ICML Workshop · 2026
Inverting Foundation Models of Brain Function with Simulation-Based Inference
Niels Leif Bracher, Xavier Intes, Stefan T. Radev

We explore whether foundation models of brain activity can work in reverse: recovering stimulus properties from synthetic brain responses. Using TRIBEv2, LLM-generated news headlines, and simulation-based inference, we show that latent linguistic parameters can be decoded from predicted brain maps, motivating future work in neural decoding and inverse stimulus design.
foundation models
large language models
simulation-based inference
amortized inference
neuroscience