I'd very much appreciate to find an answer to this, as it relates to a person trying psilocybin. It is known that people should not try psilocybin if they have predisposition to psychosis, but what about someone with severe sleep paralysis (strong hallucinations, strange feelings of their body being electrocuted while trying to sleep, or apnea)? If this person has no relatives with psychosis-related disorders, should they still be excluded from a psilocybin trial? If someone could help me find the answer to this, or provide the contact of a neuroscientist who can, I would be very grateful.

For those who have pivoted To other fields what job paths have opened up for you with eeg?

What do the “dys” diagnoses have in common in terms of parts of the brain implicated? I notice overlap in expression of each. Do they have anything in common? I’m thinking about dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia - thanks -

My notes say that “integration of post synaptic potentials must result in a potential of about -65mV in order to generate an AP” but then later on state the threshold is -55mV. I’m confused why this is. Is -55mV the target and -65mV is the minimum threshold to cause an AP?

I’m a MSc studenti In computational linguistics and cognitive science. So, it’s not just about studying NLP and AI from a computer science perspective—there’s a strong emphasis on the cognitive aspects of these models. ( I come from a different background, I have a BA in linguistics and literature and now I only have one course purely in neuroscience, it’s very intense tho)

Since I’m still undecided about what to specialize in, one area that has interests me is enhancing the linguistic capabilities of AI systems by using neuroscience (and, of course, linguistics) knowledge. The aim would be to make the language of these models more human-like. Another possibility would be working on the integration of language and vision.

Given my interests, which of these courses ( including research) would you recommend? I should choose only one, and each course could offer me research opportunities.

•	Neurolinguistics: A very detailed course on the language in the brain, almost at a medical-biological level. Topics include language in the brain, language abilities of the right hemisphere, aphasias, pathologies, neural correlates, etc.


•	Advanced Topics in Language and Cognition: A seminar where we read papers on linguistics, neurolinguistics, and computational methods. The focus is on Universal Grammar in our brain and the correlations between cognitive abilities and general linguistic structures. Some example papers include:

a) “Tool use and language share syntactic processes and neural patterns in the basal ganglia” b) “Linguistic explanation and domain specialization: a case study in bound variable anaphora” c) “Artificial neural network language models predict human brain responses to language even after a developmentally realistic amount of training”

•	Language Modeling and Human Cognition: Another seminar where we study papers on the linguistic and cognitive capabilities and limitations of large language models.

I don’t know which might be most useful for what I want to do or if they’re all useful, and I should just pick the one I prefer. (I don’t want to specialize purely in neuroscience; I don’t feel equipped with the right background for that.)

Do they still have applications in specific, highly complex cases where imaging may not provide all the needed information or where direct access is critical?

A neural basis of choking under pressure

I am more interested in this work provoking exploration into the pathophysiology of depression and psychomotor retardation/leaden paralysis, motor deficits in autism spectrum disorder, and motor deficits in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The mammalian cortex seems to serve a universal role of complex information integration and sensory processing.

I remember reading this paper Single-neuron representations of odours in the human brain | Nature

and i also remember seeing areas like the visual association cortex and the primary visual cortex being recruited during predictions of non-visual stimuli that evoked associations to visual ones. Neural Pathways Conveying Novisual Information to the Visual Cortex - PMC

i've been thinking about this a lot. The piriform cortex was recruited when visual stimuli evoked associations to smell without having any olfactory stimulus coupled with it, despite it's typical associations with olfactory processing. Furthermore, the new FDA approved drug for social phobia, fasedienol, never enters the CNS and indirectly modulates the amygdala and downstream networks through indirect stimulation of the olfactory bulb.

Do non mammals also have this complex processing in their CNS?

The way i see the cortex, is that features of broad cognitive/ emotional/ sensory domains are processed contextually, and a single stimuli or cognitive information/ emotional context is distributed across various areas as features depending on some dimension which governs how the information is distributed across the cortex, and to a lesser degree the subcortical structures.

Given the complexity of mammalian social behavior and higher intelligence, i'd assume the ability to integrate complex information and distribute stimulus features across different networks/ to reduce processing demands/ physiological needs is a necessity.

Do reptiles and animals without high intelligence also have this way of processing, or are the cortical areas of something like the green anole more limited in how features of different environmental stimuli are distributed across regions?

Can CNS neurons repair themselves from typical damage? Surely they can.

I know it is commonly accepted that they cannot regrow their axons once severed (it seems this is what is meant by not being able to "regenerate"), but surely CNS neurons can regenerate cellular structures just like any other cell from normal wear and tear and cellular metabolism, such as from cell membrane damage, myelin sheath damage, oxidative stress, etc.

I mean if they can grow new synapses (synaptogenesis), surely they can repair their own cellular structures like any other cell can?

And also why is it so hard to find any literature on this? Also why does every article not specifically define what "neuron regeneration" is, when it seems like they are referring specifically to a neurons ability to regrow their axons. Surely this would cause confusion?

See also my question on stackexchange:

https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/30639/cns-neuron-regeneration

I've been reflecting on the profound intensity of religious or divine ecstasy, and I can't help but notice how vastly it surpasses even the highest moments of joy we experience in everyday life, and I really wonder how this immense magnitude of happiness is even possible from a neurological perspective.

Think of some of life’s most treasured experiences: falling deeply in love, accomplishing a hard-earned goal, or savoring moments that fill you with awe and gratitude. These experiences are truly amazing—they can light up our lives and bring deep satisfaction. But here’s the thing: when you compare these everyday joys to the experience of religious ecstasy, they suddenly feel small, like they're missing something fundamental.

It’s as if the joys of everyday life, as wonderful as they are, are like holding a million dollars. That’s an incredible amount, right? But if you would then get a billion dollars, a million suddenly pales in comparison. The million dollars still holds value—it’s still incredible—but the magnitude of a billion changes your entire perspective on what’s possible. In a similar way, the ecstasy found in divine experience is so overwhelming, so vast, that even the most intense joys of life seem minor by comparison.

To me, this says something about the potential of the human experience. There’s a sense that religious ecstasy is not just "more joy" but is, instead, something qualitatively different. It reaches depths and heights that redefine what we think we know about happiness and fulfillment.

Here are 3 quotes from the novelist Dostoevsky, who has had ecstatic experiences as part of his epileptic seizures:

"I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me. I really attained God, and was imbued with him. All of you healthy people don’t even suspect what happiness is, that happiness which we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."

"I experience such happiness as is impossible under ordinary conditions, and of which other people can have no notion. I feel complete harmony in myself and in the world and this feeling is so strong and sweet that for several seconds of such bliss one would give ten years of one’s life, indeed, perhaps one’s whole life."

"You all, healthy people, can’t imagine the happiness which we epileptics feel during the second before our fit... I don’t know if this happiness lasts for seconds, hours or months, but believe me, I would not exchange it for all the joys that life may bring."

How does is the reward system able to encode this huge magnitude of happiness? I have read that there is frequency coding that encodes the magnitude of a reward but neurons have maximum firing frequency so at some point the brain just can't physically encode greater happiness. So how does it work?

There is some research on the neural basis of ecstatic epileptic seizures, implicating the anterior insula in this phenomenon but I couldn't really find research about how exactly it is encoded.

I've been exploring ways to bring more nature into my indoor space to improve mood, and I’m considering a ceiling wallpaper with a blue sky. This got me thinking: is the color blue actually beneficial or detrimental to mood?

On the one hand, blue is a natural color, especially in the sky and water, which likely signaled a safe environment during human evolution. Being under a clear blue sky often feels calming and peaceful.

But on the other hand, the color blue is commonly associated with sadness or even depression (“feeling blue”), and I'm curious if this association affects our actual response to blue in the environment.

Is there any research or insight into how the color blue influences mood? Does the context—like an expansive blue sky vs. other uses of the color—change its psychological effect?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if anyone has seen studies or research on this topic!

If someone's eyes were severed from the optic nerve while under anesthesia (the person wasn’t told their eyes would be removed), would they be able to comprehend that they lost their eyes or their ability to see upon waking up? Given that complete severance means there would be no visual input-not even darkness-how might they come to understand that they can no longer see? Would they feel like something is missing or wrong with themselves? Would they remember being able to see before hand?

Please lmk if there is a better subreddit for this question

Thank you!

The term "suffering" is rarely used in neuroscience literature. Which neuroscientific terms describe "suffering" best? Here are some examples:

• negative emotion
• pain
• negative affect
• negative valence
• unpleasantness
• aversion

What do you think which term fits best?

I want to identify the neural correlates of suffering in order to minimize it in severely suffering individuals.

Edit: By suffering I mean both mental and physical suffering.

The direction of theta and alpha travelling waves modulates human memory processing | Nature Human Behaviour

This is pretty interesting, something i was interested in was object representation in the cortex via spatiotemporal patterns of the oscillations of neural ensembles within the cortex, but this work takes this a step further for cognitive processes, albeit the direction of alpha and theta waves is correlated rather than local activity, it seems like. Damn paywall.

Hi there - This is a shot in the dark but I'm a video journalist who explores how technology and media shape our culture on YouTube. I'm currently working on a video about false memories centered on the Fruit of the Loom logo Mandela Effect - specifically exploring why millions of people share an identical false memory of a cornucopia that officially never existed in the logo.

I'm looking to interview a researcher who has studied and can speak about:

• False memory formation
• Collective/shared memories
• Visual memory processing
• The psychology/neuroscience of memory

I'd love to include expert insights about the science behind why such specific collective false memories can occur to help viewers understand. 

The interview would be conducted online (on-camera as a recorded meeting) and I'd request an hour of your gracious time! Happy to work around your schedule and provide more details about the project.

If you're a researcher in this field or can point me toward someone who might be interested, please reach out via DM or comment below.

Thank you!

I have always wondered about the answer to this question. I can recall the feeling of touching something in my memory, and then if I focus hard enough on the memory of that sensation, I can once again feel it, but not only in the place where I initially felt it. I can also project the feeling based on recollection to any part of my body I want. Is there a name for this? I have yet to have had any luck with a general search.

hi! i graduated w/ a BS in behavioral neuroscience recently & am currently in one of my gap years, planning on applying to medical school next cycle. for a while, i’ve struggled with the idea of attending 4 more years of intense school & then 3-6 years of residency afterwards (additionally, need to retake mcat in january which is disheartening). i’m extremely interested in research, as i did some research in undergrad, & really love learning & engaging with anything involving the brain. i’m not sure what other career path choices there are in neurology, so please enlighten me!! the only thing that scares me about research is that i know (or i’ve heard) that the pay can be pretty poor.

Hi! If you study/studied autism in humans at the grad school level, where ddo/id you go? Why did you choose that school? I'll be applying in a year or two, but I'm trying to compile my information early. Thanks for the help!

So i came across this paper today, and read a bit into amplified MRI tech and its role in cognitive research and it seems to be that it doesn't have some clear role past Alzheimer's and brain malformation/ neurodegenerative research.

What are your thoughts?

I'd like to think there's some use case for this tech in research of people suffering from obesity, cardiovascular disease, and potentially (big if) in psychiatric research within populations with comorbid health issues and as a way to study the adverse effects of antipsychotics on on cerebrovascular function Antipsychotics and Risks of Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases and Mortality in Dwelling Community Older Adults - PMC .

Do any of you know of any interesting work done in cognitive research using some variant of aMRI?

3D Quantitative-Amplified Magnetic Resonance Imaging (3D q-aMRI) - PubMed

Hi guys,

I am in a weird position with a lab, and could use some advice. I recently graduated with my bachelors degree and have been trying to get my foot in the door with a neuro lab as an RA. I have agreed to join a great lab that I really loved visiting, and have received a pending offer. The deal is that if the lab receives funding through grants soon, I’m all set and they’ll hire me. If not, I might be out of luck.

I’m getting a bit nervous about whether they’ll get the funding, and have started to look into fellowship opportunities for people in my position through the NIH etc. I was wondering if anyone has any advice on places to look to find potential grant opportunities for postbac researchers? The lab is studying epilepsy and ASD if that helps.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks

Can Any neuroscientist can explain it to me?

To clarify, I mean that if a person indulged in a specific topic for a long duration of time, what changes would neuroplasticity induce in the brain? For example, if a person (who was previously inept in the topic) learnt and extensively studied mathematics, and skillfully solved equations, would they become better at logical thinking in general? Would this also possibly apply to causal inference, where the specific duration and intensity of how you learn the topic result in you seeing connections and interpretating them logically better than anyone else? Please note that this isn't a question arising from me wanting to learn these topics and acquire them skillfully, but I'm more interested in how neuroplasticity exerts its effects in the brain.

im confused, lots of sources mention +30 but others say +40 (and it’s said as if it’s a set number that’s fixed rather than it ranging between 30 to 40)

I’m currently reading The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and I am honestly impressed and shocked at some of the claims it is making regarding the brain’s capacity to rewire itself. I really want to believe these claims, they sound very reputable and the way the arguments and case studies are laid out are deeply engaging, intuitive and well-explained, but I can’t help but be left with some skepticism. One oddity that stood out for me is the author’s treatment of autism. I’m only beginning to learn about neurodiversity, as a budding mental health professional myself, and this struck me as off.

This book occasionally uses pathologizing language around autism and then after explaining the solution in a simple way (i.e. auditory symptom of autism arises from brain maps being undifferentiated due to exposure to white noise during critical period of development leading to hypersensitivity to noise? Retrain brain by exposure to one tone at a time until auditory cortex becomes differentiated again), essentially claiming to be able to fix autism (or at least it read like that). This sounds quite …. Nonaffirming? Also, is it really that simple? And if so, why do we not hear more about this generally in mental health circles?

I’m new to neuroscience and neurodiversity, and all the complicated intersections between those two phenomena so I genuinely don’t know how to establish the validity/reliability of the claims made by the book (which seem well justified given the author has published hundreds of scientific papers and all the case studies cited are by intellectual giants who have contributed significantly to the academic discourse on neuroplasticity). I felt myself getting quite excited at all the prospects regarding brain adaptation, reversal of age-related cognitive decline, optimisation of learning, etc that were emerging from my read-through so far. The claims simply feel too good to be true.

For instance, the book repeatedly links each case study introduced to some brain training computer program the scientist in question developed who then runs their own company working in rewiring the brains of people with all sorts of cognitive deficits. The message I got here was that the brain can be drastically rewired through training via brain-training apps (provided sufficient aggressive engagement is maintained). This prompted me to briefly research the mobile brain-training apps on the market (i.e. Luminosity and Elevate – the reviews on the play store looked fantastic) and what the general scientific consensus about them is saying. It doesn’t look good.

An open letter from the Stanford Center on Longevity, signed by 69 international neuroscientisits and cognitive psychologists have offered the following summary statement:

“We object to the claim that brain games offer consumers a scientifically grounded avenue to reduce or reverse cognitive decline when there is no compelling scientific evidence to date that they do. The promise of a magic bullet detracts from the best evidence to date, which is that cognitive health in old age reflects the long-term effects of healthy, engaged lifestyles. In the judgment of the signatories below, exaggerated and misleading claims exploit the anxieties of older adults about impending cognitive decline. We encourage continued careful research and validation in this field.”

So what gives?

Is the research being misrepresented by Norman Doidge? How should I evaluate what I am reading?

Hi there!

Could anyone either themselves or by way of reference provide a detailed explanation of how the brain generates our day to day sensory experiences? I'm looking for this information for a project I'm working on, but I'm a novice in neuroscience. So, I thought what better place to start than here? Thanks in advance for any answers. Hope you all are having a wonderful day :)