Hi, I’m pretty set on getting a Neuroscience degree. However, you never really know how things will change yk? I’m wondering how flexible a neuroscience degree is regarding potential job opportunities outside of the field.

I'm currently reading up on literature pertaining to individual alpha (peak) frequency as measured via EEG, to possibly personalize rTMS treatment in the future. However, different researchers use different terms; some speak of individual alpha frequency, whereas others mention individual alpha peak frequency. I can't seem to find a concrete answer as to whether there's a difference between the two, and what the difference might be if there is one.

Does anyone know? (is this question better suited for a different subreddit?)

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**Disclaimers! Everything here is speculative, but my understanding of a lot of things here come from some good sources such as the recent study on the thalamus. I am not formally trained, but i am very interested in everything about the brain. This is a very long post and may be hard to read, but if you are even a little bit interested after 2 minutes, please try and continue. I am somebody who is deeply passionate for neuroscience and consciousness, and I am very curious what other people think of my ideas. I am 100% serious as well. Everything below is something ive genuinely considered** ENJOY!

I think that consciousness may be the result of the integration of all active "threads" in the brain into a space where some system is able to directly influence the processing of information / "threads". This system would likely be partially the result of the attention system/whatever system governs what is consciously accessible.

When I say thread I refer to a model I call the recurrent thread model of cognition. Essentially. Imagine the restart button. A circle with an arrow on the end circling itself. This model proposes that every arrow corresponds to some form of structured data from the nervous system being presented. Such as. A strong sensation. A thought. An emotion. Or a concept. (Side note: i think a "concept" is expressed by physical neural circuits being active or fired off across the brain. Like, the concept of red. Seeing a red ball. When seeing that, the brain may light up an area corresponding ti the color. Maybe an area for the shape. Maybe an area for the word ball. Maybe the area for the word ball is closely related ti the area that processes or understands shape. Maybe the area for the word red is closely related to visual processing, specifically red. Something like that lol, i dont have it translated into words yet).

Anyways, I imagine that there are multiple arrows at any given moment. Arrows for thoughts or concepts or sensations. I then imagine all of these arrows spinning around the same axis. Now. Imagine 12 o clock.... my model proposes that when an arrow turns towards 12, and is within the window, that is when that "thread" becomes consciously accessible. All the arrows are rotating at their own speeds for their own reasons, likely a bunch of other really technical and not known yet by me things going on under the hood too, but this model is just to conceptualize the phenomenological experience of cognition. Now. I also believe that certain input can trigger certain threads to immediately snap to 12. Say the thread related to your package arriving has periodically been coming into 12 randomly throughout the day, but is currently not active. Then you get a notification from your phone. All of a sudden, that thread pops right back into 12, and you start thinking about the package again. Apply that same idea to emotions, sensations, feelings, internal thoughts, literally like, a bunch of different internal processes. Thats the basic idea of my recurrent thread model, its a whole thing and I gotta also write out an official draft of it to better explain it. I believe that this model though, is useful in conceptualizing and thinking about the mind. I also think that this model may tie into the following, very nicely, although I haven't fully explored it yet.

The thalamus was revently discovered to produce a frequency of some kind(i forgot the details) which was pulsing during conscious awareness as well as rem sleep. The entire time conscious its pulsing. The time during specifically rem stages of sleep had this pulsing. Interestingly.... when the studied individuals entered other phases of sleep, the activity and pulsing in the thalamus ceased.... or diminished, I dont remember exactly. But. Maybe consciousness is in part directly related to that structure and its ability to take in and route all the incoming sensory and internal data.

I think that consciousness is something that occurs when specifically all of the active things(threads) happening in the brain such as senses, thoughts, emotions, intuition, memory, and everything else, are integrated together into some level of ability to directly control or work with them.

Maybe there are additional systems such as memory or something that work alongside the thalamus to produce the conscious stream, and maybe there is a system that exists inside the brain which is specifically to cause cascading signals that propagate into this conscious stream system. Possibly thalamus and a few other things as well?

No clue lol.

I think that consciousness and thoughts and ideas and sensations and everything that makes humans what they are exist as physical arrangements of neurons and structures that physically interact with eachother through extremely complex systems. I think that concepts and thoughts are distributed across the mind, not just existing in one place which is the mf concept system with a list of all the concepts in it. Lol. I think that the culmination and integration of everything, unconscious, conscious, automatic, chemical, outside of neuronal control such as intracellular systems, as well as the complex power supplying and modulation of neuronal cells by the mitochondria. Everything put tigether and integrated as per the design of the human brain, is what produces conscious experience. I think it is a very \*very\* physical thing, but I think that we have some level of genuine control over it. The debates that go deep into the philosophy of consciousness and the ones that go into freewill and determinism and allat are definitely still something ti consider, but it would be a good idea to consider deeply the actual physical systems that exist inside the nervous system and how they could come together to produce consciousness under different mental frameworks. I work sometimes under the idea that I might be onto something with my thoughts surrounding everything ive discussed as well as more that I havent. I do this intentionally though in order to not lock myself into thinking rigidly. Its more fun and imo more iseful to sometimes decide or feel like you might be onto something and then explore deeply how that could work, and then go from there. Not locking in every idea, but also not treating some of the more outlandish ones as immediately wrong.

I love to explore to the best of my abilities, everything I can about the human brain, and I especially love to cross connect different seemingly unrelated domains or borrow concepts and terminology or analogies from sometimes places that literally arent even anything such as observations about personal subjective experience. I like to pull all of those tigether and then try ti figure out how they can relate considering what im tryna do. Its a while thing lol but..... idk.

I am a 20 year old who failed social 30 and didnt technically graduate because of that so.... idk lol. I am a very curious person, and all these ideas come from the culmination of everything ive sought out related to the human nervous system, but i dont follow any curriculum or path or anything, I kinda just think and learn and pick up random stuff.

I am curious what people here think actually, itd be nice to have other peoples thoughts about my ideas to ground myself in. Im also curious if and where my ideas connect to or are similar to existing research or models/ understandings within the fields associated with the brain.

Also, please dont be rude. Im a very curious person and ive done all of this out of sheer pure interest in consciousness and the human brain at every single level down to atomic. I am posting this here because I would like to hear what ither people think. Im open to critique, corrections, questions, opinions, just dont be a dick about it lol. Cheers!

Data: brainwave_data

Google Doc: Writeup

TL;DR: I recorded what looks like the first human EEG under Amanita muscaria (consumer Muse headset). Honest bottom line: no solid brainwave differences between the mushroom night and the control once you analyze it the standard way. The one intriguing thread is a shift in sigma activity from the parietal toward the frontal lobe, which might relate to dissociative effects but with one subject, 4 sensors, and known statistical flaws, treat all of this as a rough first data point, and a data analysis, not a definitive finding/study.

Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) is one of the most recognizable mushrooms in existence. Lesser known are its intoxicating effects, which come primarily from ibotenic acid and muscimol. Ancient shamans have used Amanita muscaria for its hallucinogenic and intoxicating properties for centuries (look into Amanita muscaria's connection with Santa and reindeer). Despite the receptor-binding mechanism being known and its popular status, data on how it affects brainwaves is sparse — and data on how it affects \*human\* brainwaves is essentially non-existent. Today I changed that: I've released what appears to be the first human EEG recorded under the influence of \*Amanita muscaria\*.

The aim of my experiment and analysis was to measure when the mushroom kicks in, peaks, and wears off, and to map the brainwave changes that result from its unique effects. This was all done with a consumer Muse 2014 headset.

Contrary to my assumptions, all brainwave bands declined. Theta, Delta and sigma percentages were higher on the \*Amanita\* night than the control, but this was not significant. beta, gamma, and alpha were all lower on the Amanita night, though only alpha, beta and gamma reached significance. DTABR (sedation ratio) was higher with Amanita, and SMR (focus ratio) was higher without it; both of these were significant under the aggregation method I used. Importantly, the percentages and ratios were calculated using a method I later learned is mathematically biased — done the standard way, these results would be non-significant. This doesn't make the data wrong, but it does mean it's hard to do a 1:1 comparison with previously collected data.

Some commonalities I found: delta waves (associated with deep sleep) dominated both nights and trended higher with the mushroom, which actually lines up with past animal studies. Using topographic maps (diagrams that show brainwave activity), I found that sigma waves (associated with putting the brain to sleep) were lower in the parietal lobe (associated with sensory information) but increased in the frontal lobe (associated with planning). This could possibly explain some dissociative effects, but a lot more data would be needed to confirm it at all.

The key limitations: the Muse 2014 consumer headset has only 4 sensors, nowhere near the \\\~20 most labs use; the analysis suffered from statistical pseudoreplication (inflating data from a single subject); and it encountered math biases in how the decibel averages were calculated. In the future, I'd like to compare other GABAergic drugs (alcohol and Z-drugs) to Amanita, and compare effects in awake subjects.

If anyone has any critiques or questions feel free to comment. If you spot any error/want to help/ want to help me with other research regarding Amanita Comment or feel free to DM.

I recently posted about the Asian neurotech companies and was surprised how many I had missed/not heard of. I already had a list of 107 European companies but was surprised to find over 200 across a bunch of different technologies.

By technology:

Non-invasive stimulation (TMS, tDCS and more): 33
EEG, MEG and neural monitoring: 33
Imaging, diagnostics and biomarkers: 31
Brain implants and BCI: 25
Rehabilitation, robotics and prosthetics: 24
Research tools and components: 24
Neuromodulation (implants and nerve stimulation): 20
Neuro-AI, models and data: 12
Eye and movement tracking: 9
Surgical and interventional: 8

By country:

United Kingdom: 44
Switzerland: 24
Germany: 19
France: 18
Netherlands: 14
Denmark: 11
Belgium: 10
Spain: 10
Italy: 8
Sweden: 7
Finland: 7
Austria: 6
Ireland: 4
Poland: 4
Turkey: 4
Czechia: 3

Then two each across Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal and Ukraine, and one each across another ten countries.

The full breakdown is in the article so have a look. If your company should be on there and isn't, tell me. It's a working map, not a finished one.

Link in the comments.

Given both disciplines study mind and behaviour, what is the specific appeal of neuroscience over psychology?

I'm starting a Master's in Cognitive Science in 3 months. My background is in Biology, and I'm interested in social cognition and human behavior.

I'm thinking about learning data analysis, reading papers, and exploring potential supervisors. and of course I working on my English skills.

What skills, habits, or knowledge do you wish you had before starting your Master's? How did you find your research path?

Heyy mates,

I'm currently pursuing a B.Sc. in Neuro Electro Physiology in India, and I've recently become very interested in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and neurotechnology.

From what I've learned so far, BCI seems to combine neuroscience, EEG signal processing, AI, and software development. I want to understand what the career path actually looks like in India.

I have a few questions:

• Are there BCI developer roles available in India, or are they mostly research positions?
• Which companies or startups hire for these roles?
• What technical skills are considered essential? (Python, signal processing, machine learning, embedded systems, C++, etc.)
• Is a B.Sc. enough to enter this field if I build the right skills, or is a master's/PhD usually expected?
• What kind of projects would make a candidate stand out?
• What are the typical starting salaries and career growth opportunities in India?
• If you work in neurotech or BCI, what would you recommend someone like me focus on during the next three years of college?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone working in BCI, neurotechnology, biomedical AI, EEG analysis, or related fields.

Hello all. I was wondering if there were any possible careers (ideally ones that paid well) that can be made with a neuroscience bachelors and medical degree but without a residency.

I've posted a few articles in here about neurotech funding over the last few weeks but it all came from a newsletter I started a year or so ago. Every two weeks I report on funding, clinical, regulatory and commercial news in the space and I wanted to start sharing the headlines here.

• More than $170 million in disclosed capital was announced across companies working on focused ultrasound, EEG diagnostics, neonatal seizure monitoring, brain interfaces and precision psychiatry.
• Aurenar received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for V-Link, its non-invasive neuromodulation system intended to reduce cerebral vasospasm following aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage.
• Saluda Medical received FDA approval for its CAP24 paddle lead, adding another component to its closed-loop spinal cord stimulation platform.
• Bioness Medical’s PoNS system was cleared for stroke rehabilitation in patients with gait deficits, extending tongue-based neuromodulation into another clinical population.
• Wave Neuroscience received FDA clearance for its EEG-informed MeRT system as an adjunct treatment for adults with PTSD.
• Neuspera Medical said its sacral neuromodulation system had been assigned the same proposed Medicare outpatient payment level as established SNM devices.
• Coherence Neuro began its first-in-human study of the Cipher bidirectional BCI, while Paradromics completed the first implant in its Connexus early feasibility study.
• Cognito Therapeutics presented new exploratory biomarker data from the Phase 2 FLICKER study of its Spectris neuromodulation system for Alzheimer’s disease.
• Meta released Brain2Qwerty v2, its latest attempt to decode full sentences from non-invasive MEG recordings using an end-to-end AI model.
• Hyperfine launched the next generation of its portable Swoop MRI system in European markets following CE and UKCA approvals.
• Cumulus Neuroscience and Muse are integrating at-home sleep EEG into CNS clinical trials, while UCSF Neuroscape and Samsung are using wearable data to study cognitive change across the lifespan.
• Vivani Medical agreed to merge its Cortigent BCI subsidiary with Nasdaq-listed ClearOne, which is expected to adopt the Cortigent name following the transaction.

Specifically inspired by this article and the first three things he lists: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JLZnSnJptzmPtSRTc/intuitive-self-models-8-rooting-out-free-will-intuitions

according to the author, everything we value and want is either the result of some brain algorithm operating on physics and chemistry or just how the circuits are wired?

if that’s true then what does that mean for our lives? if nothing we do is by “choice” then do our feelings, desires, etc even matter if all it would take is just tweaking the hardware to change it?

Don’t give me no Harvard, UC Berkeley give me some realistic colleges I could get into. That doesn’t have a 8% acceptance rate more like a 20-50% acceptance rate but is still a good college…

Hello. I am trying to put together a list of commonly used tools and databases for a neuroscience help guide. I lack any experience in this field, so I wont be able to understand anything technical, so if you can please add context on the use of your tool. Also, please share any general knowledge you think would be helpful for someone trying to get into this field to know.

https://share.gemini.google/ILaz9PL6AQQQ

The link is short but it was inspired by the ending of one of eaglemans videos about thought where he and the guy with the thousand minds theory say thought is like motion and I’m wondering how close that is to truth or if this is just another one of his exaggerations.

but if it’s true then does it mean or change anything about our lives?

Our brains start out with more connections than they eventually need. During development, some of those connections are gradually removed, or “pruned,” to make neural circuits more efficient. This study used a small artificial neural network to explore what might happen when pruning occurs at different stages and to different degrees.

The network learned two tasks that required the same information to produce different answers depending on a cue—similar, in a very simplified way, to switching between rules or contexts. Networks that began with many connections and were later pruned aggressively sometimes became better at ignoring conflicting information. However, they were also more easily disrupted by internal noise.

The study also found that extremely sparse networks could appear good at handling ambiguity simply because they had stopped using the task cue properly. In other words, what looked like selectivity was sometimes just a failure to switch between rules.

These findings suggest that when connections are removed may matter as much as how many are removed. The results offer a computational analogy—not a direct explanation—of how some developmental trajectories might combine intense focus with sensitivity to unpredictable or noisy environments. The model is highly simplified and should not be taken as evidence that autism is caused by either “too much” or “too little” pruning.

AMA citation:
Cheung N. Phased pruning in neural networks recapitulates selectivity–fragility trade-offs in brain development. Sci Rep. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-62244-5.

Thinking of taking neuroscience at uni next year but unsure of the jobs i could go into that is not going the Phd route

Hi All,

A while ago (maybe about a year now), I posted to ask EEG researchers if they had an issue with afro-textured hair. It turns out, yes many of you do. So myself and my colleagues ended up creating a solution for that problem.

Our patent recently filed, so just wanted to post about it here in-case anyones interested.

We're currently looking for early adopters who want to test it with us, and iterate for the next version. Any feedback is good feedback, so yeah if you're interested and are an academic, we're looking to sell an early batch of these so that we can of course get some revenue on the books to raise some money, but also actually test if this works through independent validators.

Not trying to advertise per se, but i am trying to say if anyone wants to work together to ensure this actually works for the people excluded from research. Hopefully doesn't get taken down lol

Reach out here https://synaptiveltd.co.uk

Thanks all, weird how i was here less than a year ago asking "is this a problem" and turns out, yeah it is and we can fix it lol.

hello, im going into my second year of neuroscience at university and honestly i have no idea what im learning and am failing. the problem isnt understanding the content but trying to understand the lectures themselves and maintaining the info. I feel like at the end of my first year i didnt learn anything new, i feel so blank. the modules in first year were mostly cellular biology with a module in neuroscience cell biology. please share your tips on how you studied and how you took notes for lectures and what u did afterwards, thank you!

Hi everyone,

I am looking for career advice because I feel caught between my formal education, my interests, and my personal limitations.

I am a 24-year-old mathematics student (BSc level, Croatia). While I enjoy mathematics, I have gradually realized that pure mathematical problem-solving is almost certainly not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

My strongest interests are:

• Clinical psychology
• Psychiatry
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive science
• Philosophy of mind
• Literature and history
• Chess (mainly the psychological and strategic aspects)

However, I am not particularly interested in becoming a therapist, counselor, HR specialist, or someone who spends all day interacting with clients.

Some personal factors that may be relevant:

• Severe social anxiety disorder (diagnosed)
• Avoidant personality traits
• Deep introversion and need for creative inner life
• Low mental energy when confronted with repetitive tasks
• I work best in quiet environments with very few familiar people
• Large organizations and highly social workplaces tend to drain me very quickly
• I value autonomy and independence very highly
• I strongly dislike micromanagement
• I prefer stable, small teams rather than constantly changing groups of people

In terms of work style, my ideal job would involve:

• Working alone or in a very small team
• Intellectual and creative work
• Analysis and interpretation rather than endless technical problem-solving
• Flexible thinking rather than prolonged deep concentration for 8 hours
• Some connection to psychology, neuroscience, cognition, mental health, or human behavior
• Enough income to live comfortably, but I am really not chasing a high salary

One possible route I have considered is finishing my mathematics degree (BSc) and then obtaining additional education in statistics, data analysis, psychometrics, or cognitive science.

The problem is that I am unsure what actual careers would fit this profile.

Given these interests, personality traits, strengths, and limitations:

What jobs or career paths would you suggest?

Are there any roles in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, psychometrics, research, written science communication, publishing, or data analysis that might be a good fit for someone like me?

I would especially appreciate hearing from people who work in academia, neuroscience, psychology research, psychometrics, public health research, or cognitive science.

Thank you.

The short version is after reading and watching stuff by David Eagleman, I’m not sure what to think about reality, let alone how to function.

The predictive brain, vision only using 5% of input, love just being a chemical and nothing else, seeing things with your brain instead of “over there”, and much more. I’m not sure how to process any of it.

Even more so is his advice about seeking novelty and challenging yourself with new perspectives while at the same time invalidating that point with his research. what novelty is there to seek or what is there to learn if according to him our experience is all illusory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVGvfyf2_30

That weird ache when you hear a song from 2016. The gut-punch of scrolling through old photos. Nostalgia feels good and terrible at the exact same time. In this video, we break down the dopamine and cortisol pathways that fire simultaneously during a nostalgic memory, why your amygdala and hippocampus run two completely different stories at once, and what evolutionary purpose this bittersweet glitch actually served. Nostalgia isn't a bug - your brain does this on purpose.

I'm looking forward to purchase any old editions of the Dreaming Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, if anyone has them! I haven't found anything on second hand bookstores or marketplace, this is kind of my last resource lol. I know that APA sells some old editions for $20 each, but I'm searching for really old editions.