Mac Woodburn, PhD
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macwoodburn.bsky.social
Mac Woodburn, PhD
@macwoodburn.bsky.social
Associate Editor at Nature Communications. Cognitive Neuroscience. Neuroimaging.
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Dance styles engage the brain in different ways depending on the movements, aesthetics, and emotions associated with the dance, according to a study in Nature Communications. go.nature.com/4i8eLO2 #Neuroskyence 🧪
November 18, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Reduced brain structural similarity is associated with maturation, neurobiological features, and clinical status in schizophrenia www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reduced brain structural similarity is associated with maturation, neurobiological features, and clinical status in schizophrenia - Nature Communications
Individuals with schizophrenia show reduced structural similarity in temporal, cingulate, and insular lobes, especially those with worse cognition and symptoms, affecting late maturing association areas with low metabolism and high neurotransmission.
www.nature.com
October 1, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
🧠Out now @natcomms.nature.com !
Brain changes linked to childhood maltreatment are among the field's most published findings. Yet, we find extensive replication failure of gray matter correlates in three large cohorts (N=3225), consistent across subsamples, models and operationalizations🧵
September 16, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
📢 The new cross-journal Collection “Lifespan changes in the human brain” with @commsbio.nature.com, @natcomms.nature.com, @natneuro.nature.com, and Scientific Reports is now open for submissions! 📭

🌍 Learn more: www.nature.com/collections/...

#Neuroscience #Brain #Lifespan #Neuroimaging
Lifespan changes in the human brain
This cross-journal collection invites submissions that investigate human brain changes across all or multiple stages of life, from in-utero to older age.
www.nature.com
July 28, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Food aromas stimulate smell receptors in the nose but are often mistaken for tastes. A study in Nature Communications shows that aromas induce taste-like patterns in the insular cortex. These results explain the illusion and the prominent role of odours in food reward. 🧪
Tastes and retronasal odours evoke a shared flavour-specific neural code in the human insula - Nature Communications
Food aromas stimulate smell receptors in the nose but are often mistaken for tastes. This study shows that aromas induce taste-like patterns in the insular cortex. These results explain the illusion and the prominent role of odours in food reward.
go.nature.com
September 16, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Excited to share my first postdoc project in collaboration with @jseubert.bsky.social and @margaveldhuizen.bsky.social , now published with @natcomms.nature.com, where we describe a potential mechanism for flavour integration in the insula. #NeuroSkyence #FlavourScience doi.org/10.1038/s414... 1/10
Tastes and retronasal odours evoke a shared flavour-specific neural code in the human insula - Nature Communications
Food aromas stimulate smell receptors in the nose but are often mistaken for tastes. This study shows that aromas induce taste-like patterns in the insular cortex. These results explain the illusion a...
doi.org
September 12, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
I am very excited to let you know that my first PhD study has now been published in Nature Communications. 🧠📄 See the link to the article or read a summary in the post below! ⬇️

#alzheimersdisease #tau #amyloidbeta #neuroimaging #MRI #PET
September 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Developmental cognitive neuroscientists - I'll be attending #FluxCongress2025 in Dublin this week. Say hello!
September 2, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Now published 🍾🎉
August 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Excited to share our new paper w/ @cibaker.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com linking active vision & memory!

We provide evidence that gaze reinstatement & neural reactivation are deeply related phenomena that jointly reflect the experiences constructed during recall. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
🧵1/9
Neural and behavioral reinstatement jointly reflect retrieval of narrative events - Nature Communications
When people recall a movie, their eye movements and brain activity resemble those observed during the viewing. These behavioral and neural reactivations are linked through a common process, likely ref...
doi.org
August 25, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Decade + long work at UNC here - we longitudinally link prefrontal thickness peaks at 12 months to 8-12 yr working memory performance + activation!
Fifty children had up to 11 brain scans throughout their childhood; the images show nonlinear changes in cortical thickness. Infant frontal lobe thickness predicts neurocognitive function at age nine, measured by a working memory task. In PONAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
June 10, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Tremor is a common symptom across many neurological disorders.

But is there a shared tremor circuit across disorders - one that could guide treatment, regardless of diagnosis?

We think: yes.

Our study is out now in @natcomms.nature.com:

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵 A thread.
May 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to see this out in @natcomms.nature.com today!

This paper builds on the lab's work on self-regulation of arousal through pupil-based biofeedback. We assessed several markers of cortical and cardiac arousal in a pure self-regulation and dual task setting.
Modulating cortical excitability and cortical arousal by pupil self-regulation - Nature Communications
Weijs, Missura, Potok et al. showed in this study with brain stimulation and electrophysiological methods that self-regulation of pupil size via pupil-based biofeedback modulates cortical excitability...
www.nature.com
May 16, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
“Human V4 size predicts crowding distance”.
@jankurzawski.bsky.social, now Assistant Professor at U Maastricht, led a big effort over a few years. We used individual differences in object recognition and the size of brain maps to identify a perceptual bottleneck.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Human V4 size predicts crowding distance - Nature Communications
Across 49 observers, we found large variations in crowding distance and retinotopic map size. These measures covary, conserving a 1.4-mm cortical crowding distance in the human V4 map. This links the ...
www.nature.com
April 25, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Hey Arcuate freaks and geeks!

I first contacted Erin in 2019. I was working on my PhD in France on communication correlates of homologous language regions in primates. But what about their interconnections?

The article: rdcu.be/eifzU
Individual variation in the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus predicts vocal and gestural communication
Nature Communications - Here, authors reveal the anatomy of the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus predicts use of intentional, communicative gestures and sounds. The chimpanzee arcuate is not...
rdcu.be
April 18, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
Had a great time speaking with Sydney about our most recent paper out now in @natcomms.nature.com @macwoodburn.bsky.social . Paper link here: rdcu.be/ehbOy
May 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
in press @natcomms.nature.com 🌟

"Multimodal gradients unify local and global cortical organization"

7T MRI + cytoarchitectonics reveal a sensory-paralimbic axis of areal specialization & integration

led by superstar Yezhou Wang & a terrific team of friends & colleagues

▶️ doi.org/10.1038/s414...
April 25, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
New study by Yin et al. charts early brain development (0-6 yrs) using fMRI, revealing key connectivity patterns tied to cognitive abilities. #earlybraindevelopment #braincharts
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Charting brain functional development from birth to 6 years of age - Nature Human Behaviour
Yin et al. harmonized 1,091 fMRI scans across five imaging cohorts to map developmental trajectories of brain functional connectivity in early childhood, revealing early brain development and its link...
www.nature.com
April 15, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Mac Woodburn, PhD
It's shocking how little is known about the brainstem red nucleus. In our new paper “The human brainstem’s red nucleus was upgraded to support goal-directed action” out now in @naturecomms.bsky.social we show that current thinking on the red nucleus is in need of a serious upgrade. rdcu.be/ehbOy
April 10, 2025 at 3:46 PM
We are hiring an editor (expertise: neurological disorders, epidemiology) to join the neuroscience team @naturecomms.bsky.social
! Reach out if you'd like to chat about the position.

springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Spring...
Associate or Senior Editor (neurological disorders & epidemiology), Nature Communications
Job Title: Associate or Senior Editor (Neurological disorders & Epidemiology), Nature Communications Organisation: Nature Portfolio Locations: Beijing, Jersey City, London, Nanjing, New York, Phil...
springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com
April 11, 2025 at 5:10 PM