James Antony
asst prof of cog neuro at cal poly | dad | formerly uc davis, princeton, northwestern, lawrence | graying child | he/him | blm | dm for papers
- Reposted by James AntonyThis is Minneapolis. Literally every corner along Lake St. packed with people holding candles, many singing, honoring a person who by all accounts was an absolute gem of a human, whose life was tragically stolen by a fascist, paramilitary occupation force.
- Reposted by James AntonyThis is Alex Pretti.
- Reposted by James AntonyA video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.
- Reposted by James AntonyBeyond helping establish DHS itself in 2003, Mr. Mitnick was a senate-confirmed Trump choice for General Counsel for DHS in his first term. I've talked with him a few times, and he's not a man for hyperbole. So bear that in mind when you see him calling out DHS's "lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty."
- Reposted by James Antonyman the stuff i am seeing on IG from the most normie, i don’t really talk about politics accounts suggests something different
- Reposted by James AntonyThis is a five alarm fire. If you dont think this impacts you, think again. Public health is in grave danger www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
- Reposted by James Antonyhere's the 60 minutes cecot video part 1 of 5 - recorded/uploaded by and all credit to @jasonparis.bsky.social I just reduced background noise, chopped the 14 minutes into 3 minute segments each compressed under 100 mb for bsky's limits, cropped and rotated a few degrees for easier viewing on here
- Reposted by James AntonySo I have the cover story in next month's TNR. I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol. They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.
- Reposted by James AntonyWe are recruiting a lab manager/research assistant to start in early 2026! The successful candidate will conduct awake infant fMRI, meet cute babies, and join a fun team! More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join... Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
- Reposted by James AntonyI will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com
- Reposted by James AntonyOut now in @nathumbehav.nature.com! We applied graph theoretic analyses to fMRI data of participants watching movies/listening to stories. Integration across large-scale functional networks mediates arousal-dependent enhancement of narrative memories. Open access link: rdcu.be/eKKAw
- In this article, @jadynpark.bsky.social et al find that emotionally arousing moments during a narrative are associated with heightened integration across functional brain networks, which in turn predict how well those moments are then remembered.
- Reposted by James AntonyYou learn better when you test yourself on an answer before you study it? Even more counterintuitive, our findings showcase that there is not one direct mechanism to this effect. Thank you @charan-neuro.bsky.social , @xiaonanl.bsky.social , and @jameswardantony.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1037/xlm0...
- Reposted by James AntonyHow does the brain🧠 make causal inferences and use memories to understand narratives🎬? We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do! Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇
- Reposted by James AntonyHow do the brain’s event representations change as we gain familiarity with an experience? Brain regions’ representations can become coarser or finer as event familiarity increases. Fine-tuning predicts memory recall. Excited to share this work with Narjes Al-Zahli & @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social!
- Reposted by James AntonyHere is a gift link. I know people have feelings about the times but this is free and reading this should make you very very mad and then you should do something:
- Reposted by James AntonyNew opinion piece! @amirtal.bsky.social and I argue that "wake reactivation" is not a scientifically useful construct; It encompasses nonconscious & conscious processes w/ varying levels of elaboration & diverging consequences, leading to conflicting results authors.elsevier.com/a/1lgli4sIRvW-LQ
- Reposted by James AntonyExcited to present our new work reading minds! Ok, not *that* kind of mind reading, but we have created a deep learning method capable of using single neuron recordings from people watching episodes of TV that can predict when they recall specific memories from the episode. 1/6
- Reposted by James AntonyFor >5 years, the International Sleep Replay Workshops (ISRW) have brought together scientists studying sleep & memory. The next ISRW will be on March 6th in Vancouver (before @cogneuronews.bsky.social). Follow the link for details and to join the mailing list. isrw.bio.uci.edu Pls repost! #sleep
- Reposted by James AntonySuspension of all grants to UCLA www.latimes.com/california/s...
- Reposted by James AntonyWhat's cool about looking back at the history of college protests is that 19 year old students have been right about every single American war, and the esteemed Harvard educated opinion writers at the New York Times have been wrong about every single American war.
- Reposted by James AntonyHappy to announce that my lab @ Yale Psychology (actcompthink.org) will be accepting PhD applications this year (for start in Fall '26)! Come for the fun experiments on human learning, memory, & skilled behavior, stay for the best 🍕 in the US. Please reach out if you have any questions!
- Reposted by James Antony"this deal is unlikely to end the attacks. The federal government, and this administration, is simply too powerful and too arbitrary to be credibly bargained with." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
- Reposted by James AntonyThe assault on higher education is not just about coastal elite schools. "Federal agencies terminated or were attempting to terminate more than 4,000 grants across over 600 institutions. These grants are worth between $6.9 billion and $8.2 billion combined." www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
- Reposted by James Antony🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding. Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24. See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it. 🧵 1/3
- Reposted by James Antony🚨This is the most exciting step of my scientific career🚨 25 yrs ago I started a life long interest in navigation, maps & brains I've collected data from >4 m people in 195 nations in SeaHeroQuest In 3 weeks we set off on an ocean voyage to study the amazing spatial skills of Marshallese sailors:
- World-leading scientists will set out on a unique research voyage, joining Indigenous Pacific sailors to investigate the centuries-old skill of wave piloting: www.stir.ac.uk/news/2025/ju... Photo credit: www.instagram.com/chewy_lin/
- Reposted by James AntonySummary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- Reposted by James AntonyOur new paper with @chrismlangdon is just out in @natureneuro.bsky.social! We show that high-dimensional RNNs use low-dimensional circuit mechanisms for cognitive tasks and identify a latent inhibitory mechanism for context-dependent decisions in PFC data. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- (1/5) Excited to share my work with @engeltatiana.bsky.social , out now in Nat Neuro! We show that RNNs use low-d latent circuit mechanisms for cognitive tasks. We find that context-dependent decisions in both RNNs and PFC arise from latent inhibitory mechanisms. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by James AntonyTerry Moran worked at ABC for 28 years. Now, for calling Stephen Miller “hateful,” (which he 💯 is per his own family), ABC fired him to appease an authoritarian hypocrite who ran on “free speech.” This will have a chilling effect on all journalists. Fourth Estate fails. Authoritarianism advances.
- Reposted by James Antonyngl this map of scheduled protests for this weekend is *wild*
- Reposted by James AntonyI am in downtown Los Angeles right now and it is completely surreal to hear that Trump is sending Marines here. We are listening to mariachi music. People have dogs. There are teenagers here. It is utterly and completely peaceful. Please tell your friends.
- Reposted by James AntonyHow bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)
- Reposted by James AntonySharing a new paper from the lab. This paper, led by Sangyoon Ko, represents a merging of two longstanding research themes in the lab-- adult neurogenesis and systems consolidation. rdcu.be/el18q A short thread follows for those interested. 1/n
- Reposted by James AntonyThe worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone. So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment. It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/ expertvoicestogether.org
- Reposted by James AntonyJoin us in beautiful Santa Barbara! We're hiring a full-time junior specialist/research technician to play a central role in data collection & analysis of brain imaging studies of pregnancy & menopause. Learn more & apply at: recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02974 Or help us spread the word 💫
- Reposted by James AntonyIt's 2015. President Barack Obama has accepted a "sky palace" jumbo jet from the Qatari government, which he'll own after he leaves office. "Everybody relax," he says in an interview with the New York Times. Everyone does. The networks then televise the military parade in his honor on his birthday.
- Reposted by James Antony“NSF watchers fear that a smaller, restructured agency could be more vulnerable to pressure from the White House to fund research that suits its ideological bent.” www.science.org/content/arti...
- Reposted by James AntonyDespite everything going on, I may have funds to hire a postdoc this year 😬🤞🧑🔬 Open to a wide variety of possible projects in social and cognitive neuroscience. Get in touch if you are interested! Reposts appreciated.
- Reposted by James Antonynew pope! *crowd goes wild* American pope! *crowd boos* woke for an American! *crowd goes wild* bad on protecting abusive priests! *crowd boos* hates JD Vance! *crowd goes wild*
- Reposted by James AntonyTime to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10
- Reposted by James AntonyAttending AERA (large ed research conf) was wild as NSF STEM ed grants were being axed on Friday. The #overhead at AERA was like... "[Person] is going to be cut from the lab because we lost all of our funding" Even still, finding that community was essential. See @jillbarshay.bsky.social story:
- Reposted by James AntonyPhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081
- Reposted by James AntonyA new evolving outrage… Damaging of the NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network
- Reposted by James AntonyNot surprising that an administration that rose to power on the spread of bullshit and propaganda is terminating the funding of researchers studying these phenomena. We are just receiving word about funding cancellations re: existing grants to members of our team and our colleagues.
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) is terminating a bunch of research funding. Much of this is in line with the goal of making sure nothing gets in the way of systemic racism and sexism, but they also explicitly target research on "misinformation/disinformation." www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...
- Reposted by James AntonyI was just cc-ed on an email where a Nobel prize winner and green card holder who's spent a lot of time in the US says he cannot risk coming back at this point for a visit. And I cannot blame him for this decision. We are witnessing absolute mad king behavior.
- Reposted by James AntonyIt is important now more than ever for scientists to share their work with the general public. I am pleased to have contributed to investNScience’s campaign which they are currently running across numerous social media platforms. It is a great initiative that makes science more relevant to everyone.
- Flagging warning signs of dementia, @sabina-srokova.bsky.social studies memory and brain changes in aging. #academicsky #neurosky #aging #dementia #Alzheimers #investinscience
- Reposted by James AntonyTHIS IS ONE NEURON! Jaw dropping. It distributes a particular neurotransmitter (norepinephrine) across the mouse brain; it’s a locus coeruleus neuron. @jeremiahycohen.bsky.social and colleagues at the @alleninstitute.bsky.social are using new biotech to see things never seen before.
- Reposted by James AntonyThe Trump administration is saying that they can deny due process to anyone they want and deport them to dangerous foreign prisons. This isn’t even Project 2025. This is Nazi Germany 1933.
- Reposted by James AntonyNew, from me: Marco Rubio used to boast that he was banned from China, calling it a totalitarian state. Now he combines a) new surveillance capabilities to monitor and punish international students, with b) little accountability or due process. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-attack...
- Reposted by James AntonyScary Napkin Math: InsideHigherEd lists ~1000 student visas revoked now. (These students are here legally! And not criminals!) With no official reporting system, this must be an undercount. If the real # is 2x that, it approaches 1 in 500 intl students. What is the real goal here? #Academicsky
- Reposted by James AntonyI reported on economics full-time in 2020. It taught me there are no incentives to have a baby in the US. Women in the US have to pay for pre-natal, medical and child care, earn less, do most of the parenting and chores, get promoted less, and are now at 27% higher risk of maternal mortality.
