James Kragel
@jkragel.bsky.social
Research assistant professor at UChicago studying the neural basis of episodic memory.
Reposted by James Kragel
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026.
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
November 4, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026.
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
Reposted by James Kragel
I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com
Interactive Cognition Lab | USC
Interactive Cognition Lab at USC, led by principal investigator, Dr. Nina Rouhani.
rouhanilab.com
October 24, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com
Reposted by James Kragel
Thrilled to see this paper out! It's the culmination of a project begun in the depths of the pandemic with Sabrina Karjack and @zoengo.bsky.social . We continue our exploration of how children generalize when their episodic memory is not yet mature.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The dependence of children’s generalization on episodic memory varies with age and level of abstraction - Nature Communications
Children’s ability to generalize from episodic memories varies by both age and the level of abstraction. Here, the authors show that lower level generalization increasingly depends on episodic memory with age, whereas higher level generalization shows no such relationship.
www.nature.com
October 7, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Thrilled to see this paper out! It's the culmination of a project begun in the depths of the pandemic with Sabrina Karjack and @zoengo.bsky.social . We continue our exploration of how children generalize when their episodic memory is not yet mature.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by James Kragel
1/
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
September 17, 2025 at 7:33 PM
1/
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
Reposted by James Kragel
Ripple contributions to human memory: making the spiking content count — a Review by Joel Reithler, Kelsey K. Sundby & Kareem A. Zaghloul
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
Ripple contributions to human memory: making the spiking content count - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
In animal models, transient high-frequency oscillations in synchronized neural activity, known as ripples, have been linked to memory. Reithler et al. assess the current evidence for a contribution of...
www.nature.com
September 18, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Ripple contributions to human memory: making the spiking content count — a Review by Joel Reithler, Kelsey K. Sundby & Kareem A. Zaghloul
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
Reposted by James Kragel
In our Trends in Cogn Sci paper we point to the connectivity crisis in task-based human EEG/MEG research: many connectivity metrics, too little replication. Time for community-wide benchmarking to build robust, generalisable measures across labs & tasks. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Confronting the connectivity crisis in human M/EEG research
The cognitive neuroscience community using M/EEG has not converged on measures of task-related inter-regional brain connectivity that generalize acros…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 18, 2025 at 3:23 PM
In our Trends in Cogn Sci paper we point to the connectivity crisis in task-based human EEG/MEG research: many connectivity metrics, too little replication. Time for community-wide benchmarking to build robust, generalisable measures across labs & tasks. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by James Kragel
A while in the making, here's a short paper on how one might get from spatial to episodic memory with temporal indexing, sequence generation via grid cell analogs, + a bit of perspective/review on time, wider HPC function ...
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
September 9, 2025 at 2:19 PM
A while in the making, here's a short paper on how one might get from spatial to episodic memory with temporal indexing, sequence generation via grid cell analogs, + a bit of perspective/review on time, wider HPC function ...
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
Reposted by James Kragel
Is the hippocampus best understood in term of discrete subfields or functional gradients?
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Discrete Subfields and Continuous Gradients Coexist: A Multi-Scale View of Hippocampal Organization
The human hippocampus is studied via two competing frameworks: one dividing it into discrete anatomical subfields with distinct computational processes, and another describing it as a continuous, func...
www.biorxiv.org
August 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Is the hippocampus best understood in term of discrete subfields or functional gradients?
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Reposted by James Kragel
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 James Kragel
I can't quite believe it – I got a new NSF grant! 😲🤯
I'm incredibly grateful to the program officers & reviewers for their dedication and efforts to keep science going 🌟👏🏼
So, I'll be hiring! Looking for a postdoc to study competition in memory-guided attention. See flyer for details! 🎉
I'm incredibly grateful to the program officers & reviewers for their dedication and efforts to keep science going 🌟👏🏼
So, I'll be hiring! Looking for a postdoc to study competition in memory-guided attention. See flyer for details! 🎉
![[Aly Lab Logo: schematic of brain in shades of blue with two cut-out seahorses facing each other]. Postdoctoral Position in the Aly Lab at UC Berkeley. We are recruiting a postdoctoral scholar to work on NSF-funded research examining competition and cooperation in memory-guided attention. The position will be supervised by Dr. Mariam Aly (https://www.alylab.org/) in the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley. Candidates should have a PhD in Psychology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, or a related field, and expertise in studies of behavior as well as neuroimaging and/or eye tracking. This is a two-year position with a flexible start date. More details here: https://tinyurl.com/alylabpostdoc](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qyyyb45vdwvzmg5nppheyus3/bafkreiflybsnnzenqx3wk3somkmoo2vkjk3ljmlorujtweunhqucjxzoa4@jpeg)
August 22, 2025 at 6:04 PM
I can't quite believe it – I got a new NSF grant! 😲🤯
I'm incredibly grateful to the program officers & reviewers for their dedication and efforts to keep science going 🌟👏🏼
So, I'll be hiring! Looking for a postdoc to study competition in memory-guided attention. See flyer for details! 🎉
I'm incredibly grateful to the program officers & reviewers for their dedication and efforts to keep science going 🌟👏🏼
So, I'll be hiring! Looking for a postdoc to study competition in memory-guided attention. See flyer for details! 🎉
Reposted by James Kragel
Delighted to share our work on replay and successor representations! We find replay during very short task pauses in human visual cortex that is linked to learning SRs & happens when learning is implicit. Study led by @lnnrtwttkhn.bsky.social
#compneuro #neuroskyence
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
#compneuro #neuroskyence
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Replay in the human visual cortex during brief task pauses is linked to implicit learning of successor representations | PNAS
Humans can implicitly learn about multistep sequential relationships between events
in the environment from their statistical co-occurrence. Theore...
www.pnas.org
August 22, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Delighted to share our work on replay and successor representations! We find replay during very short task pauses in human visual cortex that is linked to learning SRs & happens when learning is implicit. Study led by @lnnrtwttkhn.bsky.social
#compneuro #neuroskyence
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
#compneuro #neuroskyence
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by James Kragel
Cortico-hippocampal interactions underlie schema-supported memory encoding in older adults
New paper led by @shenyanghuang.bsky.social!
academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...
Older adults' memory benefits from richer semantic contexts. We found connectivity patterns supporting this semantic scaffolding.
New paper led by @shenyanghuang.bsky.social!
academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...
Older adults' memory benefits from richer semantic contexts. We found connectivity patterns supporting this semantic scaffolding.
August 19, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Cortico-hippocampal interactions underlie schema-supported memory encoding in older adults
New paper led by @shenyanghuang.bsky.social!
academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...
Older adults' memory benefits from richer semantic contexts. We found connectivity patterns supporting this semantic scaffolding.
New paper led by @shenyanghuang.bsky.social!
academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...
Older adults' memory benefits from richer semantic contexts. We found connectivity patterns supporting this semantic scaffolding.
Reposted by James Kragel
Slowly making my way through that grad school data!
Decoding memory function through naturalistic gaze patterns | PNAS share.google/vuOSbiRk9nBH...
Decoding memory function through naturalistic gaze patterns | PNAS share.google/vuOSbiRk9nBH...
Decoding memory function through naturalistic gaze patterns | PNAS
Eye movements are closely linked to encoding and retrieval processes, with changes
in viewing behavior reflecting age- and pathology-related memory...
share.google
August 19, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Slowly making my way through that grad school data!
Decoding memory function through naturalistic gaze patterns | PNAS share.google/vuOSbiRk9nBH...
Decoding memory function through naturalistic gaze patterns | PNAS share.google/vuOSbiRk9nBH...
Reposted by James Kragel
My new university's logo is a PSI! How frickin cool is that!
Help me grow a new lab at in IU Bloomington! We're seeking brilliant young scientists interested in memory representations, neuromodulation & aging.
Coordinator: bit.ly/3Hu3UzT
Postdoc: bit.ly/4oBZF6j
Accepting GS apps in the Fall!
Help me grow a new lab at in IU Bloomington! We're seeking brilliant young scientists interested in memory representations, neuromodulation & aging.
Coordinator: bit.ly/3Hu3UzT
Postdoc: bit.ly/4oBZF6j
Accepting GS apps in the Fall!
August 15, 2025 at 12:32 PM
My new university's logo is a PSI! How frickin cool is that!
Help me grow a new lab at in IU Bloomington! We're seeking brilliant young scientists interested in memory representations, neuromodulation & aging.
Coordinator: bit.ly/3Hu3UzT
Postdoc: bit.ly/4oBZF6j
Accepting GS apps in the Fall!
Help me grow a new lab at in IU Bloomington! We're seeking brilliant young scientists interested in memory representations, neuromodulation & aging.
Coordinator: bit.ly/3Hu3UzT
Postdoc: bit.ly/4oBZF6j
Accepting GS apps in the Fall!
Reposted by James Kragel
🚨 New Preprint 🚨
Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects
By Cyr et al.
***
Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES?
A: Yes!
🧵:
Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects
By Cyr et al.
***
Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES?
A: Yes!
🧵:
August 5, 2025 at 3:31 PM
🚨 New Preprint 🚨
Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects
By Cyr et al.
***
Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES?
A: Yes!
🧵:
Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation (ES) to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects
By Cyr et al.
***
Q: Can we use individualized network maps from precision fMRI to modulate a targeted network via intracranial ES?
A: Yes!
🧵:
Reposted by James Kragel
🚨 New preprint alert!
Excited to share our latest work on alpha/beta activity, eye movements, and memory.
Across 4 experiments combining scalp EEG/iEEG with eye tracking, we show that alpha/beta activity directly reflects eye movements, and only indirectly relates to memory.
👇 Highlights (1/7):
Excited to share our latest work on alpha/beta activity, eye movements, and memory.
Across 4 experiments combining scalp EEG/iEEG with eye tracking, we show that alpha/beta activity directly reflects eye movements, and only indirectly relates to memory.
👇 Highlights (1/7):
Low-frequency brain oscillations reflect the dynamics of the oculomotor system: a new perspective on subsequent memory effects https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.29.667451v1
July 30, 2025 at 7:33 PM
🚨 New preprint alert!
Excited to share our latest work on alpha/beta activity, eye movements, and memory.
Across 4 experiments combining scalp EEG/iEEG with eye tracking, we show that alpha/beta activity directly reflects eye movements, and only indirectly relates to memory.
👇 Highlights (1/7):
Excited to share our latest work on alpha/beta activity, eye movements, and memory.
Across 4 experiments combining scalp EEG/iEEG with eye tracking, we show that alpha/beta activity directly reflects eye movements, and only indirectly relates to memory.
👇 Highlights (1/7):
Reposted by James Kragel
Searching for a postdoc to work on 2 newly NIH-funded projects using intracranial EEG with TMS and direct electrical stimulation to investigate hippocampal networks supporting episodic memory. Research Scientist could also work for post-post-doc candidates. Plz spread!
cnoir.bsd.uchicago.edu/join/
cnoir.bsd.uchicago.edu/join/
June 22, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Searching for a postdoc to work on 2 newly NIH-funded projects using intracranial EEG with TMS and direct electrical stimulation to investigate hippocampal networks supporting episodic memory. Research Scientist could also work for post-post-doc candidates. Plz spread!
cnoir.bsd.uchicago.edu/join/
cnoir.bsd.uchicago.edu/join/
Reposted by James Kragel
Hi Bluesky! First post here. Kicking things off with a new preprint.
🧠 Using human iEEG + pharmacology, we asked: is hippocampal theta required for retrieval?
Turns out it’s not. Instead, it may reflect a reinstated encoding mode.
Thread below.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠 Using human iEEG + pharmacology, we asked: is hippocampal theta required for retrieval?
Turns out it’s not. Instead, it may reflect a reinstated encoding mode.
Thread below.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Cholinergic blockade reveals role for human hippocampal theta in encoding but not retrieval
Cholinergic dysfunction is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and other memory disorders. Yet, the neurophysiological mechanisms linking cholinergic signaling to memory remain poorly understood. In thi...
www.biorxiv.org
May 14, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Hi Bluesky! First post here. Kicking things off with a new preprint.
🧠 Using human iEEG + pharmacology, we asked: is hippocampal theta required for retrieval?
Turns out it’s not. Instead, it may reflect a reinstated encoding mode.
Thread below.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠 Using human iEEG + pharmacology, we asked: is hippocampal theta required for retrieval?
Turns out it’s not. Instead, it may reflect a reinstated encoding mode.
Thread below.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by James Kragel
Announcing - the 3rd annual Midway Meeting of the Memory Minds (Mmmm)! Chicago-area memory neuroscientists, please join us for a day of talks, discussions, and a keynote by none other than @earlkmiller.bsky.social ! Registration is free, but space is limited. forms.office.com/r/rMxqDQ4sZF
February 17, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Announcing - the 3rd annual Midway Meeting of the Memory Minds (Mmmm)! Chicago-area memory neuroscientists, please join us for a day of talks, discussions, and a keynote by none other than @earlkmiller.bsky.social ! Registration is free, but space is limited. forms.office.com/r/rMxqDQ4sZF
Reposted by James Kragel
New results for a new year! “Linking neural population formatting to function” describes our modern take on an old question: how can we understand the contribution of a brain area to behavior?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
Linking neural population formatting to function
Animals capable of complex behaviors tend to have more distinct brain areas than simpler organisms, and artificial networks that perform many tasks tend to self-organize into modules (1-3). This sugge...
www.biorxiv.org
January 4, 2025 at 4:25 PM
New results for a new year! “Linking neural population formatting to function” describes our modern take on an old question: how can we understand the contribution of a brain area to behavior?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
Reposted by James Kragel
Can you predict the future? Your brain and your eyes can.
🧵
I had the honour of writing a @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatch in which I discuss exciting new findings from @philippbuchel.bsky.social, Klingspohr, Kehl & Staresina (2024).
Read the Dispatch here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
1/3
🧵
I had the honour of writing a @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatch in which I discuss exciting new findings from @philippbuchel.bsky.social, Klingspohr, Kehl & Staresina (2024).
Read the Dispatch here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
1/3
Redirecting
doi.org
December 5, 2024 at 2:36 PM
Can you predict the future? Your brain and your eyes can.
🧵
I had the honour of writing a @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatch in which I discuss exciting new findings from @philippbuchel.bsky.social, Klingspohr, Kehl & Staresina (2024).
Read the Dispatch here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
1/3
🧵
I had the honour of writing a @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatch in which I discuss exciting new findings from @philippbuchel.bsky.social, Klingspohr, Kehl & Staresina (2024).
Read the Dispatch here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
1/3
Reposted by James Kragel
Proud of my first contribution to memory research: “Brain and eye movement dynamics track the transition from learning to memory-guided action” out in @currentbiology.bsky.social, great team effort together with Janina Klingspohr, Marcel Kehl & Bernhard Staresina.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Brain and eye movement dynamics track the transition from learning to memory-guided action
This study reveals how the brain dynamically shifts from learning to memory-guided
behavior. Büchel et al. use electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking in a spatiotemporal
learning task to show a...
www.cell.com
November 27, 2024 at 7:14 AM
Proud of my first contribution to memory research: “Brain and eye movement dynamics track the transition from learning to memory-guided action” out in @currentbiology.bsky.social, great team effort together with Janina Klingspohr, Marcel Kehl & Bernhard Staresina.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...