As usual, Junie is mildly laughing, mildly cringing at your jokes (volume up)

Come find me (and this lovely bin of recyclable pens) later today at 181! @cogcompneuro.bsky.social

Yet, during the session where the perturbation went “outside-manifold”, participants couldn’t learn (within the same 1 hour session of training). Together — we think these results show that manifold geometry is a critical ingredient for more learnable human neurotech! 7/8

In subsequent days, we tested how participants could learn different manifold perturbations. In a session where the perturbation shared the initial session's intrinsic manifold structure (‘within-manifold’ perturbation), participants learned rapidly, and their brain activity reflected that. 6/8

We used real-time fMRI neurofeedback as a noninvasive BCI to test this. Participants were trained to navigate an avatar in a VR game using their brain activity. Within a 1h session, participants learned to modulate their brain activity along their intrinsic manifold’s most dominant component. 5/8

That is, if we knew how a participants’ brain activity is naturally structured, we could figure out types of activity that would be easier or harder for them to learn to control. 4/8