Caesar Liu

Looking forward to the interesting conversations to come at SAS 2026!

We're excited about SAS 2026! Mark your calendars to check out our lab's latest work.
Beginning with the Thursday preconferences, we have two lab members presenting at the Dev Precon and the Clinical Precon!
@affectscience.bsky.social

Every time you experience something new, your brain faces a decision: Should it update an existing memory or create a new one?

In our new paper in @sfnjournals.bsky.social #JNeurosci, we isolate that exact decision, moment-by-moment during learning 🧵

Thrilled that this first empirical paper out of the lab is posted, led by Sandarsh Pandey, asking:

Depression (and other internalizing disorders) involve profound changes to sense of self. How can we study these differences using rigorous decision-making methods?

(alt link: tinyurl.com/2kk59dje)

2. I will also present a poster (with @jennenge.bsky.social and Derek Spangler), titled "Associations between child maltreatment and somatic amplification are moderated by emodiversity," in Poster Session 1.

I look forward to seeing everyone at #SAS2026!

1. I will give a flash talk (with @suzyscherf.bsky.social), titled "Gut feelings are real: Interoception driving adolescent emotional development?" in the Developmental Affective Science preconference🫀

Attending @affectscience.bsky.social #SAS2026 and interested in interoception, emotion, and development? I'll give 2 presentations on March 12th on these topics!⬇️

Insulin resistance and leptin dysregulation impact in vivo brain structure and cognitive functioning in mood disorders: a multimodal partial least squares path modeling study. Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Bipolar Disorder (BD) are associated with persistent cognitive deficits, yet the biological mechanisms underlying these impairments remain unclear. Metabolic…

Insulin resistance and leptin influence cognition in mood disorders, highlighting the role of insulin-related pathways for as therapeutic targets.

Mitochondrial dynamics in neurodevelopment and neurodevelopmental disorders - Nature Reviews Neuroscience Mitochondria make essential contributions to neural development. Zhao and colleagues provide an overview of the mechanisms that regulate mitochondrial biogenesis, degradation, remodelling and transpor...

Mitochondrial dynamics in neurodevelopment and neurodevelopmental disorders — a Review by Carissa L. Sirois, Jiyoun Lee, Audrey L. Chambers & Xinyu Zhao

#neuroscience #neuroskyence

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Global remapping of the sensory homunculus emerges early in childhood development - Nature Communications Children born without a hand show early, widespread changes in brain maps, with body parts shifting across the homunculus. Adaptive behaviours explain individual differences but cannot override this e...

We're thrilled to announce that our new research article, "Global remapping of the sensory homunculus emerges early in childhood development”, has just been published in Nature Communications (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) with @dorothycowie.bsky.social and Matej Hoffman.

As body-augmenting technologies become more common, it is important to understand how the brain decides what counts as "the body", and how that changes over time.

My first postdoc paper 🦾 now out in @elife.bsky.social 👇

Parieto-occipital ERP indicators of gut mechanosensation in humans - Nature Communications Understanding the neural processes governing the human gut-brain connection has been challenging. Here, the authors investigate the perceptual response and neural correlates of gastrointestinal sensat...

For gastric interoception, I like the smart/vibrating pill studies as examples:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

elifesciences.org/articles/85567

Metabolic Contributions to Learning and Feeling: Why They Matter and How to Make the Most of Them

Thoroughly enjoyed writing a commentary on a great paper by @hugofleming.bsky.social et al for @biologicalpsych.bsky.social:GOS, focusing on how to further explore metabolic contributions to learning and feeling using real-time data and interventional designs:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Oestradiol, emotion regulation and the limbic system: effects on grey matter volume Mastering emotion regulation is crucial for social skills and mental health. Hormonal fluctuations, particularly in oestradiol levels (E2) across the menstrual cycle, significantly impact emotion…

Rapid increase of estradiol and greater use of reappraisal strategies for emotion regulation is negatively linked to right striatal grey matter volume.

Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis - Nature Metabolism This Review provides an overview of the interplay between host diet and the gut microbiota, and how this affects brain function.

#Throwback 🧪

REVIEW | Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis

@elizschneider.bsky.social‬, ‪@jfcryan.bsky.social et al

A figure shwoing boxplots.

Happy to see this collaboration out - fun project led by Lorena Desdentado, Olga Pollatos, and colleagues using our heart rate discrimination task. "Cardiac interoception in action: Modulation after a stress induction with a speech task" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #neuroskyence

Frontiers | Interoceptive predictors of daily functioning in aging and their interaction with exteroceptive bodily representations Aging leads to progressive changes in bodily functions that affect cognition and everyday life. Older adults often experience difficulties in daily functioni...

Interoceptive predictors of daily functioning in aging and their interaction with exteroceptive bodily representations 🧠🫀

New work led by @fraferri.bsky.social #interoception

www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Cracking the code of gut–brain sensing — a Journal Club article by Lihua Ye

#neurocience #neuroskyence

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How does metabolic learning shape human behaviour? In our recent study www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti..., we found that it shapes flavour preferences but, surprisingly, not action. Thread 🧵

The Future of Families and Child Well-Being study may have the things you are looking for ffcws.princeton.edu/documentation

I look forward to seeing what @dpmoriarity.bsky.social will discover with his novel design and having a discussion with him next month at Penn State!

Since I read the Seizer article, I can't unsee the limitation of the current approach - using inflammatory markers derived from one single time point and assuming that the markers and "PNI effects" are stable - which makes me hesitant to continue my work using this approach

THIS!!!👇Such important work! Besides the inflammatory markers themselves being variable across time, the association between an inflammatory marker and a psychological variable also changes drastically over time. doi.org/10.1016/j.bb... is a great viewpoint article on this very topic!

The @springernature.com book "The Bodily Self, Emotion, and Subjective Time: Exploring Interoception through the Contributions of A.D. (Bud) Craig" is out: 22 authors, 16 chapters. Neurobiology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Neuroimaging, Musicology, Philosophy, ... link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Explore how affective processes develop from early life through adolescence at the Developmental Affective Science preconference featuring invited talks, trainee flash talks, open discussion, & opportunities to spark new collabs across career stages! bit.ly/3Mx0778

Insular cortex predictions regulate glucose homeostasis Brain-body interactions are essential for physical and emotional homeostasis. The brain uses information from the external world to predict upcoming bodily changes. This process involves interoceptive...

lab preprint! Interopceptive predictions are central to many brain-body interactions theories, but it's unclear if/how they affect bodily physiology. We (fearless Einav Litvak et al) show that insular cortex predictions are essential for glucose homeostasis-THREAD.. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Why our physical bodies may be a core part of conscious experience – new research The brain’s sense of “this is my body” is tightly bound to conscious awareness – far more than many theories assume.

Metacognitive modeling of bodily self-awareness, made easy. Read The Conversation piece by @renzolanfranco.bsky.social about our new PNAS study here.
theconversation.com/why-our-phys...

Higher glucose levels buffer against everyday stress load Adaptive stress responses are dependent on the availability of energy and the body's effectiveness in metabolizing glucose as fuel. However, it is not well understood if glucose levels contribute to t...

📣I’m excited to share our new preprint on how our body’s energy supply shapes everyday stress experiences:

📄𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...