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Large Language Models Align with the Human Brain during Creative Thinking

arXiv:2604.03480v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Creative thinking is a fundamental aspect of human cognition, and divergent thinking-the capacity to generate novel and varied ideas-is widely regarded as its core generative engine. Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated impressive performance on divergent thinking tests and prior work has shown that models with higher task performance tend to be more aligned to human brain activity. However, existing brain-LLM alignment studies have focused on passive, non-creative tasks. Here, we explore brain alignment during creative thinking using fMRI data from 170 participants performing the Alternate Uses Task (AUT). We extract representations from LLMs varying in size (270M-72B) and measure alignment to brain responses via Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), targeting the creativity-related default mode and frontoparietal networks. We find that brain-LLM alignment scales with model size (default mode network only) and idea originality (both networks), with effects strongest early in the creative process. We further show that post-training objectives shape alignment in functionally selective ways: a creativity-optimized \texttt{Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct} preserves alignment with high-creativity neural responses while reducing alignment with low-creativity ones; a human behavior fine-tuned model elevates alignment with both; and a reasoning-trained variant shows the opposite pattern, suggesting chain-of-thought training steers representations away from creative neural geometry toward analytical processing. These results demonstrate that post-training objectives selectively reshape LLM representations relative to the neural geometry of human creative thought.

Neurological Plausibility of AI-Generated Music for Commercial Environments: An In-Silico Cortical Investigation Using Wubble and TRIBE v2

arXiv:2604.04025v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Background music shapes attention, affect, and approach behavior in commercial environments, yet the neural plausibility of AI-generated music for such settings remains poorly characterized. We present an in-silico pilot study that combines Wubble, a generative music system, with TRIBE v2, a publicly released whole-brain encoding model, to estimate cortical response profiles for prompt-conditioned retail music. Five fully instrumental tracks were generated to span low-to-high arousal, sparse-to-dense arrangement, and neutral-to-positive valence prompts, then analyzed with audio-only TRIBE v2 inference on loudness-normalized waveforms. Analysis focused on fsaverage5 cortical predictions summarized over auditory, superior temporal, temporo-parietal, and inferior frontal HCP parcels. The fast bright major-pop condition produced the largest whole-cortex mean activation (0.0402), the strongest prefrontal ROI composite response (0.0704), and the highest parcel means in IFJa (0.1102), IFJp (0.0995), A5 (0.0188), and area 45 (0.0015). Pairwise spatial correlations ranged from 0.787 to 0.974, indicating that prompt variation modulated predicted cortical states rather than yielding a single undifferentiated response profile. Predicted cortical surface maps further revealed visually distinct spatial organization between low-arousal and high-arousal conditions. These results support a cautious claim of cortical neurological plausibility: prompt-conditioned AI music can systematically shift predicted auditory-temporal-prefrontal patterns relevant to salience and valuation. Although the study does not establish subcortical reward engagement or consumer behavior, it provides a reproducible framework for neural pre-screening and pre-optimization of commercial music generation against biologically informed cortical proxies.
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  • Topological Sensitivity in Connectome-Constrained Neural Networks Nalin Dhiman
    arXiv:2604.04033v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Connectome-constrained neural networks are often evaluated against sparse random controls and then interpreted as evidence that biological graph topology improves learning efficiency. We revisit that claim in a controlled flyvis-based study using a Drosophila connectome, a naive self-loop-matched random graph, and a degree-preserving rewired null. Under weak controls, in which both models were recovered from a connectome-trained checkpoint and the
     

Topological Sensitivity in Connectome-Constrained Neural Networks

arXiv:2604.04033v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Connectome-constrained neural networks are often evaluated against sparse random controls and then interpreted as evidence that biological graph topology improves learning efficiency. We revisit that claim in a controlled flyvis-based study using a Drosophila connectome, a naive self-loop-matched random graph, and a degree-preserving rewired null. Under weak controls, in which both models were recovered from a connectome-trained checkpoint and the null matched only global graph counts, the connectome appeared substantially better in early loss, mean activity, and runtime. That picture changed under stricter controls. Training both graphs from a shared random initialization removed the early loss advantage, and replacing the naive null by a degree-preserving null removed the apparent activity advantage. A five-sample degree-preserving ensemble and a pre-training activity-scale diagnostic further strengthened this revised interpretation. We also report a descriptive mechanism analysis of the earlier weak-control comparison, but we treat it as behavioral characterization rather than proof of causal superiority. We show that previously reported topology advantages in connectome-constrained neural networks can arise from initialization and null-model confounds, and largely disappear under fair from-scratch initialization and degree-preserving controls.

The physical basis of information flow in neural matter: a thermocoherent perspective on cognitive dynamics

arXiv:2604.04069v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Information flow is central to contemporary accounts of cognition, yet its physical basis in living neural matter remains poorly specified. Here, we develop a multiscale resource-theoretical framework motivated by the \textit{thermocoherent effect}, where heat flow is reciprocally coupled to a delocalized information flow carried by shared coherence and not reducible to local subsystem variables. Extending this line of work in light of recent results on correlation-enabled Mpemba-type thermal relaxation, we argue that the operational relevance of correlations depends less on their taxonomy than on their dynamical accessibility under the underlying interaction geometry. Relational structure encoded in the state of a single composite system -- including quantum entanglement, quantum discord, and classical correlations -- may therefore act as a usable physical resource that remains hidden from local subsystem descriptions. We propose that electrical, chemical, ionic, and thermal transport processes in neural matter may, under suitable microscopic conditions, generate or transduce partially hidden relational resources whose mutual coupling can progressively build larger-scale thermocoherent organization across spatial or spatiotemporal partitions in neural tissue. Ion-channel interfaces, hydrogen-bonded proton networks, aromatic $\pi$-electron architectures, and phosphate-rich motifs emerge as plausible substrate classes in which such resources may arise, become transiently accessible under environmental coupling, and leave coarse-grained signatures in neural dynamics. The resulting picture is neither a claim of macroscopic quantum cognition nor a reduction of cognition to abstract coding, but a falsifiable framework in which microscopic relational resources can bias transport, relaxation, signaling, and cross-scale neural coordination.

Non-Equilibrium Stochastic Dynamics as a Unified Framework for Insight and Repetitive Learning: A Kramers Escape Approach to Continual Learning

arXiv:2604.04154v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Continual learning in artificial neural networks is fundamentally limited by the stability--plasticity dilemma: systems that retain prior knowledge tend to resist acquiring new knowledge, and vice versa. Existing approaches, most notably elastic weight consolidation~(EWC), address this empirically without a physical account of why plasticity eventually collapses as tasks accumulate. Separately, the distinction between sudden insight and gradual skill acquisition through repetitive practice has lacked a unified theoretical description. Here, we show that both problems admit a common resolution within non-equilibrium statistical physics. We model the state of a learning system as a particle evolving under Langevin dynamics on a double-well energy landscape, with the noise amplitude governed by a time-dependent effective temperature $T(t)$. The probability density obeys a Fokker--Planck equation, and transitions between metastable states are governed by the Kramers escape rate $k = (\omega_0\omega_b/2\pi)\,e^{-\Delta E/T}$. We make two contributions. First, we identify the EWC penalty term as an energy barrier whose height grows linearly with the number of accumulated tasks, yielding an exponential collapse of the transition rate predicted analytically and confirmed numerically. Second, we show that insight and repetitive learning correspond to two qualitatively distinct temperature protocols within the same Fokker--Planck equation: insight events produce transient spikes in $T(t)$ that drive rapid barrier crossing, whereas repetitive practice operates at a modestly elevated but fixed temperature, achieving transitions through sustained stochastic diffusion. These results establish a physically grounded framework for understanding plasticity and its failure in continual learning systems, and suggest principled design criteria for adaptive noise schedules in artificial intelligence.

Regime Mapping of Oscillatory States in Balanced Spiking Networks with Multiple Time Scales

arXiv:2604.04770v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Balanced spiking networks can transition between silent, asynchronous-irregular, and oscillatory states depending on interacting synaptic and temporal time scales, while their joint parameter structure remains incompletely characterized. In this work, we systematically map how postsynaptic decay ({\tau}s), conduction delay (d), and plasticity rate ({\lambda}p) jointly shape oscillatory regimes in recurrent leaky integrate-and-fire networks. By combining Brian2 simulations across the ({\tau}s, d, {\lambda}p) space with a coarse Hopf-reference boundary, we construct regime maps that directly visualize SIL-AI-OSC transitions and corresponding spectral prominence landscapes. The mapped results show that increasing {\lambda}p expands oscillatory regions toward shorter {\tau}s and moderate-to-long delays, while prominence maps identify parameter regions with the strongest rhythmic coherence. Representative control experiments further connect this global landscape to local rhythm-forming mechanisms, showing that STDP freezing weakens rhythmic coherence whereas delay jitter enhances it with minimal change in mean firing rate. As a result, these findings provide a useful reference for operating-point selection, synchrony modulation studies, and future biologically grounded spiking-network modeling within similar balanced-network settings.

Gray Anchoring: a New Computational Theory for Biological Color Constancy

arXiv:2410.08823v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: It is still challenging for computer vision to imitate human color perception, e.g., color constancy, which is a fundamental perceptual ability in humans to perceive, interpret and interact with their surroundings. Among others, the anchoring theory provides impressive insights for human lightness perception, yet the specific anchoring rules underlying color constancy have remained contentious for decades. In this work, we introduced a novel computational theory - gray-anchoring (GA) theory - to explain how the early stage of visual system contributes to color constancy and demonstrate how our GA rule applies to the chromatic domain by identifying gray surfaces within complex scenes. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the potential neural implementation of gray-anchoring by quantitatively analyzing the computational flows of concentric double-opponent (DO) cells in V1. The simulational results show that the concentric DO cells have the ability to identify gray surfaces within color-biased scenes and these gray surfaces can then be used by the higher-level cortices to easily estimate the illuminant. This finding offers not only a clear functional explanation of the concentric DO receptive fields of this cell type in the visual system but also an effective and efficient solution to computational color constancy for computer vision.

Evidence for Bures--Wasserstein Boundary Dynamics in the Living Human Brain

arXiv:2505.22680v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: When substrate-constrained covariance flow on the Bures--Wasserstein manifold reaches the Williamson boundary, single-mode compression saturates and further admissible covariance evolution is forced into the cross-mode complement. This paper derives how that substrate boundary transition becomes experimentally visible in an embedded spin probe in the living human brain. We formulate a boundary-conditioned transfer theorem: when the substrate enters the deep boundary regime in a coupled mode, the boundary-selected cross-mode continuation of substrate covariance flow enters the reduced spin dynamics as a nonzero inter-spin correlation block. The spin probe does not inherit the substrate boundary as a state; it detects the boundary indirectly through the transferred cross-mode sector of the reduced dynamics. To leading order, this transfer is selective: it acts through an additive cross-diffusion channel while leaving conventional single-mode NMR observables such as \(T_1\), \(T_2\), linewidths, and the ordinary single-quantum response dominated by the thermal background. Projecting the induced spin cross-mode structure into the two-spin algebra, we argue that the experimentally relevant dominant recipient is the double-quantum SU(1,1) pair sector rather than the compact zero-quantum SU(2) exchange sector. We then derive the coherence-transfer pathway through which this double-quantum pair coherence is converted into a detectable signal by the \(45^\circ\)--gradient--\(45^\circ\) readout block.

Parallelized Hierarchical Connectome: A Spatiotemporal Recurrent Framework for Spiking State-Space Models

arXiv:2604.01295v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This work presents the Parallelized Hierarchical Connectome (PHC), a general framework that upgrades temporal-only State-Space Models (SSMs) into spatiotemporal recurrent networks. Conventional SSMs achieve high-speed sequence processing through parallel scans, yet are limited to temporal recurrence without lateral or feedback interactions within a single timestep. PHC maps the diagonal SSM core to a shared Neuron Layer and inter-neuronal communication to a shared Synapse Layer, where neurons are partitioned into hierarchical regions governed by the connectome topology. A Multi-Transmission Loop enables intra-slice spatial recurrence, allowing signals to propagate across the hierarchical connectome within each temporal window while preserving O(logT) parallelism. This framework enables integration of neuro-physical priors typically intractable for standard SSMs, including adaptive leaky integrate-and-fire dynamics, Dale's Law, short-term plasticity, and reward-modulated spike-timing-dependent plasticity. The framework is instantiated as PHCSSM, the first model to unify recurrent spiking neural network dynamics with diagonal SSM parallelism while enforcing all five biological constraints and learnable lateral connections within a fully parallelizable training pipeline. Empirical results on physiological benchmarks from the UEA multivariate time-series archive demonstrate that PHCSSM achieves performance competitive with state-of-the-art SSMs while reducing parameter complexity from Theta(D^2 L) for L-layer stacked architectures to Theta(D^2). These findings suggest that biologically grounded inductive biases offer a principled route to parameter-efficient sequence modeling, opening diagonal SSMs to spatiotemporal recurrence and enabling fully parallelizable recurrent spiking neural network training.

Interpretable Electrophysiological Features of Resting-State EEG Capture Cortical Network Dynamics in Parkinsons Disease

arXiv:2604.01475v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Parkinsons disease (PD) alters cortical neural dynamics, yet reliable non-invasive electrophysiological biomarkers remain elusive. This study examined whether interpretable EEG features capturing complementary aspects of neural dynamics can discriminate Parkinsonian neural states. A comprehensive set of interpretable features was extracted and grouped into Standard descriptors (spectral power, phase synchronization, time-domain statistics) and Dynamical descriptors (aperiodic activity, cross-frequency coupling, scale-free dynamics, neuronal avalanche statistics, and instantaneous frequency measures). A multi-head attention transformer classifier was trained using strict LOSO validation. Group-level comparisons were performed to identify electrophysiological differences associated with disease and medication state. Standard feature sets achieved strongest performance in discriminating medication states (PDoff vs PDon), whereas Dynamical performed competitively in contrasts between PD patients and healthy controls. Random feature ablation analyses indicated that Dynamical descriptors provide complementary information distributed across features while correlation analysis revealed low redundancy within both feature sets. Group-level comparisons revealed medication-sensitive reductions in delta power and voltage variance, modulation of neuronal avalanche statistics, persistent increases in theta phase synchronization in PD patients, and disease-related alterations in cross-frequency interactions. Traditional spectral and synchronization features primarily reflect medication-related neural modulation, whereas dynamical descriptors reveal broader alterations in cortical network organization associated with disease but also with medication. These findings support multivariate EEG representations as a promising framework for developing non-invasive biomarkers of PD.

Thermodynamic connectivity reveals functional specialization and multiplex organization of extrasynaptic signaling

arXiv:2604.02057v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Neural communication operates on both fast synaptic transmission and slower, diffusive extrasynaptic signaling, yet how these two modes jointly organize brain function remains unclear. Here, using the complete synaptic and neuropeptidergic connectomes of \emph{Caenorhabditis elegans}, we develop a unified multiplex framework linking anatomical wiring to functional communication. We infer structure-derived functional connectivity from the synaptic connectome using equilibrium principles from statistical physics, yielding a probabilistic map of information flow across all synaptic pathways, and compare this functional layer directly with the extrasynaptic connectome. This reveals a principled functional specialization across four communication regimes: (i) a topology-dependent layer that reinforces and stabilizes synaptic motor circuits, (ii) a topology-resilient modulatory layer supporting global regulation and behavioral state control, (iii) a purely extrasynaptic network sustaining survival and homeostasis, and (iv) a purely synaptic regime mediating rapid, low-latency sensorimotor processing. Together, these findings reveal that synaptic and extrasynaptic signaling form complementary architectures optimized for speed, modulation, robustness, and survival, and provide a general strategy for integrating structural and modulatory connectomes to understand how distinct communication modes cooperate to sustain coherent brain function.

Phase estimation with autoregressive padding (PEAP): addressing inaccuracies and biases in EEG analysis

arXiv:2604.02212v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Accurate phase estimation at the edge of data segments is crucial for EEG applications such as EEG-TMS in offline and real-time data analysis. Our research evaluates the phase estimation performance of four commonly used methods (Phastimate, SSPE, ETP, and PhastPadding) for accuracy and systemic biases, using data from young and elderly healthy controls and chronic stroke participants. To address the identified limitations of the established methods, we introduce Phase Estimation with Autoregressive Padding (PEAP), a method that prevents strong bandpass filtering-induced artifacts. Contrary to the established methods, PEAP does not show significant biases and improves accuracy by 3.2 to 9.2% for the continuous phase estimation. Our offline analysis demonstrates how established methods are systematically biased towards some estimates and how they induce phase shifts. We also show that differences between methods do not vary between clinical and control populations, supporting their translatability. This work indicates that systematic biases in established phase estimation methods may compromise the validity and comparability of phase-dependent findings. PEAP addresses these limitations and thus offers a more reliable and more accurate alternative method.

Activity-dependent neuromodulation and calcium homeostasis cooperate to produce robust and modulable neuronal function

arXiv:2412.04172v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Neurons rely on two interdependent mechanisms, homeostasis and neuromodulation, to maintain robust and adaptable functionality. Calcium homeostasis stabilizes neuronal activity by adjusting ionic conductances, whereas neuromodulation dynamically modifies ionic properties in response to external signals carried by neuromodulators. Combining these mechanisms in conductance-based models often produces unreliable outcomes, particularly when sharp neuromodulation interferes with calcium-homeostatic tuning. This study explores how a biologically inspired neuromodulation controller can harmonize with calcium homeostasis to ensure reliable neuronal function. Using computational models of stomatogastric ganglion and dopaminergic neurons, we demonstrate that controlled neuromodulation preserves neuronal firing patterns while calcium homeostasis simultaneously maintains target intracellular calcium levels. Unlike sharp neuromodulation, the neuromodulation controller integrates activity-dependent feedback through mechanisms mimicking G-protein-coupled receptor cascades. The interaction between these controllers critically depends on the existence of an intersection in conductance space, representing a balance between target calcium levels and neuromodulated firing patterns. Maximizing neuronal degeneracy enhances the likelihood of such intersections, enabling robust modulation and compensation for channel blockades. We further show that this controller pairing extends to network-level activity, reliably modulating the rhythmic activity of central pattern generators. This study highlights the complementary roles of calcium homeostasis and neuromodulation, proposing a unified control framework for maintaining robust and adaptive neural activity under physiological and pathological conditions.

Cardiac-Phase-Dependent Spin Coherence as a Probe of Boundary Covariance Geometry in Neural Tissue

arXiv:2505.22680v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: A recently proposed geometric framework predicts that the transition from distributed belief to committed action involves a metric regime change, culminating in a boundary regime where cross-mode structure becomes algebraically necessary for continued state-space compression. This paper examines whether reported magnetic resonance measurements of proton spins in neural tissue provide an empirical probe of this regime. A companion analysis identifies the detected signal as the readout-converted signature of double-quantum SU(1,1) pair coherence, which correlates with short-term memory performance and cardiac-phase dynamics during wakefulness. We show that the mathematical bridge between the abstract transport framework and the physical spin system is the Bures metric, which natively governs both Gaussian Wasserstein geometry and quantum density matrices. We argue that the observed signal is best understood as a probe of entry into a deep boundary regime where single-mode compression is exhausted and collective cross-mode squeezing emerges. Because high-temperature bulk NMR obstructs strictly bipartite entanglement witnesses, we contextualize the signal within a macroscopic multiple-quantum-coherence (MQC) framework. Consequently, the current data provide evidence for the metric-driven onset of collective non-compact SU(1,1) structure, establishing the necessary physical foundation for future macroscopic many-body entanglement certification.

Fast dynamical similarity analysis

arXiv:2511.22828v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Understanding how nonlinear dynamical systems (e.g., artificial neural networks and neural circuits) process information requires comparing their underlying dynamics at scale, across diverse architectures and large neural recordings. While many similarity metrics exist, current approaches fall short for large-scale comparisons. Geometric methods are computationally efficient but fail to capture governing dynamics, limiting their accuracy. In contrast, traditional dynamical similarity methods are faithful to system dynamics but are often computationally prohibitive. We bridge this gap by combining the efficiency of geometric approaches with the fidelity of dynamical methods. We introduce fast dynamical similarity analysis (fastDSA), a computationally efficient and accurate metric for measuring (dis)similarity between nonlinear dynamical systems. FastDSA leverages modern computational tools, including random matrix theory to determine optimal system rank, novel optimization pipelines for aligning system flow fields, and Koopman embeddings. Across benchmark nonlinear systems and recurrent network models, fastDSA is robust to arbitrary coordinate choices while remaining sensitive to meaningful dynamical differences, capturing variations in system evolution that geometric methods may miss and traditional methods detect only at high computational cost. To our knowledge, fastDSA is the fastest method that retains accuracy in comparing nonlinear dynamical systems. It enables scalable, statistical analyses across diverse systems, significantly expanding the practical applicability of dynamical similarity analysis.

What Capable Agents Must Know: Selection Theorems for Robust Decision-Making under Uncertainty

arXiv:2603.02491v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As artificial agents become increasingly capable, what internal structure is *necessary* for an agent to act competently under uncertainty? Classical results show that optimal control can be *implemented* using belief states or world models, but not that such representations are required. We prove quantitative "selection theorems" showing that strong task performance (low *average-case regret*) forces world models, belief-like memory and -- under task mixtures -- persistent variables resembling core primitives associated with emotion, along with informational modularity under block-structured tasks. Our results cover stochastic policies, partial observability, and evaluation under task distributions, without assuming optimality, determinism, or access to an explicit model. Technically, we reduce predictive modeling to binary "betting" decisions and show that regret bounds limit probability mass on suboptimal bets, enforcing the predictive distinctions needed to separate high-margin outcomes. In fully observed settings, this yields approximate recovery of the interventional transition kernel; under partial observability, it implies necessity of predictive state and belief-like memory, addressing an open question in prior world-model recovery work.

NeuroNarrator: A Generalist EEG-to-Text Foundation Model for Clinical Interpretation via Spectro-Spatial Grounding and Temporal State-Space Reasoning

arXiv:2603.16880v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Electroencephalography (EEG) provides a non-invasive window into neural dynamics at high temporal resolution and plays a pivotal role in clinical neuroscience research. Despite this potential, prevailing computational approaches to EEG analysis remain largely confined to task-specific classification objectives or coarse-grained pattern recognition, offering limited support for clinically meaningful interpretation. To address these limitations, we introduce NeuroNarrator, the first generalist EEG-to-text foundation model designed to translate electrophysiological segments into precise clinical narratives. A cornerstone of this framework is the curation of NeuroCorpus-160K, the first harmonized large-scale resource pairing over 160,000 EEG segments with structured, clinically grounded natural-language descriptions. Our architecture first aligns temporal EEG waveforms with spatial topographic maps via a rigorous contrastive objective, establishing spectro-spatially grounded representations. Building on this grounding, we condition a Large Language Model through a state-space-inspired formulation that integrates historical temporal and spectral context to support coherent clinical narrative generation. This approach establishes a principled bridge between continuous signal dynamics and discrete clinical language, enabling interpretable narrative generation that facilitates expert interpretation and supports clinical reporting workflows. Extensive evaluations across diverse benchmarks and zero-shot transfer tasks highlight NeuroNarrator's capacity to integrate temporal, spectral, and spatial dynamics, positioning it as a foundational framework for time-frequency-aware, open-ended clinical interpretation of electrophysiological data.

Predicting Neuromodulation Outcome for Parkinson's Disease with Generative Virtual Brain Model

arXiv:2603.29176v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Parkinson's disease (PD) affects over ten million people worldwide. Although temporal interference (TI) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) are promising therapies, inter-individual variability limits empirical treatment selection, increasing non-negligible surgical risk and cost. Previous explorations either resort to limited statistical biomarkers that are insufficient to characterize variability, or employ AI-driven methods which is prone to overfitting and opacity. We bridge this gap with a pretraining-finetuning framework to predict outcomes directly from resting-state fMRI. Critically, a generative virtual brain foundation model, pretrained on a collective dataset (2707 subjects, 5621 sessions) to capture universal disorder patterns, was finetuned on PD cohorts receiving TI (n=51) or DBS (n=55) to yield individualized virtual brains with high fidelity to empirical functional connectivity (r=0.935). By constructing counterfactual estimations between pathological and healthy neural states within these personalized models, we predicted clinical responses (TI: AUPR=0.853; DBS: AUPR=0.915), substantially outperforming baselines. External and prospective validations (n=14, n=11) highlight the feasibility of clinical translation. Moreover, our framework provides state-dependent regional patterns linked to response, offering hypothesis-generating mechanistic insights.

Structural and dynamical strategies to prevent runaway excitation in reservoir computing

arXiv:2603.29597v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Reservoirs, typically implemented as recurrent neural networks with fixed random connection weights, can be combined with a simple trained readout layer to perform a wide range of computational tasks. However, increasing the magnitude of reservoir connection weights to exploit nonlinear dynamics can cause the network to develop strong spontaneous activity that drives neurons into saturation, dramatically degrading performance. In this work, we investigate two distinct countermeasures against such runaway excitation. The first approach introduces a subtle non-homogeneous structure into the matrix of connection weigths $w_{ij}$, without altering the overall probability distribution $p(w)$. We identify several favorable structuring principles, such as creating a small subset of neurons with weaker-than-average input connections. Even if the rest of the reservoir falls into runaway saturating behavior, this weakly coupled subset remains in a mildly nonlinear regime whose dynamics can still be exploited by the readout layer. The second approach implements a form of automatic gain control, in which a dedicated control unit dynamically regulates the reservoir's average global activation toward an optimal setpoint. Although the control unit modulates the excitability of the reservoir only via a global gain factor, this mechanism substantially enlarges the dynamical regime favorable for computation and renders performance largely independent of the underlying connection statistics.

Convergent Representations of Linguistic Constructions in Human and Artificial Neural Systems

arXiv:2603.29617v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Understanding how the brain processes linguistic constructions is a central challenge in cognitive neuroscience and linguistics. Recent computational studies show that artificial neural language models spontaneously develop differentiated representations of Argument Structure Constructions (ASCs), generating predictions about when and how construction-level information emerges during processing. The present study tests these predictions in human neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG). Ten native English speakers listened to 200 synthetically generated sentences across four construction types (transitive, ditransitive, caused-motion, resultative) while neural responses were recorded. Analyses using time-frequency methods, feature extraction, and machine learning classification revealed construction-specific neural signatures emerging primarily at sentence-final positions, where argument structure becomes fully disambiguated, and most prominently in the alpha band. Pairwise classification showed reliable differentiation, especially between ditransitive and resultative constructions, while other pairs overlapped. Crucially, the temporal emergence and similarity structure of these effects mirror patterns in recurrent and transformer-based language models, where constructional representations arise during integrative processing stages. These findings support the view that linguistic constructions are neurally encoded as distinct form-meaning mappings, in line with Construction Grammar, and suggest convergence between biological and artificial systems on similar representational solutions. More broadly, this convergence is consistent with the idea that learning systems discover stable regions within an underlying representational landscape - recently termed a Platonic representational space - that constrains the emergence of efficient linguistic abstractions.
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