📣Our bodies hurt more when we're AFRAID 👉🏼 When we're fearful, the amygdala: ⬆️ cortisol ⬆️ muscle tension amplifies the brain's PAIN alarm🚨 👉🏼To lower the pain alarm, it's important to manage our fear of pain. ✨The better we understand pain, the less scary it becomes✨ #painexplained #medsky

All Major Pharma Companies Implicated in Bribery Schemes, New Report Says By Richard Sears Pfizer, J&J, Eli Lilly, BMS, AstraZeneca, GSK, and more all engaged in systematic bribery schemes, according to decades of OECD reports. buff.ly/DyPK3VH

❌ Pain ≠ damage ❌ 🧠 Pain = our brain's OPINION of how much danger we're in based on *all available info* Including: 🔥 injury 🦴 🔥 emotions💧 🔥 Sleep 🛌 🔥 Nutrition🥗 🔥 Memories 🧠 🔥 Context 👉🏼 Pain is a whole person problem requiring a whole person solution 👏🏼🙏🏼 ✨pass it on✨ #medsky #neuroskyence

If you'd ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would've said Oliver Sacks. My favorite medical writer, he died in 2015. I never got to meet him. But yesterday, I met his editor, Kate Edgar, head of the Oliver Sacks Foundation. Nerd dream come true 🧠🫶🏼 @oliversacks.bsky.social 🧪 #medsky

In support of stand up for science here is an image of galaxy M51. Beautiful night. Clear and no moon

"It’s a rare book that both expands an issue into a dizzyingly complex problem and offers to solve it. In Tell Me Where It Hurts, pain psychologist and scientist Rachel Zoffness pulls off both." Thank you @sciencenews.bsky.social for this incredible book review 🙏🏼🙏🏼 #MedSky #Neurosky 🧪

Recording the audiobook for Tell Me Where It Hurts 🎙️♥️ How is already 6 weeks away?!?? So not ready 😅 www.amazon.com/Tell-Me-Wher...

Join me at ASU for a conversation about the MYTHS of pain medicine - the lies & BS we've been sold, and the true science of healing 🔥🔥🔥 Academics 🧪, science nerds 🧠, and anyone who likes to read 📚welcome!!!! 🤓 MARCH 12 VIRTUAL👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 #medsky #neurosky #sciencesky #OncSky #MedEd

#PedSky #MedSky #neuroskyence #neurosci #PainResearch🛟 🫁💊🧪 Sensory neurons promote bone fracture healing www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Finally some good news 🧀

Challenge: one random act of kindness every day for the rest of 2025. Can be anything. Hold the door, help someone cross the street, give up your seat on the bus, compliment a stranger, donate to your fave charity, give an extra big tip. Because KINDNESS RULES. 🔥🔥🔥 Welcome to 2026, my friends 🫶🏼♥️✨

Burnout in health care providers is a big issue. It reduces wellbeing and the ability to be effective. (Be kind to your provider!) Encouraging news: In a study of >2,000 providers, the Healthy Minds Program app reduced distress and improved wellbeing 9 mos later. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

👎🏼 It's easy to believe that pain lives just in our aching back or bad knee. 🧠 But neuroscience says pain is constructed by the BRAIN- 💥 including the limbic system, key to constructing EMOTIONS 💥 ‼️ Pain is both physical AND emotional 100% of the time 👏🏼👏🏼 (Pass it on 📣) #medsky 🧪

Hi so I have imposter syndrome & just found out my little book on the science of Pain is being translated into *TWENTY FOUR* languages (including US & UK)?!! Here is the cover in Greek 🤯🤯🥹 Totally tweaking out & so insanely full of gratitude. Happy weekend Bsky 🫶 www.amazon.com/Tell-Me-Wher...

📚Been writing a book for the past 3 years about the science of pain & how to heal. I'm nervous AF but also know that the time has come for change- ESPECIALLY with all the pain in the world right now. Please spread the word & share with anyone who might need it 🙏🏼💥 www.amazon.com/Tell-Me-Wher...

Upcoming talk for the disability & chronic pain community on the science of pain and how to heal with @birdability.bsky.social - talk is free & accessible to all 💥💥💥 When: Mon 10/20 @ 7pm ET/4pm PT Where: birdability.org Join us!! 🙏🏼 #medsky #neuroskyence #disability #scisky 🧪

Birdability Week starts in ONE WEEK! Join us a week from today to kick off Birdability Week 2025 with an insightful conversation w/ @drzoffness.bsky.social, pain scientist & thought-leader who is reshaping how the world understands and treats pain. Also PRIZES! www.birdability.org/birdability-...

Jane Goodall was one of the reasons I decided to study animal behavior, biology & neuroscience. She was living proof that women DO and *WILL ALWAYS* belong in science. RIP Dear Dr. Goodall 🙏🏼♥️ www.latimes.com/obituaries/s...

The secret to pain management? 👉🏼 Reduce fear, stress & anxiety. 👉🏼Engage the BRAIN & all 5 senses, including touch 🧠 👉🏼Distract. 👉🏼Help patients feel safe. Soothe. 👉🏼Lower the brain's danger alarm. 🚨 Kudos to doctors who employ strategies like therapy dogs to lower pain volume 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙌🏼

It is crazy that in America your lifetime risk of death from a firearm is higher than a car accident

Saving Normal by Dr. Allen Frances is the most important book I've read in a decade, hands down. Covers the definitions of "normal" & "abnormal" mental health, & the over-medicalization/over-medicating of society. 5 stars. Recommend to everyone you know ⭐️ #medsky #psychsky #neuroskyence 🧪

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

I’ve resurrected my monthly newsletter, Notes on Pain eepurl.com/jh0VaM

3 chronic #lowbackpain treatments have promising long-term results based on curent body of research: 🤾 Exercise 👩‍⚕️ Psychological treatments (e.g. CBT, ACT) 🤝 Self-management programs A highlight of myths and what mostly works for cLBP. #painscience #pain massagefitnessmag.com/massage/chro...

Yesterday marked 11 years since we lost #RobinWilliams to suicide. A reminder that the brightest smiles can sometimes hide the deepest struggles. He was misdiagnosed with Parkinson's when he had Lewy body dementia (confirmed on autopsy). Check your friends 🖤 #MentalHealthMatters

👋 medical toxicologist here and I am begging people to not take this gas station “wellness” drink want to know why?? 🧵

📚Calling all science book lovers! Join the SciFri Book Club, an online community to connect with fellow readers, dive into science books, and attend events like author talks. This month, we’re reading “Our Moon” by Rebecca Boyle. buff.ly/TMeMqL8

The mind/body revolution: how the division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness fails us all www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

A good reminder that THE BRAIN 👏🏼 IS CONNECTED 👏🏼 TO THE BODY 👏🏼 100% OF THE TIME 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 (please repeat loudly for the people in the back) #medsky #neuroskyence 🧠🧪

🛑 SIGNS A PROVIDER HASNT BEEN TRAINED IN PAIN ❌ blames it just on tissue damage & skips the 🧠 ❌ recommends only 💊 or 🔪 ❌ fails to target diet, sleep, trauma, movement, mental health ❌ targets only a body part, not a WHOLE PERSON 📣 Pain is biopsychosocial ALWAYS 👏🏼👏🏼 #neuroskyence #medsky #psychsky 🧪

Whether or not anyone from your family of origin understands, likes, approves of, or loves the identity you've carved out for yourself as you've healed, I want you to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are absolutely worth being proud of, affirming, & celebrating.

“Women are asked more questions during a seminar and the questions asked of women presenters are more likely to be patronizing or hostile. These effects are not due to women presenting in different fields, different seminar series, or different topics…” www.nber.org/papers/w28494

One of the most important day to day-- minute to minute!-- tasks of trauma recovery is watching for your abusers' & bullies' words coming from your mouth or going through your head. Don't let that sh*t slide. Scratch the record every single time you notice it happening.

🔥 Most important paper I've read all year🔥 👉 Injury/disease doesn't reliably predict pain 👉 Biomarkers alone can't explain pain 👉 PSYCHOSOCIAL factors reliably determine chronic pain 👉 Painful conditions can be predicted from the SYNERGY btwn bio + psychosocial factors www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I just learned that there's a national graduate student crisis line - gradresources.org. Might be worth spreading the word as I'm pretty sure exactly *checks notes* zero grad students are doing well emotionally right now.

It was not that long ago that clinical trials enrolled mainly (or all) men, or that animal studies only used male mice. It was not that long ago that the NIH determined the need to focus research on women. www.science.org/content/arti...

“We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves.” - Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Excellent career advice from Peter Hotez journals.plos.org/plosbiology/.... Also some good stuff here for universities to consider in the face of current challenges.

New study finds that pain and itch are processed by specific neurons in the cingulate cortex. I wonder what that means for theories that say that anything in these areas should be considered interoception? 🤔 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Echolocation: "It’s very learnable" "Neuroscientist Lore Thaler runs workshops to teach people how to echolocate."

Psychoneuroimmunology (def): a field of science devoted to the INTERACTION btwn emotions, cognitions, neuroendocrine + immune systems- 📣 aka, the effect of #psychology on HEALTH, DISEASE, and PAIN💥💥💥 Brain + body are connected 💯% of 👏🏼 the👏🏼 time👏🏼 #MedSky #neuroskyence 🧠🧪

OMG I went to find some articles and it is GONE. GONE. National Library of Medicine? Also GONE. (I am working on a paper on a Saturday night) Who cares about this paper, this is just FFFFFFFF#$@$^@#%^@#$%!@#'d if this is for real

We independently developed two mouse models of nocebo hyperalgesia, one a social source (often studied as emotional contagion or social fear learning) and one a conditioned source of information enhancing expectations of pain.

We're not always going to feel strong. Strength fluctuates. We won't be strong every minute, & we don't need to be. What we do need is to be committed to having our own back, being on our own side, not abandoning ourselves-- no matter how strong we do or don't feel this minute.

For day 4 of Black History Month, there may be no woman who has made a bigger historical impact than Henrietta Lacks. Born in 1920, she was found to have cervical cancer at the age of 31. The cells in the biopsy were discovered to double every 20-24 hours. Up until then, it was impossible /1

A poem for your hump day. 🌤️

Suicide risk is double in people with chronic pain. What can be done to reduce this risk? In our EJP paper, we found mental defeat a significant predictor of future suicide risk in people with chronic pain 🧪Open access: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Contributed to a new review on the social determinants and consequences of pain www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...