Colin Hoy
Postdoc@UCSF on the job market; I study mood & motivation in Parkinson's disease via iEEG, DBS, and RL + #neuroethics | neuro PhD | he/him
- Reposted by Colin Hoy[Not loaded yet]
- Closer to biology is good, and typical neurostimulation waveforms (square waves, sinusoids) are artificial and foreign to the brain. Here's a cool pilot study using endogenous EEG to construct more naturalistic ("endogenous) tACS stimulation patterns: www.brainstimjrnl.com/article/S193...
- This sounds crazy- 70% of studies on gaming addiction use scales that didn’t clarify that “games” doesn’t include gambling?? Now very curious about rates of true gaming addiction relative to what the confounded instruments show
- First post of the year, new paper out today: we present possibly the biggest case of systematic Measurement Schmeasurement in tech use. It seems that most studies on gaming (videogame) addiction/disorder haven't measured gaming after all. This research took years, so long 🧵 doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
- Reposted by Colin Hoy𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? "High-resolution activity maps of PFC did NOT align with cytoarchitecturally defined subregions." Key tenet in neuroscience is that cytoarchitectonic boundaries correspond to functional ones. NB: study in the mouse #neuroskyence doi.org/10.1038/s415...
- Reposted by Colin HoyRipple oscillations are central for memory and sleep. But ripple detection in humans remains challenging. Here we introduce a simulation approach in @natcomms.nature.com as common ripple detectors mainly pick up 1/f noise and not genuine oscillations 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroskyence
- Science is looking for somebody to do neuropixel recordings in formerly blind mice #neurojobs science.xyz/careers/neur...
- Looks like Sam Altman et al launched their new #ultrasound based BCI company! merge.io/blog Also, computational neuroscientist role available 👀
- Reposted by Colin HoyWith some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
- Hmmm, this suggests that the evidence for shortcut use as an indicator of applying a cognitive map seem to be weak even in humans. Maybe a cautionary note here for all the cognitive map studies where the map structure and metrics (e.g., hexagonal symmetry) are much more vague
- Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts? Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze. Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.1111/ejn.... @uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social
- Reposted by Colin HoyThis paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
- Would love to hear expert views on this paper. It appears to show that the operationalization of brain activity the field has relied on for 3 decades—the BOLD response—is not actually a sensible measure of brain activity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- for years, I've said my favorite conspiracy theory about the brain is that "neurons are a front, glial cells do all the real work", mostly (but not completely) as a joke. Welp... "Astrocyte ensembles are sufficient and necessary for recall" 👀👀👀 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Really beautiful + elegant study: theory, psychophysics, and careful behavioral modeling lead to super clean dissection of #EEG topographies during perceptual decision making. Crazy variance makes sense when you have the framework and predictors to explain it! elifesciences.org/articles/108...
- 2025 ended with a blast as the version of record of the paper was officially published by @elife.bsky.social at 19h19 on the 31st of December 🥳 doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Be prepared for some cognitive control and modelling follow-ups in 2026 and a happy new year to y'all.
- Reposted by Colin HoyOnline Now: The Reward Positivity signals a goal prediction error
- I very much like how this perspective considers the different goals and techniques for defining brain organization. Recognizing that cytoarchitecture, connectivity, macroscale gradients, and even manifolds place different constraints on function helps reconcile the different interpretations.
- New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵 rdcu.be/eVZ1A
- I'm excited to co-chair an #SfN2025 nanosymposium with the esteemed @neuronush.bsky.social on intracranial and behavioral readouts of neuromodulation for psychiatric symptoms! NANO048: "Human Intracranial Recordings: Cognitive and Clinical Science" Wed. Nov. 19 from 8-10am (🙃) Room 23A
- @karaannjohnson.bsky.social: "Basal ganglia neurophysiological activity differentiates depression, apathy, and anxiety in Parkinson's disease" Me: "Neurocomputational basis of goal-directed decision making in human fronto-basal ganglia circuits"
- Reposted by Colin HoyThe Computational and Cognitive Neural Sciences lab (ballardlab.org) at UC Riverside is recruiting psychology PhD students to join our team! Check out the flyer to learn about the lab and our stellar research community at UCR. Apply by 12/1! drive.google.com/file/d/19m8i...
- Ooooh been waiting to read this one from all-star @debyee.bsky.social !! Conflating non-reward with punishment is a big blind spot for so many studies, so really excited to dig into a study that carefully picks apart reward, punishment, and their effects on cognitive control!
- Thrilled to share our new preprint highlighting distinct neurocomputational mechanisms underlying how reward and punishment determine adaptive cognitive control - a massive fMRI study and collaborative team effort with the @shenhavlab.bsky.social 🧠 Link here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Colin HoyWhy 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 🧵👇
- Side note: Kris Anderson & @vipiai.bsky.social started this study before I even joined my PhD lab in 2014!!! >10 years y'all... Science is slow & the road is bumpy, but working w/ good people and persevering pays off. So grateful to @anask07.bsky.social, Bob Knight, Nicole Bentley, & the whole team
- Ever slam on the brakes after seeing a speed trap? Or better yet, slow down ahead in anticipation? In our new paper w/ @anask07.bsky.social in @cp-iscience.bsky.social, we use #iEEG to study the neural basis of reactive and proactive control in medial and lateral PFC. tinyurl.com/4bbwbffv
- Ever slam on the brakes after seeing a speed trap? Or better yet, slow down ahead in anticipation? In our new paper w/ @anask07.bsky.social in @cp-iscience.bsky.social, we use #iEEG to study the neural basis of reactive and proactive control in medial and lateral PFC. tinyurl.com/4bbwbffv
- Many studies show cognitive control signals in MPFC & LPFC, but how these regions adapt their dynamics when control shifts from reactive (conflict-triggered) to proactive (anticipatory) is less clear. To study this, we recorded iEEG during proportion congruent manipulations in a Stroop task. 2/5
- Randolph is fantastic, and this will be an incredible opportunity to work on cutting edge science! Definitely consider applying
- New position, new social media account. After 5 fantastic years in Tuebingen, I moved to @yale.edu and the @wutsaiyale.bsky.social this summer - which means that I’ll be recruiting PhD students and postdocs. Please help me to spread the word and see current opportunities below 👇
- I strongly believe modeling behavior will be critical for understanding mental health well enough to develop new interventions, but the gap between task-based and naturalistic behavior is MASSIVE. Some great ideas here for bridging that gap!
