Nature - The brain can flexibly perform multiple tasks by compositionally combining task-relevant neural representations.

AbstractAlpha oscillations (8–13 Hz), which are prominent in human EEG, have long been considered a neural marker of relaxation. However, the extent to which different frequency bands and electrode positions of the EEG reflect relaxation remains unclear. This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the associations between EEG components and concurrently measured the reference indices of relaxation in healthy adults. A comprehensive database search and screening employing preset criteria identified 54 studies that involve 2569 participants published from January 1940 to March 2025 for qualitative synthesis. These studies utilized various reference relaxation measures, such as electrocardiographic (ECG) indices associated with parasympathetic nervous system activity and introspective indices obtained through questionnaires. Risks of bias were assessed based on the risk of bias assessment tool for nonrandomized studies. A meta-analysis of 31 studies employing a random-effects model revealed positive correlations between relaxation indices and the power of alpha oscillations in three specific combinations of EEG channel regions and reference index types: frontal channels with all reference indices, central channels with ECG-related indices, and occipital channels with questionnaire-based indices. No significant correlations were observed between relaxation indices and other EEG frequencies or channels. These findings indicate that alpha oscillations in different scalp regions may represent distinct aspects of the relaxation response based on the type of reference measure used.

R Package for a Mildly Opinionated Stan Bayesian Workflow - VisruthSK/stanflow

What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

The ability to anticipate musical structure is a fundamental human trait, but whether it exists at birth is unclear. This study shows that newborns encode rhythmic expectations based on statistical re...

Abstract. All theories of perceptual decision-making postulate that external sensory information is transformed into the internal evidence that is used to judge the identity of the stimulus. However, ...

We are happy to announce that the JASP team will offer a week of workshops in Amsterdam this summer.  In this blogpost we’ll highlight the second of four workshops: “State-of-the-Art Meta-Analysis usi...

An “extraordinary” brain network discovery shows that Parkinson’s disease may not be a movement disorder after all

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...

New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial la...

Han and Bonner reveal that individual visual experience arises from high-dimensional neural geometry distributed across multiple representational scales. By characterizing the full dimensional spectru...