Preston Thakral
@prestonthakral.bsky.social
Assistant Professor, Smith College. PI of the Neuroscience of Memory and Flexible Cognition Laboratory
https://t.co/BEC27XDM7w
https://t.co/BEC27XDM7w
Reposted by Preston Thakral
A few days after the presidential election one year ago, we went to Fordham Road in the Bronx.
It was a little different last week.
It was a little different last week.
November 3, 2025 at 10:40 PM
A few days after the presidential election one year ago, we went to Fordham Road in the Bronx.
It was a little different last week.
It was a little different last week.
Reposted by Preston Thakral
PhD student Nina Curko and I wrote a short article about the superpowers of memory! Now published in Frontiers for Young Minds: kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....
Traveling Through Space and Time With our Memories
A person wearing headphones and a red hoodie walks through an airport with a suitcase, gazing at a boarding gate sign marked C7 with a French flag. Thought bubbles depict the Eiffel Tower and a map of...
kids.frontiersin.org
October 13, 2025 at 1:36 PM
PhD student Nina Curko and I wrote a short article about the superpowers of memory! Now published in Frontiers for Young Minds: kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience.
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
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 6, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience.
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
Reposted by Preston Thakral
October 6, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Preston Thakral
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 Preston Thakral
This is awesome. Drag and drop a brain MRI scan into the window and it does tissue segmentation in the browser (in about 8 seconds), then creates a 3D mesh suitable for 3D printing. This has been an hours-to-days long process for us in the past, all in a couple minutes. 🤯 brain2print.org
brain2print
brain2print.org
September 24, 2025 at 4:20 PM
This is awesome. Drag and drop a brain MRI scan into the window and it does tissue segmentation in the browser (in about 8 seconds), then creates a 3D mesh suitable for 3D printing. This has been an hours-to-days long process for us in the past, all in a couple minutes. 🤯 brain2print.org
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Susan, I hope I look as good as you at 102!
September 22, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Susan, I hope I look as good as you at 102!
Reposted by Preston Thakral
1/ Something surreal happened to me recently 🍀
I ordered “A Feeling for the Organism” — Evelyn Fox Keller’s biography of #BarbaraMcClintock, the 1983 Nobel prize winner who discovered “jumping genes.” 🧬
I ordered “A Feeling for the Organism” — Evelyn Fox Keller’s biography of #BarbaraMcClintock, the 1983 Nobel prize winner who discovered “jumping genes.” 🧬
September 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
1/ Something surreal happened to me recently 🍀
I ordered “A Feeling for the Organism” — Evelyn Fox Keller’s biography of #BarbaraMcClintock, the 1983 Nobel prize winner who discovered “jumping genes.” 🧬
I ordered “A Feeling for the Organism” — Evelyn Fox Keller’s biography of #BarbaraMcClintock, the 1983 Nobel prize winner who discovered “jumping genes.” 🧬
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Our new lab space @smith-college.bsky.social! Decked out with an embedded force plate, motion-tracking cameras, EMG, IMUs, and fNIRS equipment, the HuMAN Lab is ready for research 🙌
Human Motion Analysis & Neuroimaging Lab (Dr. Jones & Dr. Helmich)
#fNIRS #Concussion #MotorCognition #Neuroscience
Human Motion Analysis & Neuroimaging Lab (Dr. Jones & Dr. Helmich)
#fNIRS #Concussion #MotorCognition #Neuroscience
September 11, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Our new lab space @smith-college.bsky.social! Decked out with an embedded force plate, motion-tracking cameras, EMG, IMUs, and fNIRS equipment, the HuMAN Lab is ready for research 🙌
Human Motion Analysis & Neuroimaging Lab (Dr. Jones & Dr. Helmich)
#fNIRS #Concussion #MotorCognition #Neuroscience
Human Motion Analysis & Neuroimaging Lab (Dr. Jones & Dr. Helmich)
#fNIRS #Concussion #MotorCognition #Neuroscience
Reposted by Preston Thakral
thinking about the time someone tried to impersonate our Department Chair on July 4th
August 26, 2025 at 12:51 PM
thinking about the time someone tried to impersonate our Department Chair on July 4th
Reposted by Preston Thakral
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 Preston Thakral
It's a surreal experience to find myself on the cover of Time Magazine but it's truly a reflection of what we have built together over these past ten months.
Read the story: time.com/7308924/zohr...
...and sign up to canvass: zohranfornyc.com/canvasslaunch
Read the story: time.com/7308924/zohr...
...and sign up to canvass: zohranfornyc.com/canvasslaunch
August 15, 2025 at 3:33 PM
It's a surreal experience to find myself on the cover of Time Magazine but it's truly a reflection of what we have built together over these past ten months.
Read the story: time.com/7308924/zohr...
...and sign up to canvass: zohranfornyc.com/canvasslaunch
Read the story: time.com/7308924/zohr...
...and sign up to canvass: zohranfornyc.com/canvasslaunch
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Evidence for dlPFC contribution to #memory suppression using #TMS! Now accepted @jocn.bsky.social. Great team effort and collaboration with Gesa Hartwigsen’s lab @mpicbs.bsky.social. We also had an exemplary experience at the journal with editors @barense.bsky.social & @bradpostle.bsky.social.
1/3 Excited to share my first paper w/ co-first-author Davide Stramaccia in @rolandbenoit.bsky.social's lab! Causal evidence for right dlPFC involvement in #memory control: #TMS made it harder to stop intrusive memories & suppression didn't cause forgetting @jocn.bsky.social
-> tinyurl.com/prfra87k
-> tinyurl.com/prfra87k
July 30, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Evidence for dlPFC contribution to #memory suppression using #TMS! Now accepted @jocn.bsky.social. Great team effort and collaboration with Gesa Hartwigsen’s lab @mpicbs.bsky.social. We also had an exemplary experience at the journal with editors @barense.bsky.social & @bradpostle.bsky.social.
Reposted by Preston Thakral
This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)
July 1, 2025 at 4:45 PM
This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)
Reposted by Preston Thakral
I couldn't NOT do this.
June 10, 2025 at 8:45 PM
I couldn't NOT do this.
Reposted by Preston Thakral
getting a review request from an editor while waiting on that editor to get back to you with reviews
May 12, 2025 at 12:09 PM
getting a review request from an editor while waiting on that editor to get back to you with reviews
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Listened to the first two episodes of @catherineloveday.bsky.social's new podcast while rowing this morning. It's insightful, warm, moving and informative, with practical tips to help families of people with memory loss. If you're in this situation, or might one day be, it's well worth a listen.
Our second Mempathy episode is out today! We talk about why memory loss affects people’s ability to picture themselves in the future. The science in this episode is relevant to all of us. On all the usual podcast platforms or you can listen here: mempathy.podbean.com
Mempathy | Mempathy
Mempathy is a podcast about dementia-related memory loss, hosted by Professor Catherine Loveday, a memory expert who has spent the last 12 years putting her research into practice to support her own m...
mempathy.podbean.com
May 4, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Listened to the first two episodes of @catherineloveday.bsky.social's new podcast while rowing this morning. It's insightful, warm, moving and informative, with practical tips to help families of people with memory loss. If you're in this situation, or might one day be, it's well worth a listen.
Reposted by Preston Thakral
The same day she's getting endorsed by David Ortiz, Mayor Wu throws a heater of a statement at challenger Josh Kraft
May 1, 2025 at 12:29 PM
The same day she's getting endorsed by David Ortiz, Mayor Wu throws a heater of a statement at challenger Josh Kraft
Reposted by Preston Thakral
I invented a game. It’s called 4 x 3.
It’s like connections except that there are three words in each category, there are four categories, and one word is in all four categories.
Easy mode is when you know the special word. Hard is when you don’t.
It’s like connections except that there are three words in each category, there are four categories, and one word is in all four categories.
Easy mode is when you know the special word. Hard is when you don’t.
April 5, 2025 at 5:34 PM
I invented a game. It’s called 4 x 3.
It’s like connections except that there are three words in each category, there are four categories, and one word is in all four categories.
Easy mode is when you know the special word. Hard is when you don’t.
It’s like connections except that there are three words in each category, there are four categories, and one word is in all four categories.
Easy mode is when you know the special word. Hard is when you don’t.
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Not science fiction. Wonderful work by Adrian Owen and crew. 🧪 🧠 #neuroskyence
In my ongoing quest to publish as many academic papers with Arnold Schwazenegger movies as part of the title, I give you…..Total Recall….out today and free to read www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Total recall: Detecting autobiographical memory retrieval in the absence of behaviour
Functional neuroimaging has fundamentally changed our understanding of disorders of consciousness (DoC). While many DoC patients exhibit minimal to no…
www.sciencedirect.com
March 21, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Not science fiction. Wonderful work by Adrian Owen and crew. 🧪 🧠 #neuroskyence
Reposted by Preston Thakral
I just watched Jurassic Park again with my kids and there were lots of great PI moments.
Rich guy asks scientists to come with him to his Island.
Scientists say they're too busy with research.
Rich guy says he'll fund them for the next 3 years.
Scientists say okay when does the plane leave?
Rich guy asks scientists to come with him to his Island.
Scientists say they're too busy with research.
Rich guy says he'll fund them for the next 3 years.
Scientists say okay when does the plane leave?
March 16, 2025 at 11:13 AM
I just watched Jurassic Park again with my kids and there were lots of great PI moments.
Rich guy asks scientists to come with him to his Island.
Scientists say they're too busy with research.
Rich guy says he'll fund them for the next 3 years.
Scientists say okay when does the plane leave?
Rich guy asks scientists to come with him to his Island.
Scientists say they're too busy with research.
Rich guy says he'll fund them for the next 3 years.
Scientists say okay when does the plane leave?
Reposted by Preston Thakral
Me, every Friday evening.
February 7, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Me, every Friday evening.