Alexa Morcom
Cognitive neuroscientist, associate professor in Psychology at Uni of Sussex. Hello bsky people! Views not my employer's. She/they.
- Nice to see this RR out
- Are episodic and semantic memory really that different? Using closely matched tasks, we found no substantial neural differences between recalling personal experiences and general knowledge: nature.com/articles/s41562-025…
- I'm up for this
- New post: replicating Loftus and Palmer at scale. rolfzwaan.substack.com/p/memory-mis...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomReally thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!! This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay! elifesciences.org/articles/99931
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomWe've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom🚨 Another reminder that corridor care is dangerous. Patients are collapsing out of sight. Staff are forced to deliver care in unsafe conditions. This is not normal, and it’s not acceptable. This must change now - that's why we're taking a stance. Read more ⬇️ www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomYou and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomGreat culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomIn my latest for @nytimes.com, scientists and Indigenous sailors in the Marshall Islands are studying seafaring and the human brain. I became completely fascinated by navigation while reporting this story. (gift link!) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/s...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomFeeling incredibly grateful! Thank you to my examiners, Ed and Chris, for an engaging and insightful discussion about my work, and to my supervisor, Alexa, for her incredible support and guidance over the past four years. Excited for the next chapter as Dr. Zhang.
- Congratulations to the brilliant Xinyue (Joy) Zhang on passing her PhD viva with flying colours and no corrections! Many thanks to her wise examiners Ed Wilding and @chrismbird.bsky.social. It's been a pleasure to have you in our lab, @xyzhang.bsky.social!
- Congratulations to the brilliant Xinyue (Joy) Zhang on passing her PhD viva with flying colours and no corrections! Many thanks to her wise examiners Ed Wilding and @chrismbird.bsky.social. It's been a pleasure to have you in our lab, @xyzhang.bsky.social!
- Credit to @fionalancelotte.bsky.social for the astonishing MATLAB needlework, too...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomWhat is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomNo no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomNew paper in Imaging Neuroscience by C. Sainz Martinez, J. Jorge, et al: An optimized framework for simultaneous EEG-fMRI at 7T enabling safe, high-quality human brain imaging with millisecond temporal resolution and sub-millimeter spatial resolution doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomThe podcast is now available on Spotify! You can still take part in our survey here: cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
- The brilliant @kasiamojescik.bsky.social and Martha McGill join @claudiahammond.bsky.social and @catherineloveday.bsky.social on BBC Radio 4 All in the Mind this morning to launch our new public survey of vivid memories. You can take part here: cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom[This post could not be retrieved]
- PFI = private finance initiative. Short term gain, big long term pain for patients and the #NHS
- 💷 PFI = A profitable deal for business, a burden for the NHS PFIs have proven lucrative, for hedge funds + insurance companies. Our new blog breaks down why PFI was a disaster — and why new PPPs would repeat the same mistakes. 🔗 everydoctor.org.uk/talking-poin...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomWhat happens in the brain when we manipulate our thoughts? We asked 30 epilepsy patients to mentally invert short melodies. Intracerebral #iEEG recordings suggest brain synchrony and sensory inhibition are key for mental manipulation: doi.org/10.1101/2025... #neuroskyence #musicscience
- I have total #mdrs2025 FOMO 😭 - looking forward to the posts!
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom🧵8 We focused on fMRI studies of 🧠 networks… but there’s so much more neat idiographic work being done in other neuroimaging & psychology domains! See @mattmattoni.bsky.social's recent review for more thoughts on uniting these perspectives www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Because “brain network features occur in different locations across people”
- Why do brain networks vary? Do these differences shape behavior? If every 🧠 is unique, how can we detect common features of brain organization? @rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print): go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-... #neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky 🧵👇
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomAge and gender distortion in online media and large language models "Furthermore, when generating and evaluating resumes, ChatGPT assumes that women are younger and less experienced, rating older male applicants as of higher quality." No surprise, but now documented: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomFrom Black History Month, exhibition at the library of some of the distinguished alumni of Sussex.ac.uk
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomImportant paper for interpreting #fMRI results on #psychedelics! In short, psilocybin changes neurovascular coupling (i.e., how neural activity links to blood flow). 👇
- 🚨 New science alert! Our cross-species study, now in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrates psychedelics distort how we should interpret functional brain imaging. 👇🧵 nature.com/articles/s41... #Neuroscience #Psychedelics #BrainImaging
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomDecoding performance (MVPA) better for OPM-MEG than SQUID-MEG 😎. The improved spatial specificity of OPM-MEG due to the reduced brain-sensor distance is key. And more sensors (beyond 40) don't improve decoding. Preprint from our recent @thechbh.bsky.social study: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomIt is a great pleasure to share this new collaborative work on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Representations with @fnim-lab.bsky.social @cvlneuro.bsky.social @psychologyuea.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomLol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomPsychologists & related fields: what is a big methods question that you believe remains somewhat unanswered & that you'd love to see adressed? There may be an opportunity for a large-scale meta-science project with many teams trying to figure out a question. Any thoughts welcome! #psychscisky
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomAt the FORRT Replication Hub, our mission is to support researchers who want to replicate previous findings. We have now published a big new component with which we want to fulfill this mission: An open access handbook for reproduction and replication studies: forrt.org/replication_...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomThe 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
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomI will not back down. Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom@sfn.org please consider hosting your next meeting outside of the 🇺🇸
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomMemory problems will change how you see the world...literally 👀 Across two new papers, we examined the eye movement patterns of younger adults, older adults, individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and amnesic cases. 1/5
- Not to mention the terrible effect on universities and research…
- Evidence-based review of the Tylenol/ paracetamol - autism controversy stirred up by MAGA and their friends - FREE podcast + detailed notes from evidence-based health/ longevity/ exercise podcaster Peter Attia (not on BSky): share with US friends!! peterattiamd.com/tylenolandau...
- Education isn’t zero sum - why are so many in Labour @teamlabouruk.bsky.social down on universities and allow HE to be run down as if that helps those who would not go to Uni - we need to support apprenticeships and FE and HE because all are vital!
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom** We have up to TWO funded PhD positions available in our lab!! Apply below to find new ways to enhance memory👇 Pls retweet ** Deadline: 2nd December 1. Cross-species closed-loopTMR: tinyurl.com/bddu4tp6 2. TUS and TMR in humans: tinyurl.com/jjws5ctj Happy to chat to interested applicants.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomNew book— just got my copy! I know people often don’t read book chapters but I think that’s a mistake. They are usually much more reflective and wide ranging than journal articles.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomNew from our CNTRACS collab: Santiago Castiello finds that people with schizophrenia false alarm speech in sine wave stimuli, and benefit more greatly from the templates - particularly if they are voice hearers osf.io/preprints/ps...
- This looks important for anyone wanting to define ROIs in lateral PFC…
- The lateral prefrontal cortex 🧠— which we think of as critical for goal driven behavior + is a target for psychiatric treatments— is fundamentally different in individuals relative to the group averages we’ve often studied. 👇see preprint and thread, led by Zach Ladwig #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom
[This post could not be retrieved] - A nice one for Pride!
- The more positive intergroup contacts you have, the fewer LGBTQ+ conspiracies beliefs you will report bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomREMINDER to PLEASE vote in the consultative ballot on the 25/26 pay claim!
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomWe are seeking an Editor-in-Chief for @qjep.bsky.social, to lead a team of associate editors and manage the journal. The new EiC will start shadowing the current role from July 2026 and will take over fully in January 2027. The term is initially for 4 years. eps.ac.uk/an-open-call...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomIsrael is deliberately starving Palestinian children to death. It cannot be sugar coated. It is a fact - an engineered famine - and it’s abhorrent. #Genocide #Gaza
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomHive mind: Has anyone seen a good, and realistic, policy around the use of AI in writing articles for publication?
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomNew paper led by @codydong.bsky.social now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, exploring the relationship between memory-augmented LLMs and human episodic memory – see Cody’s post below for a short thread and a non-paywalled paper link! #NeuroAI doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
- My first, first author paper, comparing the properties of memory-augmented large language models and human episodic memory, out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv... Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomHundreds march in solidarity with Palestine in Brighton and Hove www.theargus.co.uk/news/2534538...
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomPaper accepted!!! The holistic forgetting of events and the (sometimes) fragmented forgetting of objects osf.io/preprints/ps... #neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom🚨Paper now published! 🚨 The Effects of External Cue Overlap and Internal Goals on Selective Memory Retrieval. Grateful for thorough reviews that made it stronger. Out now in #EJN: doi.org/10.1111/ejn..... w @alexamorcom.bsky.social @MattPlummer @ivorsimpson.bsky.social. Updated summary🧵👇
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomInternational study shows that higher levels of education do not reduce rates of cognitive and brain decline in later years, contrary to views that education protects against such decline: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @rhens.bsky.social
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomOne of the most common science myths is that we need 10k steps a day...a number originating from a Japanese ad. In general, the more steps the better, right? However, several studies now identify inflection points around 7k as significantly reducing many health risks, from heart to dementia.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomI literally live on a council estate in Archway. I have a mezuzah on my door, my next-door neighbours are Iranian. It's totally completely fine? Sorry, actually, it's nice. We have little chats. Take in each other's parcels. They bring me delicious iftar during Ramadan. I lend them my garden hose.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomDid you all know that Margaret Boden founded the first School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences in 1987. No? Well, now you do 😌 Btw, listen to this great talk by her. I'll be adding this to the resources from our 1st year students in Intro to AI. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPRA...
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom1/2 Press release @unileiden.bsky.social about our upcoming JoPACS paper led by @bsiepe.bsky.social, showing that the overlap of similar constructs assessed via wearable vs EMA data is surprisingly low (n~850, 3 months). www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomSuper happy to share our new preprint! 🥳 An exciting adventure with the fantastic @ivanpadezhki.bsky.social ki.bsky.social, and my first time as senior co-author together with @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social
- So happy this is finally out! Despite Covid delays and thanks to persistence by @arimoccia.bsky.social + the helpful reviewers Starting to uncover how memory cues and goals interact - with implications for how we understand memory reconstruction during retrieval
- 🚨Paper now published! 🚨 The Effects of External Cue Overlap and Internal Goals on Selective Memory Retrieval. Grateful for thorough reviews that made it stronger. Out now in #EJN: doi.org/10.1111/ejn..... w @alexamorcom.bsky.social @MattPlummer @ivorsimpson.bsky.social. Updated summary🧵👇
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomEndogenous and exogenous attentional interplay through mixed prefrontal cortex resources www.cell.com/current-biol... #neuroscience
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomAsked about actions he might take against Israel, David Lammy says its not appropriate to go into detail. Everyone knows what you need to do. End all arms exports. End all trade. End all military assistance. Impose sanctions on the govt & economy. Expel the Israeli ambassador.
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomMy PhD student Trevor Hewitt is conducting an online experiment into closed-eye visuals during psychedelic experiences. If you've had such an experience, please consider taking part at closed-eyes.com (it's only a short survey) - and/or help us spread the word. 🙏🏽🧠
- Reposted by Alexa Morcom2 Lecturer (Assistant Prof) positions available @yorkpsychology.bsky.social! Come join our department! #neuroskyence #cognition #psychscisky #neurojobs jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...
- Reposted by Alexa MorcomThis is disgraceful. Students in Gaza accepted to many universities (not just Cambridge or Oxford!) being blocked by the UK Home Office's unreasonable and inflexible demands. www.thetimes.com/world/middle...
