News

May 15, 2025. Two lab alumni will start their own labs in the coming academic year:
- Dennis London will start his group at NYU Langone in Fall 2025.
- Yue Liu will start his group at Florida Atlantic University in January 2026.
Congratulations Dennis and Yue!

May 6, 2025. Kyle Lefler has completed his master's degree in psychology and will leave the lab at the end of May.
Congratulations Kyle, and best of luck!

Apr 7, 2025. Roozbeh gives a talk at Johns Hopkins.

Feb 28, 2025. Roozbeh gives a talk at the Southern Methodist University.

Feb 4, 2025. Roozbeh gives a talk at the University of Chicago.

Sep 4, 2024. Bianca's review article on anatomical connections of the higher order thalamic nuclei with the cortex in the primate brain is now available on arXiv.

Nov 13, 2024. Roozbeh gives a talk at the Clinical Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (C3N) seminar, Columbia University.

Sep 17, 2024. Roozbeh gives a talk at the Lipschultz Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Symposium, Mt Sinai.

Jul 24, 2024. Roozbeh and Stefano Fusi co-direct MBL's Methods in Computational Neuroscience course in Woods Hole.

Apr 17, 2024. In our collaborative paper with the Savin lab, Colin Bredenberg explores how recurrent neural circuits overcome inactivation through compensation and re-learning.

Mar 5, 2024. CoSyNe presentations from our lab by Isbella Rischall (poster), Ramon Nogueira (poster), Nga Yu Lo (talk, main meeting), and Jenelle Feather (talk, $

Oct 25, 2023. The Pew Innovation Fund will support our collaborative project with Nuo Li's lab to understand the neural mechanisms of changes of mind.

Oct 25, 2023. Starting in summer 2024, Roozbeh will co-direct MBL's Methods in Computational Neuroscience course in Woods Hole.

Oct 1, 2023. Wenyi Zhang from Shanghai's Institute of Neuroscience will join the lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study the interaction of object vision and learning.

Sep 2023. Isabella Rischall joins the lab as a graduate student to work on a collaborative project between our lab and Prof. SueYeon Chung's lab.

Jul 11, 2022. PNAS interviewed Roozbeh following the Troland award: QnAs with Roozbeh Kiani by Matthew Hardcastle.

May 2, 2022. Isaac Moran joins the lab to pursue his post-doctoral studies on the neural mechanisms of flexible decision making.

May 1, 2022. Roozbeh receives the Troland award at the National Academy of Sciences in DC.

Feb 28, 2022. Pavlos Kollias starts his post-doctoral fellowship in our lab. Pavlos recently graduated from Princteon. In our lab, he will focus on hierarchical decision-making processes.

Jan 24, 2022. Roozbeh recieves the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. See the complete list of this year's winners of the NAS awards here and here.

Jan 5, 2022. Christina Hatch successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations Christina!

Dec 1, 2021. Our collaborative paper with Gaurav Gupta, Justin Rhodes, and Paul Bogdan is now on bioRxiv. We show that it is feasible to distingusih the topology class of a network based on the activity of single units.

Nov 12, 2021. Colin Bredenberg's paper on the mechanisms that enables recurrent neural to overcome inactivation is now on bioRxiv. Check the paper for interpretational challenges of causal perturbations experiments and potential solutions.

Oct 15, 2021. Gouki Okazawa starts his lab at the Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai. Check out his lab and open positions.

Sep 29, 2021. Khalvati et al. is now out in Nature Communications: Bayesian inference with incomplete knowledge explains perceptual confidence and its deviations from accuracy.

Sep 17, 2021. Gouki's paper on the computational properties of face discriminaion is now out in the Journal of Neuroscience: Linear integration of sensory evidence over space and time underlies face categorization

Sep 16, 2021. Dennis' paper on the response dynamcis of STN during alteration of ongoing movement plans is now published in eLife. Check out his paper, which challenges conventional wisdom about the role of STN: Distinct population code for movement kinematics and changes of ongoing movements in human subthalamic nucleus.

Aug 4, 2021. Our collaborative paper with Koosha Khalvati and Raj Rao on a Bayesian model of the deviation of confidence from accuracy is now accepted for publication in Nature Communications.

July 20, 2021. Gouki Okazawa will start his lab at the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai in October.

June 24, 2021. Gouki's paper on the representational geometry of decision making is now published in Cell. Population responses in parietal and frontal cortex form curved, task-dependent manifolds.

April 23, 2021. Yuki wins the second prize of the NYU MA Research Conference for her master thesis on prospective planning in monkeys.

Mar 4, 2021. Yuki Minai will join the Neural Computation PhD program at Carnegie Melon University. She also receives a 3-year scholarship from the Japanese Student Services Organization. Doublt congratulations Yuki!

Feb 26, 2021. Gouki Okazawa gives a talk at Cosyne, presenting his results on task-dependent population codes for decision-making in parietal and frontal cortex.

Feb 17, 2021. Our new paper with Gabriela Mochol and Rubén Moreno-Bote is now published in Current Biology. We explain how the population of prefrontal neurons represents the heuristics that shape choice bias and its integration into future behavior.

Feb 16, 2021. Ting Wu accepts a tenure-track position in the Chinese Institute for Brain Research in Beijing. Many congratulations Ting!

Jan 20, 2021. Peixoto et al is now published in Nature. Decoding and perturbing decision states in real time, a beautiful collaborative project with Newsome and Shenoy labs at Stanford.

Jan 5, 2021. Our new collaborative paper with the Shahrjerdi lab is pblished in Biosenors & Bioelectronics. We introduce a new method and the underlying physics for enhancing the sensitivity of nano-graphitic electrochemical micro-sensors through reducing the operating voltage.

Sep 18, 2020. Our new collaborative paper with the Schneidman lab is published in PNAS. We introduce a computational framework for learning probabilistic neural representations with randomly connected circuits.

Aug 17, 2020. Sajjad Zabbah successfully defends his thesis. Congratulation Sajjad!

Apr 10, 2020. Roozbeh's interview with Trend Magazine is now published.

Mar 12, 2020. Petri Ala-Laurila, Fred Rieke, and Roozbeh write a book chapter on spatiotemporal properties of vision near seeing threshold. The chapter will appear in The Senses: A Comprehensive Reference.

Mar 2-3, 2020. Roozbeh gives two talks in the Cosyne workshops, one in the Structure Learning Workshop orgaized by Ida Momennejad and Kim Stachenfeld, and another in the Comparative Decision Making Workshop organized by Pamela Reinagel, Tim Hanks, Alex Huk and Roozbeh.

Feb 28-29, 2020. Saleh Esteki and Colin Bredenberg present their posters at Cosyne.

Dec 4, 2019. Roozbeh gives a talk in the Mahoney Institute for Neurosciences Seminar Series at U Penn.

Nov 23, 2019. The Kiani and Winawer labs organize the first joint CNS-Psychology symposium on Sensory Adaptation.

Nov 22, 2019. Roozbeh gives a talk in the Seminar Series of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University.

Nov 11, 2019. Roozbeh gives a talk at Caltech Seminar Series of the Computation and Neural Systems program.

Gouki Okazawa and Michael Waskom present their work at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.

Oct 3, 2019. Our review paper on "Designing and interpreting psychophysical investigations of cognition" is in press in Neuron.

Oct 1, 2019. John Sakon is moving to U Penn to work with Mike Kahana on the neural mechanisms of human memory.

Roozbeh presents at the MCC in Berlin.

July 18, 2019. Long Sha successfully defends his PhD thesis. Congratulations Long!

July 1, 2019. Dennis London from NYU Langone is now affiliated with our lab to study the role of basal ganglia in movement planning.

May 16, 2019. Ting Wu joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow to continue her PhD studies on development of next generation neural probes.

Jan 1, 2019. Roozbeh promoted to Associate Professor.

Dec 10, 2018. Quantitative Principles for Precise Engineering of Sensitivity in Graphene Electrochemical Sensors. Our paper in Advanced Materials is in the news. See Phys.org, Graphene-info, and Science Daily.

Nov 26, 2018. Decision Making through Integration of Sensory Evidence at Prolonged Timescales. Our new paper in Current Biology is in the news. See Market Business News, Medical XPress, EurekaAlert, and NYU News.

Nov 19, 2018. Our collaboration with the Shahrjerdi lab on nano-engineering graphene sensors for FSCV measurements will appear in Advanced Materials.

Oct 8, 2018. Our study on decision-making through integration of sensory evidence at prolonged timescales will appear in Current Biology.

Sep 4, 2018. Our study on the mechanisms of perceptual adaptation is in the news. See MedicalXpress, Futurity, and Neuroscience News.

Aug 28, 2018. Our paper on how psychophysical reverse correlation is shaped by the interaction of the sensory and decision-making processes is now published in Nature Communications.

June 25, 2018. We are releasing large-scale recording datasets from the prefrontal cortex of mokeys performing a direction discrimination task with random dots (Kiani et al, Curr Biol 2014, and Kiani et al, Neuron 2015). You can download them here.

Slides of our recent Cosyne workshop on Hierarchical Reasoning and Sequential Planning can be found here.

May 31, 2018. Sensory and decision-making processes underlying perceptual adaptation. Our paper will soon appear in the Journal of Vision.

Apr 26, 2018. Humans are functionally blind to higher-order statistical moments of coherent random dot motion. Our paper will soon appear in the Journal of Vision.

Feb 21, 2018. Gouki Okazawa submits his new manuscript: Psychophysical reverse correlation reflects both sensory and decision-making processes.

Jan 26, 2018. Michael Waskom submits his new manuscript: Perceptual insensitivity to higher-order statistical moments of coherent random dot motion.

Jan 20, 2018. The schedule for our Cosyne worshop Model-Based Cognition: Hierarchical Reasoning and Sequential Planning is final. Thanks to co-organizers: Kevin Miller, Kim Stachenfeld, and Bas van Opheusden.

Jan 15, 2018. Braden Purcell has accepted a job with Squarespace. We wish him the best in the transitional period to his new position.

Jan 14, 2018. Our collaborative paper with the Winawer lab and Nathan Witthoft on the neural mechanisms of visual adaptation is submitted.

Jan 4, 2018. Our collaborative paper with the Shahrjerdi lab in Tanden School of Engineering at NYU is submitted. The paper focuses on how graphitic electrodes can be engineered to achieve desired sensitivity.

Dec 19, 2017. Long Sha receives a Samuel J. and Joan B. Williamson Fellowship for "excellence and exceptional promise in the work of advanced graduate students who are writing their doctoral dissertations."

Dec 8, 2017. Braden Purcell receives a K99 Award from the National Eye Institute.

July 13, 2017. Gouki Okazawa is selected as a Fellow in the 2017-2019 class of Charles H. Revson Senior Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences Program.

Dec 5, 2016. Michael Waskom is chosen as a Junior Fellow in the Simons Society of Fellows.

Nov18, 2016. Long Sha receives a pre-doctoral NRSA from the CNS Training Program in Computational Neuroscience (TPCN).

July 20, 2016. Our study on hierarchical decision processes is in the news. See Neuroscience News, Eureka Alert, and Science Daily.

June 20, 2016. Michael Waskom joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study the neural mechanisms of perceptual decisions in humans.

June 10, 2016. Hierarchical decision processes that operate over distinct time scales underlie choice and changes in strategy. Our article will soon appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

June 9, 2016. Roozbeh named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.

May 16, 2016. Roozbeh receives the 2016 McKnight Scholar Award.

April 20, 2016. Check the special issue of Current Opinion in Neurobiology: Neurobiology of Cognitive Behavior edited by Karpova and Kiani.

Feb 25, 2016. Our study on post-error slowing is featured in an article in the Atlantic.

Feb 1, 2016. Congratulation to Sarah Moussavi for becoming a semi-finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search for her studies on decision confidence in our lab.

Jan 22, 2016. Our study on the neural mechanisms of post-error slowing is in the news. See NYU News, The Sun, Medical Daily, and Daily Mail.

Oct 10, 2015. Post-error slowing is mediated by reduced sensitivity and adjustment of decision policy. Our Article will soon appear in Neuron.

Sep 1, 2015. John Sakon joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study neural mechanisms of episodic memory.

May 19, 2015. Roozbeh receives the Cowan Young Investigator Award from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mar 18, 2015. Noisy Neurons, Neat Networks. Wim Vanduffel and John Arsenault wrote this insightful Preview piece on our recent paper in Neuron.

Feb 26, 2015. Our study on spatial topgraphy in prefrontal cortex is in the news. See Medical Express, NYU News, and Science Daily.

Feb 25, 2015. Natural grouping of neural responses reveals spatially segregated clusters in prearcuate cortex. Our Article will soon appear in Neuron.

Jan 26, 2015. Braden receives a post-doctoral fellowship from Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain.

Gouki receives a post-doctoral fellowship from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Jan 6, 2015. Gouki Okazawa joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow to study neural mechanisms of categorization.

Dec 17, 2014. Our study on the effect of elapsed time on decision confidence is in the news. See Science Daily, Medical Daily, and NYU News.

Dec 4, 2014. Choice certainty is informed by both evidence and decision time. Our Article will soon appear in Neuron.

Dec 1, 2014. The lab receives a Whitehall Foundation Research Grant.

Sep 3, 2014. Braden is a winner of Cattell Award. The New York Academy of Sciences awards an honorable mention to Braden for his PhD thesis on percetual decision making.

Aug 20, 2014. How Confident Do You Feel? Victor de Lafuente and Ranulfo Romo wrote a wonderful Preview on the effect of MT/MST microstimulation on confidence (Fetsch, Kiani, Newsome & Shadlen 2014).

July 9, 2014. Microstimulation of cortical area MT manipulates confidence about motion direction as much as it biases the choice. Our report will soon appear in Neuron.

June 19, 2014. Our study on change of mind is in the news.

May 21, 2014. Dynamics of neural population responses in prefrontal cortex indicate changes of mind on single trials. Our article will soon appear in Current Biology.

May 14, 2014. Dimensionality of object representation in inferotemporal cortex may be close to 100. Our article in collaboration with Sidney Lehky, Hossein Esteky, and Keiji Tanaka will soon appear in Neural Computation.

Feb 18, 2014. Roozbeh receives a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. See NYU's report.

Jan 12, 2014. Stanley Komban has joined the lab as a post-doctoral fellow.

Oct 30, 2013. Read our Perspective paper for the 25th anniversary of Neuron: Decision Making as a Window on Cognition.

Oct 16, 2013. Check our research article on integration of sensory evidence over time. Our findings question the implementation of the integration process via mechanisms that rely on autonomous changes of network state.

Sep 1, 2013. Long Sha has joined the lab as a rotation graduate student. He will study neural mechanisms of object recognition and learning.

Christina Hatch has joined the lab as a graduate student. She will study deficits of decision making in autism spectrum disorder.

Janeen Waddah Asfour and Mathew Hakimi have joined the lab as undergraduate research assistants for summer 2013.

April 27, 2013. We have moved to our recently renovated lab space. We love it!

Multiple positions are available in the lab.

April 1, 2013. Braden Purcell has joined the lab as a post-doctoral fellow.

Jan 15, 2013. I moved to NYU from Stanford.

Dec 2012. Lab space renovation has begun.