Maciek Szul
@maciekszul.bsky.social
📍 Tübingen, DE ∆ DevComPsy Lab ∆🔬👨💻 🧪∆ decisions, motor control, (laminar) MEG, MRI ∆ not interested in oscillations ∆🤘🤡🚴🏔️ ∆ he/him ∆
Pinned
Maciek Szul
@maciekszul.bsky.social
· Jun 23
Laminar MEG is possible across all cortical depths. Our comprehensive simulations outline SNR, head movement, and micro/macro anatomical limitations to source reconstruction precision. Not perfect by any chance, lots of confirmatory work ahead, but it's promising.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Is meditation analysis just sitting and thinking the results into existence?
November 11, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Is meditation analysis just sitting and thinking the results into existence?
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Idiom Origin
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
This was originally *sarcasm* & meant to convey that the act was impossible.
A boot strap is a loop used to help put your boot on.
This 1921 cartoon from the “Nonpartisan Leader” showcases that you can’t pull upward on your boots to levitate.
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
This was originally *sarcasm* & meant to convey that the act was impossible.
A boot strap is a loop used to help put your boot on.
This 1921 cartoon from the “Nonpartisan Leader” showcases that you can’t pull upward on your boots to levitate.
January 20, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Idiom Origin
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
This was originally *sarcasm* & meant to convey that the act was impossible.
A boot strap is a loop used to help put your boot on.
This 1921 cartoon from the “Nonpartisan Leader” showcases that you can’t pull upward on your boots to levitate.
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
This was originally *sarcasm* & meant to convey that the act was impossible.
A boot strap is a loop used to help put your boot on.
This 1921 cartoon from the “Nonpartisan Leader” showcases that you can’t pull upward on your boots to levitate.
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Now out in #ScienceAdvances: @baiweiliu.bsky.social and I ask how internal (goal) and external (sensory) selection are coordinated during visual search. The key insight: internal and external selection are not inherently serial, but may develop in parallel in the human brain: doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Concurrent selection of internal goals and external sensations during visual search
Internal and external selection processes can codevelop in time to yield efficient search behavior.
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Now out in #ScienceAdvances: @baiweiliu.bsky.social and I ask how internal (goal) and external (sensory) selection are coordinated during visual search. The key insight: internal and external selection are not inherently serial, but may develop in parallel in the human brain: doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Analogy for cognitive science would be labelling two ends of reaction time distribution:
less than 0 ms: precognition
positive infinity ms: death
Do they have an editor at FT?
less than 0 ms: precognition
positive infinity ms: death
Do they have an editor at FT?
November 10, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Analogy for cognitive science would be labelling two ends of reaction time distribution:
less than 0 ms: precognition
positive infinity ms: death
Do they have an editor at FT?
less than 0 ms: precognition
positive infinity ms: death
Do they have an editor at FT?
Watching the first episode of the 4th season of Witcher I had only one person in mind. I'm not happy to say the least.
November 10, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Watching the first episode of the 4th season of Witcher I had only one person in mind. I'm not happy to say the least.
Reposted by Maciek Szul
New review on neural manifold and population activity in the brain-
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience
Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...
www.nature.com
July 29, 2025 at 8:11 AM
New review on neural manifold and population activity in the brain-
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
"Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration"
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
(i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). 1/
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
(i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). 1/
Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration | Royal Society Open Science
Science relies on integrity and trustworthiness. But scientists under career pressure
are lured to purchase fake publications from ‘paper mills’ that use AI-generated data,
text and image fabrication....
royalsocietypublishing.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:07 AM
"Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration"
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
(i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). 1/
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
(i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). 1/
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Interested in how we make preference-driven decisions, and how this is implemented in the brain?
We report that neural correlates of evidence accumulation (CPP, Mu/Beta) are also observed during value-based decisions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Led by @laurencf.bsky.social (Lauren Fong)
1/n
We report that neural correlates of evidence accumulation (CPP, Mu/Beta) are also observed during value-based decisions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Led by @laurencf.bsky.social (Lauren Fong)
1/n
Tracing the neural trajectories of evidence accumulation and motor preparation processes during voluntary decisions
Voluntary decisions have previously been described by where they arise in the brain and how actions corresponding to one's choice are prepared. However, the processes by which these internally guided ...
www.biorxiv.org
November 3, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Interested in how we make preference-driven decisions, and how this is implemented in the brain?
We report that neural correlates of evidence accumulation (CPP, Mu/Beta) are also observed during value-based decisions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Led by @laurencf.bsky.social (Lauren Fong)
1/n
We report that neural correlates of evidence accumulation (CPP, Mu/Beta) are also observed during value-based decisions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Led by @laurencf.bsky.social (Lauren Fong)
1/n
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Do you like RSA analysis, M/EEG and Bayes? Then you'll love Variational RSA for M/EEG, by recently completed PhD student @alexlepauvre.bsky.social from Lucia Melloni's group. It's a method and SPM toolbox for multivariate analysis of M/EEG data. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01784 . 🧵 [1/4]
November 6, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Do you like RSA analysis, M/EEG and Bayes? Then you'll love Variational RSA for M/EEG, by recently completed PhD student @alexlepauvre.bsky.social from Lucia Melloni's group. It's a method and SPM toolbox for multivariate analysis of M/EEG data. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01784 . 🧵 [1/4]
Reposted by Maciek Szul
New preprint with amazing work from @nchalas.bsky.social:
How does respiration influence (un-)predictable near-threshold perception? MEG, arousal modulation, excitability states, respiration phase-resolved connectivity changes - it's all there :)
#neuroskyence
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How does respiration influence (un-)predictable near-threshold perception? MEG, arousal modulation, excitability states, respiration phase-resolved connectivity changes - it's all there :)
#neuroskyence
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Respiration as a dynamic modulator of sensory sampling
Respiration dynamically modulates sensory perception by orchestrating transient states of the brain and the body. Using simultaneous recordings of high-density magneto-encephalography (MEG), respirati...
www.biorxiv.org
June 30, 2025 at 12:20 PM
New preprint with amazing work from @nchalas.bsky.social:
How does respiration influence (un-)predictable near-threshold perception? MEG, arousal modulation, excitability states, respiration phase-resolved connectivity changes - it's all there :)
#neuroskyence
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How does respiration influence (un-)predictable near-threshold perception? MEG, arousal modulation, excitability states, respiration phase-resolved connectivity changes - it's all there :)
#neuroskyence
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Reposted by Maciek Szul
I did a lecture on the impact of Brexit on British politics. Watch it here if you're really bored www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztqL...
Reflections on the Brexit Revolution: 2025-26 Mackenzie-Stuart Lecture
YouTube video by Cambridge Law Faculty
www.youtube.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:25 AM
I did a lecture on the impact of Brexit on British politics. Watch it here if you're really bored www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztqL...
Sourdough is an environmentally responsible tamagochi.
November 4, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Sourdough is an environmentally responsible tamagochi.
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Bayesian spatio-temporal modelling: a systematic review www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Bayesian spatio-temporal modelling: a systematic review
Integrating time dimension into the spatial data poses additional challenges in implementing advanced statistical or computational methods for analyzing data. Applying spatio–temporal method in pra...
www.tandfonline.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Bayesian spatio-temporal modelling: a systematic review www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Maciek Szul
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Emma Bailey, Falk Eippert, et al:
Evaluating cardiac noise correction approaches for non-invasive electrophysiology of the human spinal cord
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Evaluating cardiac noise correction approaches for non-invasive electrophysiology of the human spinal cord
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
October 23, 2025 at 2:39 AM
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Emma Bailey, Falk Eippert, et al:
Evaluating cardiac noise correction approaches for non-invasive electrophysiology of the human spinal cord
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Evaluating cardiac noise correction approaches for non-invasive electrophysiology of the human spinal cord
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Fahimeh Akbarian, Jeroen Van Schependom, et al:
Task-induced 1/f slope modulation as a paradigm-independent marker of cognitive control in multiple sclerosis
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Task-induced 1/f slope modulation as a paradigm-independent marker of cognitive control in multiple sclerosis
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
October 31, 2025 at 11:43 AM
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Fahimeh Akbarian, Jeroen Van Schependom, et al:
Task-induced 1/f slope modulation as a paradigm-independent marker of cognitive control in multiple sclerosis
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Task-induced 1/f slope modulation as a paradigm-independent marker of cognitive control in multiple sclerosis
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
A core function of cortex is predicting what happens next given the world's state.
This recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a delay trick to learn to predict.
A simple illustration can explain the idea.
A🧵with my toy model and notes:
#neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI
This recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a delay trick to learn to predict.
A simple illustration can explain the idea.
A🧵with my toy model and notes:
#neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI
October 9, 2025 at 8:03 AM
A core function of cortex is predicting what happens next given the world's state.
This recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a delay trick to learn to predict.
A simple illustration can explain the idea.
A🧵with my toy model and notes:
#neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI
This recent paper from Oxford shows how cortical layers may use a delay trick to learn to predict.
A simple illustration can explain the idea.
A🧵with my toy model and notes:
#neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI
Reposted by Maciek Szul
The cerebellum isn’t just about coordinating movement. It’s implicated in nearly every domain of cognition—from language to social behavior.
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
Cerebellar Contributions to Action and Cognition: Prediction, Timescale, and Continuity
The cerebellum is implicated in nearly every domain of human cognition, yet our understanding of how this subcortical structure contributes to cognition remains elusive. Efforts on this front have ten...
arxiv.org
September 15, 2025 at 12:19 PM
The cerebellum isn’t just about coordinating movement. It’s implicated in nearly every domain of cognition—from language to social behavior.
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Combo of two papers on partial information rate decomposition now out!
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
Mini thread below 👇
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
Mini thread below 👇
Partial Information Rate Decomposition
Partial information decomposition (PID) is a principled and flexible method to unveil complex high-order interactions in multiunit network systems. Though being defined exclusively for random variable...
journals.aps.org
October 30, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Combo of two papers on partial information rate decomposition now out!
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
Mini thread below 👇
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
Mini thread below 👇
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits
Nature - Experiments with human volunteers and macaques show that expectations produced by probabilistic cueing of future sensory inputs shape motor circuit dynamics in order to increase the...
www.nature.com
October 29, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
A writer tried dating alt-right men as an experiment to learn about them. There is so much going on here I don't even know where to start
www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/...
www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/...
October 29, 2025 at 12:57 PM
A writer tried dating alt-right men as an experiment to learn about them. There is so much going on here I don't even know where to start
www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/...
www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/...
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Everyone should read The Two Victims of Plagiarism from @plagiarismtoday.com in the context of LLMs.
LLMs provide plausible deniability unless we recognize what it means to choose to use the plagiarism machine: non-consensual ghost authorship in a blender.
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/08/01/t...
LLMs provide plausible deniability unless we recognize what it means to choose to use the plagiarism machine: non-consensual ghost authorship in a blender.
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/08/01/t...
October 28, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Everyone should read The Two Victims of Plagiarism from @plagiarismtoday.com in the context of LLMs.
LLMs provide plausible deniability unless we recognize what it means to choose to use the plagiarism machine: non-consensual ghost authorship in a blender.
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/08/01/t...
LLMs provide plausible deniability unless we recognize what it means to choose to use the plagiarism machine: non-consensual ghost authorship in a blender.
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/08/01/t...
I experienced a beautiful social justice today. Being considerably faster on a bicycle, I have overtaken a taxi driver, who got angry for some reason (petit zizi?) and sped up considerably which got caught on the speed camera.
a man wearing a watch holds his nose while watching a masterchef argentina show
ALT: a man wearing a watch holds his nose while watching a masterchef argentina show
media.tenor.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:00 AM
I experienced a beautiful social justice today. Being considerably faster on a bicycle, I have overtaken a taxi driver, who got angry for some reason (petit zizi?) and sped up considerably which got caught on the speed camera.
Reposted by Maciek Szul
Fluctuations in #AlphaOscillations influence whether we perceive faint stimuli, but how? @joeyzhou.bsky.social @haegenslab.bsky.social &co show that alpha associated with the #visual system modulate sensitivity, while #sensorimotor alpha affects decision criteria @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ho3ecR
October 27, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Fluctuations in #AlphaOscillations influence whether we perceive faint stimuli, but how? @joeyzhou.bsky.social @haegenslab.bsky.social &co show that alpha associated with the #visual system modulate sensitivity, while #sensorimotor alpha affects decision criteria @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ho3ecR
Reposted by Maciek Szul
A noninvasive, CSF-specific MRI technique that enables detailed in vivo measurement of CSF mobility in humans, down to the level of perivascular spaces located around penetrating vessels
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Region-specific drivers of CSF mobility measured with MRI in humans - Nature Neuroscience
Brain clearance mechanisms are challenging to visualize in humans. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the authors noninvasively mapped cerebrospinal fluid motion across the brain, showing region-specif...
www.nature.com
October 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM
A noninvasive, CSF-specific MRI technique that enables detailed in vivo measurement of CSF mobility in humans, down to the level of perivascular spaces located around penetrating vessels
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...