Nicolas Bruno

I am a PhD student in Cognitive Neuroscience in cotutelle between the Paris Brain Institute (ICM), with the supervision of Dr. Antoni Valero-Cabré and Dr. Jacobo Sitt, and the Universidad de Buenos Aires, with the supervision of Dr. Enzo Tagliazucchi. I studied Psychology at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and completed a Master’s in Cognitive Sciences at the École Normale Supérieure. I started my PhD in September 2021 and plan to finish in June 2026.

My research focuses on understanding the neural markers of mind-wandering. The aim of my PhD is to characterize the electrophysiological signatures of spontaneous thought and to refine the phenomenological description of different mind-wandering episodes. To do this, I work mainly with EEG, building machine learning pipelines to classify mind-wandering states from physiological signals, and using large language models to analyze participants’ subjective reports. I am also interested in how mind-wandering can be modulated through non-invasive brain stimulation or pharmacological interventions, such as methylphenidate or classic psychedelics.

Alongside my academic work, I am deeply involved in science communication. I founded Neurotransmitiendo[www.neurotransmitiendo.org], a non-profit organization dedicated to communicating and teaching neuroscience in Latin America, with the goal of making knowledge about the brain and behavior more accessible to the general public.