New Open dataset alert: 🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience! N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks! 🧵below

It is with immense honour that I share that as of today, I’m officially an MSCA fellow @unevadareno.bsky.social benefitting from the minds of @eester.bsky.social & @nkonstantinou.bsky.social 1/3

Over the past couple of years I was lucky enough to call @westernu.ca my academic home. During my time here I: ☕️ Drunk 849L of coffee. 💩 Stepped on geese poop 56 times. 🧻 Consumed ~1.5km of institutional toilet paper. 🪒 Grew 37 gray hairs. ⚡️ Delivered hundreds of thousands of TMS pulses. 1/3

Our Meet the Team talks are back on September 17th! Our next speakers are kNOw-PAIN collaborators Dr. Anna Zajacova and Dr. Naveen Poonai! To join, click the zoom link on our website: knowpain.ca/meettheteam

New paper day! Whereas earlier studies have shown that human eye movement patterns are influenced by the physical properties of remembered stimuli, we show that they are also influenced by stimulus meaning. h/t to Ali Pexsa (not on bluesky) who led this work. tinyurl.com/4y4aev3a

New preprint out, where we show that TMS-induced pupil dilations can be used as a measurable proxy of cortical excitability. With: @frasermacrae.bsky.social @freekvanede.bsky.social @daspainbrain.bsky.social @drsmschabrun.bsky.social et al. Details below 🧵 [1/n]

WM researchers of all ages across the globe, see you tomorrow at 9am CDT (2pm GMT)! www.wmsymposium.org

Can you believe that WMS2025 (July 8-11) is less than a week away? If you are interested in Working Memory Research, WMS2025 is THE BEST online conference with THE AWESOMEST community of researchers across the globe! So DON'T FORGET TO CHECK IT OUT! www.wmsymposium.org/home

Here’s how I’ve been utilising the excessive amounts of coffee I’m consuming at @westernu.bsky.social lately.

Our Siemens 7T Collaboration Scientist is moving to support the Siemens 7T Terra.X Impulse at Stanford. Siemens is rehiring for our position, located in Canada's National Ultra-High Field MRI platform cfmm.uwo.ca in London, Ontario 🇨🇦. onehealthineers.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/SHSJB/job/OA...

For TMS studies to be reproducible and for us to build on each other’s findings, we need to report what we actually did during the experiment. We've built and now are evaluating the TMS-RAT (Reporting Assessment Tool). Check out our website! - built by @thehandlab.bsky.social

It’s not my fault. Semi-formal could also mean half the people come in formal wear, and the rest are casual 🤷🏼‍♂️

🎉 #FENS is proud to welcome the Cyprus Neuroscience Society (C.N.S.) as our newest member! 👉 https://loom.ly/t2ihcc4#FENS Welcome, C.N.S. – we’re thrilled to have you! 🌟

Are you coming to London Health Research Day @westernu.bsky.social ? Come to our ( @daspainbrain.bsky.social , @drsmschabrun.bsky.social ) talk to find out how we’ve been using TMS induced pupil dilations to measure cortical excitability. You can also hear all about it at @vssmtg.bsky.social

Happy 40th Birthday #TMS 🥳🧲🎈 Published in the Lancet on 11th May 1985, a 1-page report of a new device & the 1st TMS-evoked MEP changed brain stimulation research & treatment forever We celebrated with Professor Barker two weeks ago in Birmingham Here's to 40 more years! doi.org/10.1016/s014...

Check out this amazing opportunity to hear kNOw-PAIN co-lead @daspainbrain.bsky.social talk about his latest work!

Is anyone aware of any potential marker or a candidate mechanism that could serve as an indication that someone previously received non-invasive brain stimulation?

Abstract submission is now open for WMS2025 (Deadline: May 31st)! Working memory ECRs, we look forward to receiving your submissions!!! wmsymposium.org

looking forward to our CPS www.canadianpainsociety.ca/asm session: New insights into the role of the claustrum in acute and chronic pain with @annatheneurosci.bsky.social & @navona.bsky.social related new preprints from our lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is the sign you’ve been waiting for to get yourself a copy of the Publish or Perish Game.

our inaugural kNOw-PAIN @westernknowpain.bsky.social conference was a big success. thanks to Andrew Rice for an insightful keynote lecture. Pain research @westernu.bsky.social is taking off. @westernuwin.bsky.social @westernuresearch.bsky.social

This reflection moment from today brought a very fulfilling smile to my face. If you want to get my two-cents for a successful MSCA-PF, you can hear all about it here: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/worldwide/no...

Past few days have been extremely fruitful: Delivered a fun little intro to TMS workshop for @westernuwin.bsky.social BrainHack, presented some recent findings on the nexus between WM & Pain for @westernknowpain.bsky.social & shared some insights for a successful MSCA for EURAXESS-NA. Fun stuff!

The most expensive photo I’ve ever taken. The end result? My irises look like a couple of overcooked bagels.

The application for WMS Postdoc Organizer will close in 6 days (March 16th)! If you are a postdoc excited about WM research and empowering ECRs in the friendly and vibrant WM research community, please consider joining us!

a feel good story for us potty mouths wapo.st/3Djn5ug

I look at this little fella and I see myself at the conference breakfast buffet, 30 min after the first session started. It’s fur’s gorgeous by the way, I shall call it Racoonzel.

I always realized one key advantage of tDCS is that the technology can be made really cheap. But didnt realize it could even be disposable systems. Fascinating exploration by Marom Bikson.

Still a baby though. Haven’t even grown hair yet.

The Working Memory Symposium will return in 2025 (Tentative date: July 8-11)! We are now seeking a new post-doc organizer to join our organizing team. To apply, fill out the google form linked on our home page (www.wmsymposium.org) by March 16!

A thread 🧵 of 10 random tips that made my research life so much easier (some might seem obvious, but…): 1. Read the instruction manuals of the equipment you use. 2. You are lying to yourself when you say you will remember the thing. You WILL NOT remember the thing. Take notes, book the calendar.

Perks of being bald:

Join us on March 31st at the Great Hall for our very first kNOw-PAIN Conference! Network with leading experts in pain research and enjoy complimentary lunch and refreshments. For full details on the conference and how to sign up, please visit bit.ly/knowpain2025 or scan the QR code on the poster.

I tell my students that half of science is problem solving. But in publications, we usually only report the solutions.

Working memory works better when neural activity is transient, rather than persistent. No wonder the brain does it that way. Recurrent neural networks with transient trajectory explain working memory encoding mechanisms www.nature.com/articles/s42... #neuroscience

Throwback to when I created a picture CV for post-doc applications:

Chins up! Since our NIH and NSF review panels got cancelled we'll all have more time to work on our next NIH and NSF grants!

our NIH HEAL initiative funded biomarkers study now out @jama.com JAMA Neurology open access, open data and code w/ @drsmschabrun.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Happy Theta Burst Day, everyone! 20 years old today 🥳 #TMS #BrainStim a colleague sent this present for you all: doi.org/10.1162/jocn...

Well done @clc-brain.bsky.social for leading this!

Happy New Year from the kNOw-PAIN team! Wishing everyone a 2025 with endless possibilities! We're excited to share what we have in store this year, with plenty of opportunities for you to get involved!

so there's this very famous method in brain stimulation & it was first published 20 years ago this month, but the original results could not be replicated by the lab that published them, so 7 years later the same lab reported there was no effect of this method, but it was too late as everyone was...

Leaving the meeting with my PI without taking notes:

🥲

RSVP NOW! Our first kNOw-PAIN Conference will be happening on March 31, 2025, featuring Dr. Andrew Rice, IASP President.

“I have a very novel research idea” The idea:

We’ll be having a session showcasing papers suggested by others through social media, etc. Drop your recommendations 👇🏻

Rumor has it we are now working on JASP 1.0 and it will bring a key feature.

Is the Brain Mostly a Modular System or Do We Need Distributed Processing Frameworks? JOCN forum debate: My take: jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/9df3pvla... Postle response: jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/jvd4x9b7... Coutanche response: jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/p1z573fu... Matchin response: jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/oypwsuw6...