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

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed. For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

Interested in pain and alcohol use? If so, then a @painresforum.bsky.social webinar happening next Tuesday, 16:00 UK time is for you 👇

Monitoring gene expression in the brain with a simple blood test? In collaboration with @jerzyszablowski.bsky.social & his lab we figured out how to do it nonhuman primates using noninvasive neuroengineering of synthetic serum markers. nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Excited to share our new preprint on how feedback improves pain assessment accuracy when people learn from nonverbal reactions! See @yilizhao.bsky.social thread below.

When we modeled endocannabinoids and beta-endorphins together, we found that beta-endorphins moderated the effect of FAAH substrates.

Changes in FAAH substrates were associated with individual differences in placebo analgesia. There was no effect of 2-AG

Check out our latest paper: The Contribution of endocannabinoids to placebo analgesia www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... This is an ongoing collaboration with David Finn & @laurenatlas.bsky.social Take away: beta-endorphins gate the contributions of endocannabinoids to placebo analgesia.

New paper in Nature Neuroscience! We developed personalized fMRI-based predictive models tracking ongoing spontaneous pain in chronic pain patients—trained on 6+ months of densely sampled data. A true team effort. Deeply grateful to our participants! doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02221-3

Wow are they fortunate to have Daphna Shohamy at the helm - selecting her was a wise move (and I do hope they appreciate her for it). Looking for your next Director of a Fancy Thing? Pick a Daphna. www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/04...

Excited to share our new preprint on how feedback improves pain assessment accuracy when people learn from nonverbal reactions! See @yilizhao.bsky.social thread below.

What NIH Staff Can’t Tell You—And Why That Matters open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

NEW: Another NIH institute director hasn't been renewed — the director of NIAMS (arthritis, musculoskeletal and skin diseases institute). That leaves a whopping 15 of 27 institutes and centers without a permanent director.