Alana Darcher
hello 🌻
I study how human brains extract information from complex and naturalistic content.
I'm a Doctoral Researcher co-supervised by Florian Mormann at the Universitätsklinikum Bonn and Jakob Macke at the University of Tübingen. My work focuses on how single neurons in the human hippocampus, amygdala, and neighboring regions represent semantic content, such as people, places, and objects. In particular, I study how single neurons develop such representations, and how these representations are affected by the complexity of the stimulus presentation.
Prior to my PhD studies, I adapted meditation practices to treat symptoms of social isolation and depression in at-risk patient groups.
projects
movie + brain
How is the semantic content of a movie processed by populations of single neurons in the human brain?
This project is the result of a collaboration between the Mormann Lab, Machine Learning for Sciences, Uni. Tübingen, and the Dynamic and Vision Learning Group, TU Munich, and comprises novel empirical results, a large-scale public dataset, and an open-sourced database environment.
Decoding movie content from neuronal population activity in the human medial temporal lobe
tldr: predicting the semantic content of a movie frame from the population neural activity
We developed a novel approach for decoding high-level movie content from a dynamic and naturalistic stimulus and leverage different model architectures and classic single-neuron methods to determine the role of temporal information and tuning in forming the neural representation.
Human neuron activity during an 83-minute movie from 2,286 neurons and 29 patients
tldr: the first public large-scale dataset of human single neurons recorded during a full-length movie
We present a dataset of spike trains from medial temporal lobe neurons recorded while patients watched a feature film, enabling analyses of semantic content, temporal structure, and event boundaries in rich naturalistic stimuli.
Epiphyte: a relational database framework for naturalistic neuroscience experiments
tldr: a worked solution for structuring naturalistic datasets for use across research centers
An off-the-shelf database + code environment for organizing and analyzing neural data + complex, naturalistic stimuli.
preprint | code | docscode packages
epiphyte | a worked solution for structuring naturalistic datasets for use across research centers | preprint | code | docs
DER: duplicate event removal | artifact detection in human single unit recordings | paper | code
preprints
Semantic Tuning of Single Neurons in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe. (2025)
Karkowski K., Kehl M.S., Qin Y., Darcher A., Karkowski P., Borger V., Surges R., Hebart M.N., Reber T.P., Dehaene S., Lakretz Y., Mormann F. bioRxiv.
peer-reviewed articles
Human neuron activity during an 83-minute movie from 2,286 neurons and 29 patients. (2026)
Darcher A.*, Gerken F.*, Niediek J., Kehl M.S., Reber T.P., Liebe S., Nett L., Racz A., Kunz L., Staresina B., Rapp R., Goncalves P.J., Elezi I., Borger V., Surges R., Leal-Taixé L., Macke J.H., Mormann F. Nature Scientific Data.
* equal contribution.
Decoding movie content from neuronal population activity in the human medial temporal lobe. (2025)
Gerken F.*, Darcher A.,*, Goncalves P.J., Rapp R., Elezi I., Niediek J., Kehl M.S., Reber T.P., Liebe S., Macke J.H., Mormann F., Leal-Taixe L. eLife.
* equal contribution.
A practical guide to statistical distances for evaluating generative models in science. (2024)
Bischoff S., Darcher A., Deistler M., Gao R., Gerken F., Gloeckler M., Haxel L., Kapoor J., Lappalainen J.K., Macke J.H., Moss G., Pals M., Pei F., Rapp R., Sağtekin A.E., Schröder C., Schulz A., Stefanidi Z., Toyota S., Ulmer L., Vetter J. Transactions on Machine Learning Research.
Equal contribution across all authors.
A microglial activity state biomarker panel differentiates FTD-granulin and Alzheimer’s disease patients from controls (2023).
Pesämaa I., Müller S.A., Robinson S., Darcher A., Paquet D., Zetterberg H., Lichtenthaler S.F., Haass C. Molecular Neurodegeneration.
Duplicate detection of spike events: a relevant problem in human single-unit recordings (2021).
Dehnen G., Kehl M.S., Darcher A., Müller T.T., Macke J.H., Borger V., Surges R., Mormann F. Brain Sciences.
A longitudinal, randomized and controlled study of app-delivered mindfulness in the workplace (2020).
Mascaro J.S., Wehrmeyer K., Mahathre V., Darcher A. Journal of Wellness.
Compassion meditation training for emotional numbing symptoms among veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (2019).
Evans A.P.B., Mascaro J.S., Kohn J.N., Dobrusin A., Darcher A., Starr S.D., Craighead L.W., Negi L.T. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.
Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression (2018).
Mascaro J.S., Kelley S., Darcher A., Negi L.T., Worthman C., Miller A., Raison C. The Journal of Positive Psychology.
Preliminary evidence that androgen signaling is correlated with men's everyday language (2018).
Mascaro J.S., Rentscher K.E., Hackett P.D., Lori A., Darcher A., Rilling J.K., Mehl M.R. American Journal of Human Biology.
The neural mediators of kindness-based meditation: a theoretical model (2015).
Mascaro J.S., Darcher A., Negi L.T., Raison C.L. Frontiers in Psychology.