Based on the guidelines we issued yesterday, please obtain prior approval for the collaborations you began years ago.

If you have not left a public comment on the draconian OMB-2026-0034, here's a quick thread to make it easy. #standupforscience #neuroskyence Click here: www.regulations.gov/document/OMB...

First time at OHBM? Or looking to meet fellow OHBMers before the conference gets underway? Join us for a Morning Coffee and connect with other attendees. ☕ Monday, June 15 | 8:00–9:00am 📍 Loop Coffee (location in replies) Sponsored by @thetransmitter.bsky.social #OHBM2026

A few years back we started a collaboration to try to work out the mechanisms engaged by DBS for depression. Published today we found that it changes functional networks (expected) but also remodels specific white matter tracts (unexpected). Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I miss this guy, even tho I haven't seen much of him since i left UCSF 22 yrs ago. A true original, thinking so outside the box that boxes disappeared, kind and generous, & pioneered much of modern pain and addiction research. www.thetransmitter.org/pain/in-memo...

Do humans show sex differences in brain activation? If so, are these task-specific or general — and do they relate to sex differences in brain anatomy and behavior? We dove deep into these questions in a new paper just out in Nature Communications | tinyurl.com/3rdrb524

Our multiverse analysis of associations between skin conductance and acute pain is published! >550 participants x 18 SCR pipelines = 1 winning approach to SCR analysis! (Ledalab + artifact detection). thread below. We hope others find this useful! Please RT :) journals.lww.com/pain/fulltex...

In normal times, the fact that government officials at HHS blatantly lied to the public and got caught would be a scandal of unusual size. Everyone involved in this disinformation scheme against the people of the United States should be held accountable.

🚨🧪🧵URGENT INPUT NEEDED: NIH asks input for next strategic plan-including emphasis on non-animal models (NAMs) to replace animals. Per NIH insider, anti-animal responses now outnumber scientists 200-700x. Please please provide input. Deadline: May 26, 11:59 PM ET. grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

Our multiverse analysis of associations between skin conductance and acute pain is published! >550 participants x 18 SCR pipelines = 1 winning approach to SCR analysis! (Ledalab + artifact detection). thread below. We hope others find this useful! Please RT :) journals.lww.com/pain/fulltex...

Finally, this double dissociation is quite cool because aIns and dACC often co-activate and are thought of as being part of the same network (salience network). Here, we show that they bias learning from feedback in two different ways: ... 7/9

Hi new followers. Was I included on another list I don’t know about? 😉

Spread the word! We are recruiting for 6 new research professors at UC Davis' California National Primate Research Center. Open rank, open area, but must leverage 🐒 resources. recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07561

@massih.bsky.social et al. find that baseline circulating endocannabinoid ligand concentrations are associated with individual differences in pressure pain threshold, but not thermal thresholds/tolerance, or temporal summation of pain. Learn more in #PAIN bit.ly/4tEJzdL

Those of us doing research related to women’s health have been hit particularly hard by the govt’s sabotage of the NIH. I spoke to WaPo for this piece, as painful as it was to discuss the reality my lab is facing. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026...

We’re hiring! The University of Pittsburgh is recruiting a tenure-track faculty member in pain research to join the Department of Neurobiology and the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research—an outstanding and highly collaborative community. Please share. More here: cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...

Excited to share our new study on how the brain generates placebo pain relief! We developed a mouse model that recapitulates key features of human placebo analgesia, then used it to identify causal circuitry. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... today.ucsd.edu/story/neurob... 1/n

If you are an early career NHP researcher (postdoc or asstiant professor) and interested in attending #ACNP2027 please apply. I’ve also rolled off the E&T Committee that reviews these awards and am now an “ambassador” so if anyone wants some advice about applying for travel awards, reach out.

I am so looking forward to #SANS2026 this week! I haven’t been since 2019 & miss my SANS family so much 🥰 Also if you or someone you know is looking for a funded postdoc or postbac, we‘re hiring! FMRI of pain & emotion in the context of a novel drug. Reach out to discuss during the meeting!

Learning about the complete arc of Alex’s career was so inspiring, as was hearing his words of wisdom & the many stories about his astute insights & special way of mentoring his people. I’m grateful to have had him in my corner - thanks to chris, shruti, & Steve for putting on such a great event!

Here we go again 😔

🧵 I gave Claude two things: a short paper (doi.org/10.1073/pnas...) and a raw behavioural dataset with 3 lines of variable descriptions. Then I asked it to fit three computational RL models described only by equations in the manuscript. No code, no toolbox, no guidance on the fitting procedure. 1/3

Today is the anniversary of the April 1 RIFs at NIH and HHS. Thinking of my colleagues who lost their jobs last year. These cuts did no improve efficiency. They undermined the functioning of our government.

🧠 Focused ultrasound changes emotional processing 🔊 In a new study published in Neuron today, we stimulated the human amygdala using transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) and show it plays a causal role in detecting and resolving emotional ambiguity.

Can published findings be reproduced from the same data + same analysis? As part of SCORE, Miske and 127 co-authors tested this across social and behavioral science papers from 2009–2018. www.nature.com/articles/s41... OA: osf.io/preprints/me... 1/

How do we define "good" fMRI data? Especially with resting state, there are circularity risks if we evaluate data quality as showing the networks we expect to see. Javier Gonzalez-Castillo (& me & others) developed pBOLD, a new metric that uses multi-echo info. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/8

A 20% budget cut atop multiyear funding-induced cuts to research and direct terminations of projects underway will further degrade American leadership in science. This is early news & not even a proposal or appropriations - precisely the reason to speak out now. rollcall.com/2026/03/27/s...

🧠 What makes threat memories so hard to forget? 🐍😱 Using focused ultrasound we provide causal evidence that the human amygdala drives rapid threat learning 🐍⚡ and determines how resistant those memories become to subsequent extinction 🐍🚫 🆕📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Super proud of @sjoerdmeijer.bsky.social who demonstrated that amygdala-TUS slows initial threat acquisition and enhances subsequent extinction. Great collaboration with @lennartverhagen.bsky.social and @deVoogdld.bsky.social ea. Thanks to @ERC.europa.eu. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It is so stimulating to be at the #USASP @usasp.bsky.social annual meeting & to be reminded of the big picture & why pain science matters. We didn’t receive approval until after the conference had already started. We do better science when we can collaborate with & learn from our scientific peers.

The Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at NIH is hosting a two-day symposium on 'Foundations and Frontiers in Cognitive Neuroscience' in honor of Dr. Alex Martin, to be held at NIH (with online videocast) on April 7th-8th, 2026. Register to attend online or in-person at: bit.ly/4bYlbxw

$2.45 billion NIH grant cuts and ~2300 terminated active research grants were DOGE'd in early 2025 Who were most affected? www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... Early career and women researchers

I've seen a lot of demoralized posts (and emails) from people who didn't get into grad school this cycle. This was one of the worst cycles I've ever seen due to massive cuts to research funding, financial difficulties at universities, and technological disruptions.

OMB has posted the full-year apportionments for NIH. openomb.org/file/11511545 I believe this means that NIH now has the spending authority to fund grants! There may be nuances and I will be tracking these as best I can.

We believe our results may (partly) reframe how we interpret fMRI connectivity ▶️ fMRI connectivity ≠direct communication strength ▶️ fMRI connectivity is supported by distributed slow neuronal coupling ▶️ Hyper/hypoconnectivity (eg., in brain disorders) may reflect cortical hypo/hyperexcitability 16/n

A new data-sharing policy proposed by the NIH would result in “substantial harm to scientific progress,” a neuroimaging consortium says. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/data-sharing...

💥New paper out! Why do some people generalise threat more than others? We show that anxious people generalise more strongly, even after accounting for perceptual mistakes. A huge (!) thanks to @ondrejzika.bsky.social @nicoschuck.bsky.social and @bernhardspitzer.bsky.social

Unprecedented changes to routine US immunization recommendations ‘arbitrary and capricious’, court says

Please spread the word about a postbac position in Behavioral Neuroscience at Dartmouth with me, Shelley Warlow, and Kyle smith. The postbac will contribute to collaborative projects across the three labs aimed at studying the neuroscience of motivation and reward learning.

Very happy that this paper from our lab is now out in @pnas.org! What happens when the *same* person experiences the *same* information with a *different* interpretation? Nearly the whole 🧠—well, at least nearly all association cortex—changes how it represents that information! tinyurl.com/p8chj2j7

A heads down approach will not save science. We need to speak up, live our values, and demand integrity. www.statnews.com/2026/03/12/n...

This is an important policy decision that will impact our ability to publicly share neuroimaging data. The time is now to weigh in.

Basically this would prohibit many of our current repositories and in my opinion move us backward with our efforts toward big data and open science.

thanks @laurenatlas.bsky.social! We are working on a response from OpenNeuro, and I also know that the ABCD folks are working on something. There will also be high-level responses from major scientific/academic organizations. Hopefully we can have some influence as this policy would be devastating

New email to Director Bhattacharya about a new Scientific Freedom lecture to be given my Matt Ridley on The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. Ridley is a British scientist and journalist who published a book in 2022 on the subject. 1/5

I’m guest editing a new BMC Psychiatry Collection on #placebo and #nocebo effects in psychiatry. We’re looking for work on expectancy mechanisms, communication, and implications for clinical practice + trials. Details: link.springer.com/collections/... @sfb-trr-289.bsky.social

NIH is requesting comments on a new draft policy that may require human brain imaging data (and other data) from nih-funded research to only be shared via controlled access, & only with certain countries. I suggest neuroimagers read closely & submit comments by 3/18. osp.od.nih.gov/comment-form...

Diversity of tasks>>resting state for predictive power.

The result was clear: Multi-task fMRI consistently outperformed resting-state fMRI. Across preprocessing strategies. Across brain regions. Across independent datasets. 4/8

Join the discussion with @katenautiyal.bsky.social and #eNeuro  Reviewing Editor @drjkhokhar.bsky.social on March 12 at 12PM EDT Register now for the #ResearchInConversation webinar: vist.ly/4ufq2 Catch up on the webinar topic ⬇️ vist.ly/4ufr7