Erica Busch

🧠 New preprint! How does the brain build specialized, efficient representations as we grow up? We used manifold learning to track the "intrinsic dimensionality" (ID) of brain activity in ~800 participants (aged 3mo–53yrs), as they performed naturalistic tasks and rested/slept.

Tracking this across childhood and adolescence, we found this specificity emerges early and grows logarithmically with age — and it reflects task-irrelevant regions learning to compress their activity, rather than task-relevant regions expanding.

🧠 New preprint! How does the brain build specialized, efficient representations as we grow up? We used manifold learning to track the "intrinsic dimensionality" (ID) of brain activity in ~800 participants (aged 3mo–53yrs), as they performed naturalistic tasks and rested/slept.

In adults, brain regions that reliably track a story or movie also show higher-dimensional activity — a tight coupling between task engagement and representational complexity, across both auditory and visual stimuli.

Excited to be at #ohbm2026 @ohbmofficial.bsky.social presenting our real-time fMRI paper just published in @natneuro.nature.com ! come learn more at my talk on Wed at 9am in the symposium on “Closed-loop fMRI Neurofeedback” in Room E

Our new paper is out this week in Nature Neuroscience! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We built a BCI that works with the brain's natural geometry — and we found that people could learn to play a video game with their brains in <1 hr of training. This efficiency is groundbreaking & here's why:

For motor/communication disorders, manifold-aligned interfaces could work for far more people. For mental health, incremental manifold-aware approaches may outperform blunter interventions. More broadly: understanding the natural structure of our minds may be key to improving them.

Our new paper is out this week in Nature Neuroscience! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We built a BCI that works with the brain's natural geometry — and we found that people could learn to play a video game with their brains in <1 hr of training. This efficiency is groundbreaking & here's why:

BCI learning changed the brain itself. Neural activity reorganized to align with the interface's goals & the degree of reorganization predicted individual differences in learning. Effects rippled beyond the targeted regions — suggesting BCI learning reshapes neural architecture more broadly.

Our new paper is out this week in Nature Neuroscience! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We built a BCI that works with the brain's natural geometry — and we found that people could learn to play a video game with their brains in <1 hr of training. This efficiency is groundbreaking & here's why:

We designed three BCI mappings: one following the brain's most natural patterns, one using less dominant but still natural patterns, and one requiring patterns the brain doesn't naturally produce.

Our new paper is out this week in Nature Neuroscience! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We built a BCI that works with the brain's natural geometry — and we found that people could learn to play a video game with their brains in <1 hr of training. This efficiency is groundbreaking & here's why:

BCIs have been around for decades, but about 1/3 of users never gain control at all, regardless of practice. We think this struggle isn't a facet of effort, but a design problem: BCIs asked the brain to generate activity that's entirely unnatural & don't provide the support for improvement.

🎉🎉🎉🎉 I'm thrilled and humbled to share some major updates! (A 🧵 but TLDR: graduated from Yale, joining Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea as an IBS Young Scientist Fellow this summer, and starting as an assistant professor in Vanderbilt's College of Connected Computing in Fall 2027!)

I feel incredibly privileged to have a brilliant and generous team of mentors behind me - from my PhD advisor Nick Turk-Browne to my many mentors: @krishnaswamylab.bsky.social, Arielle Baskin-Sommers, BJ Casey, and @haxbylab.bsky.social. I cannot express enough gratitude to them & so many others.

🎉🎉🎉🎉 I'm thrilled and humbled to share some major updates! (A 🧵 but TLDR: graduated from Yale, joining Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea as an IBS Young Scientist Fellow this summer, and starting as an assistant professor in Vanderbilt's College of Connected Computing in Fall 2027!)

We'll be pursuing all things computational cognitive neuroscience, with focus on the neurocomputational principles of human learning & applications in brain-computer interfaces, neurofeedback, & mental health.

🎉🎉🎉🎉 I'm thrilled and humbled to share some major updates! (A 🧵 but TLDR: graduated from Yale, joining Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea as an IBS Young Scientist Fellow this summer, and starting as an assistant professor in Vanderbilt's College of Connected Computing in Fall 2027!)

I defended my PhD & I'm heading to Korea to join the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research at Sungkyunkwan University as an IBS Young Scientist Fellow! Excited to explore new frontiers in neurofb alongside CNIR's brilliant scientists @hakwan.bsky.social @neuroaure.bsky.social @qilin7.bsky.social

New Perspective out in @natmentalhealth.nature.com! We consider why neuroimaging analyses struggles to predict adolescent mental health, discuss approaches for improving prediction, and provide open-source implementations and tutorials: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Identifying robust biomarkers requires methods that capture the complexity of the brain and behavior. Two approaches we explore: 🔧 Functional alignment - aligns brain function not just anatomy 🔧 Manifold learning - captures nonlinear brain-behavior relationships

Excited to be at #SfN25! Come catch my poster “Neural dimensionality expands over the course of brain-computer interface learning” wed PM (W15) if you’re interested in non-invasive BCIs, neural manifolds, human learning, etc. Building upon our recent work (doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.29.646109)