Simon Kern
@skjerns.de
Sleep & Memory researcher @ CIMH Mannheim with @gordonfeld.bsky.social . Interested in replay and applied machine learning in the context of episodic and declarative memory.
MEG and Python enthusiast.
MEG and Python enthusiast.
Might it be an idea to share it on kaggle as well?
January 8, 2026 at 6:31 AM
Might it be an idea to share it on kaggle as well?
Reposted by Simon Kern
After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data.
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
WARN-D machine learning competition is live » Eiko Fried
If you share one single thing of our team in 2026—on social media or per email with your colleagues—please let it be this machine learning competition. It was half a decade of work to get here, especi...
eiko-fried.com
January 7, 2026 at 7:39 PM
After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data.
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
Reposted by Simon Kern
Journal article: “the data are available on request”
The data:
The data:
December 20, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Journal article: “the data are available on request”
The data:
The data:
Reposted by Simon Kern
I have an early Christmas present for you! 🎅
Happy to announce that we have three excellent keynote speakers at Psychology and Brain 2026 in Heidleberg!
Professors Shamay-Tsoory, Schönauer and Allen will cover topics from empathy over memory to interoception!
pug2026.org
Happy to announce that we have three excellent keynote speakers at Psychology and Brain 2026 in Heidleberg!
Professors Shamay-Tsoory, Schönauer and Allen will cover topics from empathy over memory to interoception!
pug2026.org
December 19, 2025 at 8:00 AM
I have an early Christmas present for you! 🎅
Happy to announce that we have three excellent keynote speakers at Psychology and Brain 2026 in Heidleberg!
Professors Shamay-Tsoory, Schönauer and Allen will cover topics from empathy over memory to interoception!
pug2026.org
Happy to announce that we have three excellent keynote speakers at Psychology and Brain 2026 in Heidleberg!
Professors Shamay-Tsoory, Schönauer and Allen will cover topics from empathy over memory to interoception!
pug2026.org
I started unfollowing everyone that mainly share/repost political stuff
December 4, 2025 at 6:31 AM
I started unfollowing everyone that mainly share/repost political stuff
related, w.r.t. the discrepancy between explained variance from genome studies (which might underestimate) vs twin studies (which might overestimate): www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-good-n...
The Good News Is That One Side Has Definitively Won The Missing Heritability Debate
...
www.astralcodexten.com
December 4, 2025 at 6:29 AM
related, w.r.t. the discrepancy between explained variance from genome studies (which might underestimate) vs twin studies (which might overestimate): www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-good-n...
Reposted by Simon Kern
📢 Coming soon: A fully funded PhD position in this project, thanks to @dfg.de .
If you're into social neuroscience, threat learning, or computational physiology — stay tuned!
If you're into social neuroscience, threat learning, or computational physiology — stay tuned!
November 26, 2025 at 4:32 PM
📢 Coming soon: A fully funded PhD position in this project, thanks to @dfg.de .
If you're into social neuroscience, threat learning, or computational physiology — stay tuned!
If you're into social neuroscience, threat learning, or computational physiology — stay tuned!
The Renaissance of pupil dilation papers might be my favorite development in the recent years. They truly are the window to the soul
Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number.
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪
November 26, 2025 at 5:27 PM
The Renaissance of pupil dilation papers might be my favorite development in the recent years. They truly are the window to the soul
Reposted by Simon Kern
Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number.
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪
November 26, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number.
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪
Reposted by Simon Kern
I feared this in 2016, but now it’s happened:
The CDC is gone. Strike them from your list of reliable purveyors of information.
The CDC is gone. Strike them from your list of reliable purveyors of information.
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 8:18 PM
I feared this in 2016, but now it’s happened:
The CDC is gone. Strike them from your list of reliable purveyors of information.
The CDC is gone. Strike them from your list of reliable purveyors of information.
Not disagreeing. I find the results impressive that models first learn by heart until model weights are exhausted, then abstract and compress knowledge by necessity to reuse weights as input entropy exceeds exclusive node capa. IMO that in itself shares a lots w/ "intelligence" however you define it
November 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Not disagreeing. I find the results impressive that models first learn by heart until model weights are exhausted, then abstract and compress knowledge by necessity to reuse weights as input entropy exceeds exclusive node capa. IMO that in itself shares a lots w/ "intelligence" however you define it
Reposted by Simon Kern
Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
November 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
Reposted by Simon Kern
🚨Preprint: Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe
1/8: How do human neurons encode meaning?
In this work, led by Katharina Karkowski, we recorded hundreds of human MTL neurons to study semantic coding in the human brain:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
1/8: How do human neurons encode meaning?
In this work, led by Katharina Karkowski, we recorded hundreds of human MTL neurons to study semantic coding in the human brain:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe
The Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) is key to human cognition, supporting memory, emotional processing, navigation, and semantic coding. Rare direct human MTL recordings revealed concept cells, which were ...
doi.org
October 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM
🚨Preprint: Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe
1/8: How do human neurons encode meaning?
In this work, led by Katharina Karkowski, we recorded hundreds of human MTL neurons to study semantic coding in the human brain:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
1/8: How do human neurons encode meaning?
In this work, led by Katharina Karkowski, we recorded hundreds of human MTL neurons to study semantic coding in the human brain:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Shoutout to my fellow TrainEEr assistants @iamra.bsky.social @neurogima.bsky.social @willenjoy.bsky.social @remymasson.bsky.social maybe next PracticalMEEG it's us organizing?! 😄
November 2, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Shoutout to my fellow TrainEEr assistants @iamra.bsky.social @neurogima.bsky.social @willenjoy.bsky.social @remymasson.bsky.social maybe next PracticalMEEG it's us organizing?! 😄
Last week I was being trained as a #MNE-Python TrainEErs at #PracticalMEEG2025 - it was a lot of fun to look behind the scenes and learn how to run a good workshop :) thanks to @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for hosting and Marijn van Vliet and @nschawor.bsky.social for organizing this amazing workshop!
November 2, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Last week I was being trained as a #MNE-Python TrainEErs at #PracticalMEEG2025 - it was a lot of fun to look behind the scenes and learn how to run a good workshop :) thanks to @cuttingeeg.bsky.social for hosting and Marijn van Vliet and @nschawor.bsky.social for organizing this amazing workshop!
Reposted by Simon Kern
this week at #PracticalMEEG2025 in Aix!
having run an MEG pipeline by trial and error, I was doubting myself between all parameters. lectures on the analysis steps + hands-on application together were very helpful!
& seeing women on stage sharing what they're excited about just hits different ⭐️
having run an MEG pipeline by trial and error, I was doubting myself between all parameters. lectures on the analysis steps + hands-on application together were very helpful!
& seeing women on stage sharing what they're excited about just hits different ⭐️
October 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
this week at #PracticalMEEG2025 in Aix!
having run an MEG pipeline by trial and error, I was doubting myself between all parameters. lectures on the analysis steps + hands-on application together were very helpful!
& seeing women on stage sharing what they're excited about just hits different ⭐️
having run an MEG pipeline by trial and error, I was doubting myself between all parameters. lectures on the analysis steps + hands-on application together were very helpful!
& seeing women on stage sharing what they're excited about just hits different ⭐️
Remember: finding oscillatory PCA components might not necessarily mean that there is oscillatory activity in your data
To be clear, have not been able to read the original study because the link does not work. HEre is a fun paper on fourier. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Phantom oscillations in principal component analysis | PNAS
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a dimensionality reduction method that is known
for being simple and easy to interpret. Principal components ...
www.pnas.org
November 1, 2025 at 8:32 AM
Remember: finding oscillatory PCA components might not necessarily mean that there is oscillatory activity in your data
Reposted by Simon Kern
New paper finds that selective reporting remains the most replicable finding in science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... I especially like their new exploratory metric 'p-values per participant'. Some papers had 11 p-values per participant! 🤯
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
October 31, 2025 at 7:39 AM
New paper finds that selective reporting remains the most replicable finding in science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... I especially like their new exploratory metric 'p-values per participant'. Some papers had 11 p-values per participant! 🤯
I'll be promoting this at #practicalMEEG2025 next week as well, so if you have any questions feel free to hit me up there :)
October 24, 2025 at 1:40 PM
I'll be promoting this at #practicalMEEG2025 next week as well, so if you have any questions feel free to hit me up there :)
Sorry had to repost - previous link was slightly wrong!
October 24, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Sorry had to repost - previous link was slightly wrong!
We still believe that there is an overlap of activity that can be extracted. However, we think current approaches don't capture it well! Therefore, we started this
#kaggle challenge. Have fun and good luck! :)
#kaggle challenge. Have fun and good luck! :)
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
We still believe that there is an overlap of activity that can be extracted. However, we think current approaches don't capture it well! Therefore, we started this
#kaggle challenge. Have fun and good luck! :)
#kaggle challenge. Have fun and good luck! :)
In our recent study, we struggled to cross-decode using the standard approach used in our line of research (train a time-by-time decoder on the peak of visual decoding accuracy). We know that the decoders work in the context of visual reactivation (cf Kern 2024), but seem to fail in auditory cueing.
Reactivation strength during cued recall is modulated by graph distance within cognitive maps
Items retrieved from cognitive maps are reactivated simultaneously or sequentially depending on the performance, where in the first case the reactivation strength reflects the distance within the map.
elifesciences.org
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
In our recent study, we struggled to cross-decode using the standard approach used in our line of research (train a time-by-time decoder on the peak of visual decoding accuracy). We know that the decoders work in the context of visual reactivation (cf Kern 2024), but seem to fail in auditory cueing.
It has been shown that there is overlap between evoked visual activity and evoked auditory activity, but especially with visual mental imagery (cf the amazing work of
@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social)! Memory replay studies rely on this overlap to detect reactivation during resting state
@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social)! Memory replay studies rely on this overlap to detect reactivation during resting state
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
It has been shown that there is overlap between evoked visual activity and evoked auditory activity, but especially with visual mental imagery (cf the amazing work of
@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social)! Memory replay studies rely on this overlap to detect reactivation during resting state
@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social)! Memory replay studies rely on this overlap to detect reactivation during resting state
How well do classifiers trained on visual activity actually transfer to non-visual reactivation?
#Decoding studies often rely on training in one (visual) condition and applying it to another (e.g. rest-reactivation). However: How well does this work? Show us what makes it work and win up to 1000$!
#Decoding studies often rely on training in one (visual) condition and applying it to another (e.g. rest-reactivation). However: How well does this work? Show us what makes it work and win up to 1000$!
IMAGINE-decoding-challenge
Predict which words participants were hearing, based upon brain activity recordings of visually seeing these items?
www.kaggle.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
How well do classifiers trained on visual activity actually transfer to non-visual reactivation?
#Decoding studies often rely on training in one (visual) condition and applying it to another (e.g. rest-reactivation). However: How well does this work? Show us what makes it work and win up to 1000$!
#Decoding studies often rely on training in one (visual) condition and applying it to another (e.g. rest-reactivation). However: How well does this work? Show us what makes it work and win up to 1000$!