Julie Charlton
@juliecharlton.bsky.social
Postdoc in the Brody lab at Princeton. Trying to understand how multiple brain regions coordinate to make decisions
Pinned
Julie Charlton
@juliecharlton.bsky.social
· Sep 22
FixGrower: An efficient and robust curriculum for shaping fixation behavior in rodents
Center-port fixation is a common prerequisite for many freely-moving rodent tasks in neuroscience and psychology. However, typical protocols for shaping this behavior are non-standardized and ineffici...
www.biorxiv.org
🛑 Attention researchers who train freely-moving rodents!
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Something really special is happening in Detroit x.com/trademarktaz...
Kingi on X: "Full version https://t.co/7fOXMkrE1e" / X
Full version https://t.co/7fOXMkrE1e
x.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Something really special is happening in Detroit x.com/trademarktaz...
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Who wore it better? Our new paper shows that rat OFC supports Bayesian inference of hidden states! With neural correlates of inferred state transitions at the level of single neurons and population-level latent factors. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 17, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Who wore it better? Our new paper shows that rat OFC supports Bayesian inference of hidden states! With neural correlates of inferred state transitions at the level of single neurons and population-level latent factors. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Julie Charlton
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning
Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.
rdcu.be
November 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
If you're at #SfN2025 don't miss the latest work from the Brody lab! Wynne Stagnaro is presenting a poster today (11/16) from 1-5pm: [M4] Decision history alters sensory adaptation behaviorally but not in auditory thalamus eppro02.ativ.me/appinfo.php?...
Neuroscience 2025
eppro02.ativ.me
November 16, 2025 at 7:32 PM
If you're at #SfN2025 don't miss the latest work from the Brody lab! Wynne Stagnaro is presenting a poster today (11/16) from 1-5pm: [M4] Decision history alters sensory adaptation behaviorally but not in auditory thalamus eppro02.ativ.me/appinfo.php?...
Change my mind: if a tenured faculty member is fired from their institution for misconduct, their Ph.D. (or M.D.-Ph.D.) should be revoked
November 13, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Change my mind: if a tenured faculty member is fired from their institution for misconduct, their Ph.D. (or M.D.-Ph.D.) should be revoked
Reposted by Julie Charlton
A sad day for Neuroscience in the Netherlands.
Dutch lawmakers have approved the phase-out of primate research at one of Europe’s biggest facilities. Neuroscientists are worried.
By Lauren Schenkman
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...
By Lauren Schenkman
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...
Nonhuman primate research to lose federal funding at major European facility
The Dutch Senate has ordered the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands to shift its funding away from primate experiments by 2030.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 30, 2025 at 11:56 PM
A sad day for Neuroscience in the Netherlands.
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits
Nature - Experiments with human volunteers and macaques show that expectations produced by probabilistic cueing of future sensory inputs shape motor circuit dynamics in order to increase the...
www.nature.com
October 29, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
www.nature.com/articles/s4...
Reposted by Julie Charlton
New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
September 11, 2025 at 10:15 AM
New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Excited to share our new work with @engeltatiana.bsky.social!
RNNs are often used to explore how the brain may solve specific tasks. We show that, depending on the architecture, RNNs find distinct circuit solutions, behaving differently when exposed to novel stimuli.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
RNNs are often used to explore how the brain may solve specific tasks. We show that, depending on the architecture, RNNs find distinct circuit solutions, behaving differently when exposed to novel stimuli.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Single-unit activations confer inductive biases for emergent circuit solutions to cognitive tasks - Nature Machine Intelligence
Recurrent neural networks are widely used to model brain dynamics. Tolmachev and Engel show that single-unit activation functions influence task solutions that emerge in trained networks, raising the ...
www.nature.com
October 24, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Excited to share our new work with @engeltatiana.bsky.social!
RNNs are often used to explore how the brain may solve specific tasks. We show that, depending on the architecture, RNNs find distinct circuit solutions, behaving differently when exposed to novel stimuli.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
RNNs are often used to explore how the brain may solve specific tasks. We show that, depending on the architecture, RNNs find distinct circuit solutions, behaving differently when exposed to novel stimuli.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
I finally watched Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) now everyone is mad at me for thinking it sucked
October 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
I finally watched Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) now everyone is mad at me for thinking it sucked
Reposted by Julie Charlton
University of Arizona also rejects the Trump administration's "Compact" 💪
president.arizona.edu/news/update-...
president.arizona.edu/news/update-...
Update on the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education
The University of Arizona was one of nine universities invited on October 1 by the U.S. Department of Education to provide feedback on their proposal to advance excellence in higher education.
president.arizona.edu
October 20, 2025 at 9:00 PM
University of Arizona also rejects the Trump administration's "Compact" 💪
president.arizona.edu/news/update-...
president.arizona.edu/news/update-...
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Want to make publication-ready figures come straight from Python without having to do any manual editing? Are you fed up with axes labels being unreadable during your presentations? Follow this short tutorial including code examples! 👇🧵
October 16, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Want to make publication-ready figures come straight from Python without having to do any manual editing? Are you fed up with axes labels being unreadable during your presentations? Follow this short tutorial including code examples! 👇🧵
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Seeing lots of reactions to this compelling paper - showing VTA dopamine is linked to cue and outcome induced behavioral reactions: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I have some thoughts…
I have some thoughts…
Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning - Nature Communications
VTA dopamine activity control movement-related performance, not reward prediction errors. Here, authors show that behavioral changes during Pavlovian learning explain DA activity regardless of reward ...
www.nature.com
October 15, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Seeing lots of reactions to this compelling paper - showing VTA dopamine is linked to cue and outcome induced behavioral reactions: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I have some thoughts…
I have some thoughts…
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Excited to hear the latest science updates from @czimmerman.bsky.social on Monday, 1-2 pm CST. You can join us too—either on Zoom or in person! bit.ly/3VOJrcy
October 5, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Excited to hear the latest science updates from @czimmerman.bsky.social on Monday, 1-2 pm CST. You can join us too—either on Zoom or in person! bit.ly/3VOJrcy
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
1/12
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
1/12
September 25, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
1/12
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
1/12
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Did you know that facial expressions reveal more than meets the eye? 🤯
Our new study shows that even a mouse's face 🐭 can reflect hidden neural computations🧠. Turns out, facial expressions are more than just emotions!
We're so excited to see this paper out @natneuro.nature.com 🎉
🔗: rdcu.be/eIQzO
Our new study shows that even a mouse's face 🐭 can reflect hidden neural computations🧠. Turns out, facial expressions are more than just emotions!
We're so excited to see this paper out @natneuro.nature.com 🎉
🔗: rdcu.be/eIQzO
Facial expressions in mice reveal latent cognitive variables and their neural correlates
Nature Neuroscience - The face reveals more than just emotion. Cazettes, Reato and colleagues show that subtle facial movements reveal hidden cognitive states, reflecting the brain’s ongoing...
rdcu.be
September 30, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Did you know that facial expressions reveal more than meets the eye? 🤯
Our new study shows that even a mouse's face 🐭 can reflect hidden neural computations🧠. Turns out, facial expressions are more than just emotions!
We're so excited to see this paper out @natneuro.nature.com 🎉
🔗: rdcu.be/eIQzO
Our new study shows that even a mouse's face 🐭 can reflect hidden neural computations🧠. Turns out, facial expressions are more than just emotions!
We're so excited to see this paper out @natneuro.nature.com 🎉
🔗: rdcu.be/eIQzO
🛑 Attention researchers who train freely-moving rodents!
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
FixGrower: An efficient and robust curriculum for shaping fixation behavior in rodents
Center-port fixation is a common prerequisite for many freely-moving rodent tasks in neuroscience and psychology. However, typical protocols for shaping this behavior are non-standardized and ineffici...
www.biorxiv.org
September 22, 2025 at 2:59 PM
🛑 Attention researchers who train freely-moving rodents!
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Jess Breda and I developed a protocol for training center-port nose fixation 61% faster than a previous curriculum while keeping violation rates low.
Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
It's been amazing to watch this beautiful work come together over the last couple of years. Congrats @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and @timkimd.bsky.social !
What happens in your brain when you make up your mind?
Postdoc (soon faculty at U. of Utah) @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and ex-grad student (now Shanahan Fellow at Allen Institute) @timkimd.bsky.social have some answers in this new paper out in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧵 1/6
Postdoc (soon faculty at U. of Utah) @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and ex-grad student (now Shanahan Fellow at Allen Institute) @timkimd.bsky.social have some answers in this new paper out in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧵 1/6
September 19, 2025 at 4:39 PM
It's been amazing to watch this beautiful work come together over the last couple of years. Congrats @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and @timkimd.bsky.social !
Reposted by Julie Charlton
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature
Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...
www.nature.com
September 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Reposted by Julie Charlton
This article is truly impressive, both for the significance of its findings and the enormous amount of work it represents!
Briefly, it demonstrates that the gut-brain vagal axis exerts a considerable influence on dopamine-dependent reward-related processes...
1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Briefly, it demonstrates that the gut-brain vagal axis exerts a considerable influence on dopamine-dependent reward-related processes...
1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 18, 2025 at 10:03 AM
This article is truly impressive, both for the significance of its findings and the enormous amount of work it represents!
Briefly, it demonstrates that the gut-brain vagal axis exerts a considerable influence on dopamine-dependent reward-related processes...
1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Briefly, it demonstrates that the gut-brain vagal axis exerts a considerable influence on dopamine-dependent reward-related processes...
1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I can't think of a single activity that brings out more neuroticism (in myself) than figure formatting
September 10, 2025 at 9:50 PM
I can't think of a single activity that brings out more neuroticism (in myself) than figure formatting
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Excited to see this now out in the world!
We identify a computational basis for how persistent underconfidence is maintained in the face of intact performance, finding that it is grounded in impaired updating of global self-beliefs from local metacognition
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/N
We identify a computational basis for how persistent underconfidence is maintained in the face of intact performance, finding that it is grounded in impaired updating of global self-beliefs from local metacognition
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/N
Distorted learning from local metacognition supports transdiagnostic underconfidence - Nature Communications
Individuals with symptoms of anxiety and depression exhibit persistent underconfidence. Here, the authors show that distortions in learning from local metacognition can explain how underconfidence is ...
www.nature.com
February 21, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Excited to see this now out in the world!
We identify a computational basis for how persistent underconfidence is maintained in the face of intact performance, finding that it is grounded in impaired updating of global self-beliefs from local metacognition
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/N
We identify a computational basis for how persistent underconfidence is maintained in the face of intact performance, finding that it is grounded in impaired updating of global self-beliefs from local metacognition
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/N
Reposted by Julie Charlton
Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in @Nature.com:
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +
September 3, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in @Nature.com:
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +