Alex Barnett
@alexbarnett.bsky.social
assistant prof at McGill / memory / fMRI / epilepsy / opinions are my brain's / he / him
Reposted by Alex Barnett
New pontification piece with @awestbrook.bsky.social and Jean Daunizeau, just out in TICS:
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
A widespread observation is that people avoid mentally effortful courses of action,
and much recent work examining cognitive effort has explained subjective effort evaluation
– and, consequently, pref...
www.cell.com
November 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
New pontification piece with @awestbrook.bsky.social and Jean Daunizeau, just out in TICS:
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Reposted by Alex Barnett
I wrote a thing on episodic memory and systems consolidation. I hope you all enjoy it and/or find it interesting.
A neural state space for episodic memories
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
A neural state space for episodic memories
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
A neural state space for episodic memories
Episodic memories are highly dynamic and change in nonlinear ways over time. This dynamism is not captured by existing systems consolidation theories …
www.sciencedirect.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:56 PM
I wrote a thing on episodic memory and systems consolidation. I hope you all enjoy it and/or find it interesting.
A neural state space for episodic memories
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
A neural state space for episodic memories
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Our experience of time is powerfully shaped by boundaries between events (i.e., going from one meeting to the next). But what about time *within an event*? In new work, we find reliable distortions of time based on internal event structure (e.g., beginnings, middles, and ends)! tinyurl.com/n8mn2sn7
Unfolding event structure distorts subjective time
Our experience of time is often distorted in striking ways. Although prior work has shown that boundaries between events can shape temporal perception…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Our experience of time is powerfully shaped by boundaries between events (i.e., going from one meeting to the next). But what about time *within an event*? In new work, we find reliable distortions of time based on internal event structure (e.g., beginnings, middles, and ends)! tinyurl.com/n8mn2sn7
Reposted by Alex Barnett
🆕 New open neuroimaging dataset released!
I’m happy to share that our Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database (NNDb3T+) is now publicly available! NNDb3T+ captures rich, multimodal brain activity in a naturalistic setting with 40 participants and over 160 hours of scanning!
I’m happy to share that our Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database (NNDb3T+) is now publicly available! NNDb3T+ captures rich, multimodal brain activity in a naturalistic setting with 40 participants and over 160 hours of scanning!
October 27, 2025 at 7:04 PM
🆕 New open neuroimaging dataset released!
I’m happy to share that our Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database (NNDb3T+) is now publicly available! NNDb3T+ captures rich, multimodal brain activity in a naturalistic setting with 40 participants and over 160 hours of scanning!
I’m happy to share that our Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database (NNDb3T+) is now publicly available! NNDb3T+ captures rich, multimodal brain activity in a naturalistic setting with 40 participants and over 160 hours of scanning!
Reposted by Alex Barnett
New preprint ↙️
Using 2 independent 7T fMRI datasets (HCP & our PNI dataset 🧲 💅 ), we found that intersubject synchronization 👯 during movies aligns closely with cortical gradients 🌈, especially along the visual-to-transmodal axis
by Meaghan Smith & a terrific team ↙️
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Using 2 independent 7T fMRI datasets (HCP & our PNI dataset 🧲 💅 ), we found that intersubject synchronization 👯 during movies aligns closely with cortical gradients 🌈, especially along the visual-to-transmodal axis
by Meaghan Smith & a terrific team ↙️
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
October 22, 2025 at 2:43 PM
New preprint ↙️
Using 2 independent 7T fMRI datasets (HCP & our PNI dataset 🧲 💅 ), we found that intersubject synchronization 👯 during movies aligns closely with cortical gradients 🌈, especially along the visual-to-transmodal axis
by Meaghan Smith & a terrific team ↙️
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Using 2 independent 7T fMRI datasets (HCP & our PNI dataset 🧲 💅 ), we found that intersubject synchronization 👯 during movies aligns closely with cortical gradients 🌈, especially along the visual-to-transmodal axis
by Meaghan Smith & a terrific team ↙️
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
October 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Why I left academia and neuroscience.
This post on Substack has gained a lot of traction. I think many people identify with it.
(Most of my posts are technical tutorials on machine-learning and LLM-mechanisms.)
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
This post on Substack has gained a lot of traction. I think many people identify with it.
(Most of my posts are technical tutorials on machine-learning and LLM-mechanisms.)
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
Why I left academia and neuroscience
Don't worry, this isn't yet another story of rage-quitting.
mikexcohen.substack.com
October 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Why I left academia and neuroscience.
This post on Substack has gained a lot of traction. I think many people identify with it.
(Most of my posts are technical tutorials on machine-learning and LLM-mechanisms.)
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
This post on Substack has gained a lot of traction. I think many people identify with it.
(Most of my posts are technical tutorials on machine-learning and LLM-mechanisms.)
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
The brain represents the world around us as a series of neural states - stable patterns of activity that change as we move from one event to the next.
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
Temporal dedifferentiation of neural states with age during naturalistic viewing - Communications Biology
Movie fMRI data reveals age-related lengthening of neural states in visual and prefrontal regions, reflecting reduced temporal differentiation while preserved alignment with perceived events suggests stable coarse event segmentation.
www.nature.com
September 30, 2025 at 4:03 PM
The brain represents the world around us as a series of neural states - stable patterns of activity that change as we move from one event to the next.
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
Reposted by Alex Barnett
🚨 New paper in Nature Methods:
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus
Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)
Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social
docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus
Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)
Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social
docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
October 2, 2025 at 11:50 AM
🚨 New paper in Nature Methods:
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus
Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)
Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social
docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus
Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)
Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social
docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
DeckerLab
www.deckerlab.com
October 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
Reposted by Alex Barnett
The MAC lab at Drexel is looking for a new post-doc to work on NIH-funded projects investigating the intersection of prior knowledge and long-term memory consolidation. Please pass along to any interested lab members! careers.drexel.edu/cw/en-us/job...
Careers at Drexel - Human Resources
careers.drexel.edu
September 25, 2025 at 3:58 PM
The MAC lab at Drexel is looking for a new post-doc to work on NIH-funded projects investigating the intersection of prior knowledge and long-term memory consolidation. Please pass along to any interested lab members! careers.drexel.edu/cw/en-us/job...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Come join us at University of Toronto. We're hiring a Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience.
#neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...
#neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...
Professor - Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
Professor - Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
jobs.utoronto.ca
September 5, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Come join us at University of Toronto. We're hiring a Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience.
#neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...
#neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Our lab auditoryaging.com at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto is recruiting a graduate student for Fall 2026. We work on cognition, hearing, hearing loss, and social consequences of hearing loss. Get in-touch (email). For UofT admission details www.sgs.utoronto.ca/programs/psy...
Home | Auditory Aging
The Auditory Aging lab uses behavioral, brain recording, and qualitative social methods to understand the impact of age-related hearing loss.
www.auditoryaging.com
September 17, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Our lab auditoryaging.com at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto is recruiting a graduate student for Fall 2026. We work on cognition, hearing, hearing loss, and social consequences of hearing loss. Get in-touch (email). For UofT admission details www.sgs.utoronto.ca/programs/psy...
New preprint! My stellar undergrad, June Kim, & @charan-neuro.bsky.social find that intersubject pattern similarity at encoding (especially in posteromedial cortex) relates to shared/differing content between Ss at recall (measured using topic modeling) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Natural language processing captures memory content associated with shared neural patterns at encoding
People can experience the same event yet form distinct memories shaped by individual interpretations. Prior research shows that multivariate activity patterns in the Default Mode Network (DMN) are cor...
www.biorxiv.org
September 16, 2025 at 6:08 PM
New preprint! My stellar undergrad, June Kim, & @charan-neuro.bsky.social find that intersubject pattern similarity at encoding (especially in posteromedial cortex) relates to shared/differing content between Ss at recall (measured using topic modeling) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
How might stories shed light on brain function? Check out this opinion piece by @alexbarnett.bsky.social and I about the DMN and "situation models" -- our understanding of the current "state of affairs" in a story (or even experience).
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
September 5, 2025 at 1:34 PM
How might stories shed light on brain function? Check out this opinion piece by @alexbarnett.bsky.social and I about the DMN and "situation models" -- our understanding of the current "state of affairs" in a story (or even experience).
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
1/ 🚨 Preprint alert!
How does the brain make sense of continuous experience?
We find that continuous experiences can be compressed using a subset of key moments that dominate comprehension and recall.
👉 https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233
How does the brain make sense of continuous experience?
We find that continuous experiences can be compressed using a subset of key moments that dominate comprehension and recall.
👉 https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233
September 3, 2025 at 1:39 AM
1/ 🚨 Preprint alert!
How does the brain make sense of continuous experience?
We find that continuous experiences can be compressed using a subset of key moments that dominate comprehension and recall.
👉 https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233
How does the brain make sense of continuous experience?
We find that continuous experiences can be compressed using a subset of key moments that dominate comprehension and recall.
👉 https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Need to control visual similarity in your experiments? A new open database by Robbins and colleagues @michaelhout.bsky.social @haywardgodwin.bsky.social, published in #psynomBRM, maps similarity among 1,200 objects in 20 categories using MDS—validated & ready to use.
Resources for Research
This section provides brief summaries of selected resources for research that have been published in journals of the Psychonomic Society, typically Behavior Research Methods. These resources consis…
wp.me
August 28, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Need to control visual similarity in your experiments? A new open database by Robbins and colleagues @michaelhout.bsky.social @haywardgodwin.bsky.social, published in #psynomBRM, maps similarity among 1,200 objects in 20 categories using MDS—validated & ready to use.
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Quantifying memory recall is hard! Luckily, natural language processing (incl. #LLMs) offers new, automated, and scalable ways to do that!
Great new review by Fenerci & @signysheldon.bsky.social in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Great new review by Fenerci & @signysheldon.bsky.social in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Studying memory narratives with natural language processing
Cognitive neuroscience research has begun to use natural language processing (NLP)
to examine memory narratives with the hopes of gaining a nuanced understanding of
the mechanisms underlying differenc...
www.cell.com
August 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Quantifying memory recall is hard! Luckily, natural language processing (incl. #LLMs) offers new, automated, and scalable ways to do that!
Great new review by Fenerci & @signysheldon.bsky.social in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Great new review by Fenerci & @signysheldon.bsky.social in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Reposted by Alex Barnett
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
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
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
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
Reposted by Alex Barnett
No one ever steps in the same movie twice. Anticipatory gaze 👁️ indicate episodic memory seconds before an event occurs. 🧠🐾 Very robust effects across both natural and crafted movies, and of course, after sleep! 😴. Out today in Communication Psychology:
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Check it out!
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Check it out!
Anticipatory eye gaze as a marker of memory - Communications Psychology
Anticipatory eye movements during repeated movie viewing reveal when and what is remembered. Gaze patterns correlate with explicit reports, offering a method to detect memory for events without verbal...
www.nature.com
August 11, 2025 at 10:11 PM
No one ever steps in the same movie twice. Anticipatory gaze 👁️ indicate episodic memory seconds before an event occurs. 🧠🐾 Very robust effects across both natural and crafted movies, and of course, after sleep! 😴. Out today in Communication Psychology:
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Check it out!
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Check it out!
Reposted by Alex Barnett
New CNeuroMod-THINGS open-access fMRI dataset: 4 participants · ~4 000 images (720 categories) each shown 3× (12k trials per subject)· individual functional localizers & NSD-inspired QC . Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2507.09024 Congrats Marie St-Laurent and @martinhebart.bsky.social !!
July 30, 2025 at 1:57 AM
New CNeuroMod-THINGS open-access fMRI dataset: 4 participants · ~4 000 images (720 categories) each shown 3× (12k trials per subject)· individual functional localizers & NSD-inspired QC . Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2507.09024 Congrats Marie St-Laurent and @martinhebart.bsky.social !!
Reposted by Alex Barnett
📢 job opening: software developer at Mila Quebec AI Institute & McGill
As of now, my team is looking to hire a new technical staff member with abackground in a STEM area for running and curating existing AI analysis pipelines, as well as designing GUIs around them.
Please DM or email me, with CV
As of now, my team is looking to hire a new technical staff member with abackground in a STEM area for running and curating existing AI analysis pipelines, as well as designing GUIs around them.
Please DM or email me, with CV
July 28, 2025 at 8:21 PM
📢 job opening: software developer at Mila Quebec AI Institute & McGill
As of now, my team is looking to hire a new technical staff member with abackground in a STEM area for running and curating existing AI analysis pipelines, as well as designing GUIs around them.
Please DM or email me, with CV
As of now, my team is looking to hire a new technical staff member with abackground in a STEM area for running and curating existing AI analysis pipelines, as well as designing GUIs around them.
Please DM or email me, with CV
Reposted by Alex Barnett
My first, first author paper, comparing the properties of memory-augmented large language models and human episodic memory, out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv...
Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv...
Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)
authors.elsevier.com
July 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
My first, first author paper, comparing the properties of memory-augmented large language models and human episodic memory, out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv...
Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv...
Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Happy to share our study showing a new role for ventromedial PFC in prospection. tinyurl.com/e7kudkby
#neuroskyence #psychscisky
#neuroskyence #psychscisky
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and Intention Representation in Prospective Memory
Prospective memory (PM) consists of (i) a retrospective component, comprised of memory for intentions and for the cues that should trigger an action, …
tinyurl.com
July 17, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Happy to share our study showing a new role for ventromedial PFC in prospection. tinyurl.com/e7kudkby
#neuroskyence #psychscisky
#neuroskyence #psychscisky
Reposted by Alex Barnett
Happy 107th Birthday, Brenda Milner! Her contributions to neuropsychology shaped the way we understand the human brain. From surviving two world wars and two pandemics, to paving the way for future generations of researchers, Milner’s legacy continues. @mcgill.ca @cusm-muhc.bsky.social
July 15, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Happy 107th Birthday, Brenda Milner! Her contributions to neuropsychology shaped the way we understand the human brain. From surviving two world wars and two pandemics, to paving the way for future generations of researchers, Milner’s legacy continues. @mcgill.ca @cusm-muhc.bsky.social