Mariam Aly
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mariamaly.bsky.social
Mariam Aly
@mariamaly.bsky.social
I study brains and sometimes use one.

https://www.alylab.org/
Pinned
Hi! I'm Mariam. I post science, mostly about memory and the brain. I try to promote a more supportive culture in academia and am passionate about destigmatizing mental illness.

You can learn more about me and my lab here: https://www.alylab.org/mariam
Mariam | alylab
www.alylab.org
Reposted by Mariam Aly
In a new computational analysis of previous work, this study shows that a control-free mechanism better accounts for value-based decisions than an account that assumes top-down control invigorating the best choice.
@hritz.bsky.social @ashenhav.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Misspecified models create the appearance of adaptive control during value-based choice - Communications Psychology
In a new computational analysis of previous work, this study shows that a control-free mechanism better accounts for value-based decisions than an account that assumes top-down control invigorating th...
www.nature.com
January 23, 2026 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Our experiences have countless details, and it can be hard to know which matter.

How can we behave effectively in the future when, right now, we don't know what we'll need?

Out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com , @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I find that people solve this by using episodic memory.
Episodic memory facilitates flexible decision-making via access to detailed events - Nature Human Behaviour
Nicholas and Mattar found that people use episodic memory to make decisions when it is unclear what will be needed in the future. These findings reveal how the rich representational capacity of episod...
www.nature.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
At @elife.bsky.social you can now include explainer videos with every figure. Like going to a seminar while you engage with the paper. First example here elifesciences.org/articles/106...

Click the arrows next to each figure to get a video of @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social explaining it for you!
January 22, 2026 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
In a new paper, I delve into these two findings and muse on when prediction might help vs. hurt memory (and discuss why this matters for models of memory and the hippocampus). This is my first solo-author paper, and I had a lot of fun putting these ideas on paper! direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
How Prediction of the Future Affects Encoding of the Present: Cooperation or Competition?
Abstract. Each day brings new experiences and the opportunity to form new episodic memories. However, our everyday experiences are not isolated episodes; rather, there is significant spatial and tempo...
direct.mit.edu
January 20, 2026 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
We can use past experience to make predictions about the future. How do predictions affect our memory for the present? My own work (tinyurl.com/42kyukch) suggests that predictions compete with memory. But other recent work (tinyurl.com/2ekd4wr6) found the opposite--cooperation! What's going on here?
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...
tinyurl.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone.

The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets.

We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.
January 18, 2026 at 2:00 AM
How do hippocampal pathways contribute to learning regularities and exceptions?

To answer this, Melisa Gumus & @drmack.bsky.social use diffusion imaging to identify the endpoints of different hippocampal pathways, and then analyze functional activity within those "footprints". Super innovative!
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
January 16, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Can reward improve memory for what came before it? 🌟

In a registered report with @duncanlabuoft.bsky.social & @megschlichting.bsky.social, we reconcile mixed findings from past studies: reward retroactively boosts associative—but not item—memory, and only in reward-sensitive individuals!
OSF
osf.io
January 12, 2026 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Nature research paper: Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus

go.nature.com/49mB13V
Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus - Nature
Calcium imaging of mouse hippocampal neurons while mice learn a reward-based task over several weeks provides insight into the evolution of the hippocampal reward representation during extended periods of experience.
go.nature.com
January 15, 2026 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Really thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!!

This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!

elifesciences.org/articles/99931
A unifying account of replay as context-driven memory reactivation
A context-driven memory model simulates a wide range of characteristics of waking and sleeping hippocampal replay, providing a new account of how and why replay occurs.
elifesciences.org
January 15, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Now you recall it, now you don’t: Working memory performance fluctuates with a theta rhythm
www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
#neuroscience
Now you recall it, now you don’t: Working memory performance fluctuates with a theta rhythm
In this issue of Neuron, Han et al. leverage a change-identification working memory task coupled with electrophysiological recordings in the macaque frontal eye field to show that information retrieva...
www.cell.com
January 10, 2026 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Our new paper in @sfnjournals.bsky.social shows different neural systems for integrating views into places--PPA integrates views *of* a location (e.g., views of a landmark), while RSC integrates views *from* a location (e.g., views of a panorama). Work by the bluesky-less Linfeng Tony Han.
#JNeurosci: Using fMRI, Han and Epstein explored how people integrate different kinds of views to form mental maps of places, revealing two sets of brain regions involved in integrating views of landmarks into existing mental maps of a virtual city.
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0187-25.2025
January 7, 2026 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Agency reorganizes memory around relevant decisions. This was collaboration the deeply missed Sarah DuBrow and steer-headed by our grad students @lindsayrait.bsky.social and Elizabeth Horwath.

p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
Agency alters memory organization during free recall - PubMed
This study examined how agentic decisions in the absence of explicit rewards influence memory organization. Participants studied lists of items to assign as gifts to two characters-either choosing freely (Choice group) or following instructions (Fixed group). During free recall, participants in the …
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
January 7, 2026 at 2:05 AM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts?

Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze.

Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think.
🧵👇 doi.org/10.1111/ejn....

@uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social
Tolman's Sunburst Maze 80 Years on: A Meta‐Analysis Reveals Poor Replicability and Little Evidence for Shortcutting
In 1946, Tolman et al. reported that rats could take a novel shortcut to a goal after training on an indirect route, supporting the Cognitive Map theory. However, a review of subsequent Sunburst maze...
doi.org
January 5, 2026 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
The district court injunction that prevented NIH from capping indirects at 15% was upheld today on appeal!

www.reuters.com/world/trump-...
Trump administration cannot slash NIH research funding, court rules
District Judge Angel Kelley last year blocked the cuts, and on Monday the appeals court agreed.
www.reuters.com
January 6, 2026 at 1:09 AM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
What if we could tell you how well you’ll remember your next visit to your local coffee shop? ☕️

In our new Nature Human Behaviour paper, we show that the 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 can be measured with neuroimaging – and 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸.
January 5, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
January 5, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social
Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology
Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would naturally ...
cell.com
January 5, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
The National Science Foundation starts 2026 with a new management structure that affects every scientist with--or applying for--NSF funding. Here's what you need to know. www.science.org/content/arti...
The National Science Foundation just had a big reorganization. Here are five things to know
Divisions and rotators disappear as more career staff become supervisors
www.science.org
December 29, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Sleep dependent consolidation and replay that doesn’t require the hippocampus?

Very beautiful work by Marcus Stephenson-Jones’ lab on sleep driven sequential skill consolidation in the striatum.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
December 22, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵
Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs
The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...
www.science.org
October 30, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
How do biological agents learn for the future?

Our perspective piece on the value of prospective learning in neuroscience is finally out. This is part of a long running collaboration with @kordinglab.bsky.social & Josh Vogelstein (as well as many other people)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 17, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Mariam Aly
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
Reposted by Mariam Aly
Another new paper from the lab: Predictive theories like the SR imply that navigators who navigate differently should have cognitive maps which differ in predictable ways. Here we show that this holds in mouse hippocampal CA1.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Environmental representations in mouse hippocampal CA1 reflect the predictive structure of navigation
Predictive theories of cognitive mapping propose that these representations encode the predictive relationships among contents as experienced by the n…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:24 PM
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Join Reviewer Zero for a learning community to support editors who are interested in improving psychology and neuroscience by including a broader range of people, topics, and methods. Our goal is to c...
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December 8, 2025 at 10:29 PM