Cognitive neuroscience

Recent articles

Keith Hengen and Woodrow Shew explore criticality and cognition

The two discuss their evolving views of brain criticality as a central organizing principle of cognition, development and learning.

By Paul Middlebrooks
16 July 2025 | 94 min listen

What do neuroscientists mean when they use the term ‘representation’?

A group of neuroscientists and philosophers discuss the use and misuse of the term "representation" across the cognitive sciences and how it influences the way we interpret the connection between neural, behavioral and mental activity.

By Paul Middlebrooks
4 June 2025 | 127 min listen
Illustration of synapse-like threads connecting in various ways.

Learning in living mice defies classic synaptic plasticity rule

Donald Hebb’s theory—memorably summarized as “cells that fire together, wire together”—does not explain the shifting hippocampal connections in mice learning to navigate a virtual environment, according to a new study.

By Sydney Wyatt
28 May 2025 | 6 min listen
Illustration of a treeline in front of a human brain.

‘Natural Neuroscience: Toward a Systems Neuroscience of Natural Behaviors,’ an excerpt

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

By Nachum Ulanovsky
15 April 2025 | 9 min read
Cognitive neuroscientist Nick Turk-Browne helps an infant into an fMRI machine.

What infant fMRI is revealing about the developing mind

Cognitive neuroscientists have finally clocked how to perform task-based functional MRI experiments in awake babies—long known for their inability to lie still or take direction. Next, they aim to watch cognition take shape and settle a debate about our earliest memories—with one group publishing a big clue today.

By Calli McMurray
20 March 2025 | 12 min read
Patient being administered an EEG test.

Single-neuron recordings are helping to unravel complexities of human cognition

As this work begins to bear fruit, researchers “are becoming less afraid to ask very difficult questions that you can uniquely ask in people.”

By Claudia López Lloreda
14 March 2025 | 10 min listen

Alison Preston explains how our brains form mental frameworks for interpreting the world

Preston discusses her research examining differences in how children, teenagers and adults integrate new information into their memories.

By Paul Middlebrooks
12 March 2025 | 90 min listen
Illustration of columns of text with eyes peeking out from behind the central column to look at a bright blue spot.

This paper changed my life: Bill Newsome reflects on a quadrilogy of classic visual perception studies

The 1970s papers from Goldberg and Wurtz made ambitious mechanistic studies of higher brain functions seem feasible.

By Bill Newsome
21 February 2025 | 6 min read
A brain made up of a matrix of small, predominately blue dots.

‘Bioethics and Brains: A Disciplined and Principled Neuroethics,’ an excerpt

In their new book, published earlier this week, Giordano and Shook examine how ethics can guide neuroscience research and its real-world applications.

By James Giordano, John Shook
14 February 2025 | 6 min read

‘Digital humans’ in a virtual world

By combining large language models with modular cognitive control architecture, Robert Yang and his collaborators have built agents that are capable of grounded reasoning at a linguistic level. Striking collective behaviors have emerged.

By Kevin Mitchell
10 February 2025 | 51 min watch

Explore more from The Transmitter

This paper changed my life: Victoria Abraira on a tasty link between circuits and behavior

The findings from Charles Zuker’s lab put the taste system on the map, revealing that some fundamental principles of behavior are hardwired.

By Victoria Abraira
22 July 2025 | 5 min listen
Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Neurophysiologic distinction between autism and schizophrenia; and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 21 July.

By Jill Adams
22 July 2025 | 1 min read
Computer-generated illustration of a brain in a broken jar.

Breaking the jar: Why NeuroAI needs embodiment

Brain function is inexorably shaped by the body. Embracing this fact will benefit computational models of real brain function, as well as the design of artificial neural networks.

By Bing Wen Brunton, John Tuthill
21 July 2025 | 11 min listen