the more unique their jargon is. BUT
Reposted by Heleen Slagter
Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Oliver Sacks Put Himself Into His Case Studies. What Was the Cost?
The scientist was famous for linking healing with storytelling. Sometimes that meant reshaping patients’ reality.
www.newyorker.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...