R.I.P. US-based research 😅

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

For-profit journals are supposed to improve research quality, yet they're perversely incentivized to churn out whatever they can monetize. This was happening before AI (see Strain: bit.ly/43gJPUM), and AI will make it worse. It's insane that we volunteer our time to help them do so. 4/n

"Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access)"

📢 PhD opportunity 📢 Looking for a PhD in neuroeconomics, social, or decision neuroscience? I'm looking to support an application for the MIBTP ESRC program starting Fall 2026. Details below, but please get in touch with me before applying! Pls share! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Not super reassuring for young european researchers 😅 thank you Donald

Looking for a PhD? Interested in cognitive computational neuroscience, motivation and decision-making? See our project listed in the BBSRC MIBTP competition for funding for a 4-year PhD in the @msnlab.bsky.social in the @thechbh.bsky.social. Deadline 27/11. More info: tinyurl.com/5d5vz8m7

Get ready for the biggest #ABIM yet! 🥳 We're celebrating our 20th anniversary with a special edition you won't want to miss. 🗓️ Registration & abstract submission: www.unige.ch/ABIM/partici... 💰Early bird fee ends November 9th! #ABIM2026 #neuroimaging

Save the date 📆. On Oct 22/23, @nationalacademies.org will hold a stellar virtual workshop on brain/body interations (open to all). www.nationalacademies.org/en/our-work/...

Evidence that even when LLMs produce similar results to humans, they “rely on lexical associations and statistical priors rather than contextual reasoning or normative criteria. We term this divergence epistemia: the illusion of knowledge emerging when surface plausibility replaces verification”

Effort research is booming & it’s tough to keep up with how it's defined and measured. Huge kudos to @dhprlab.bsky.social PhD student @lukas-hack.bsky.social for leading our attempt to create an impartial overview & starter guide. Great effort (pun intended 😉)! Interested? Check it out ⬇️

Excited to share such a career milestone 🌟 Our new @pnas.org paper shows how E–I balance drives dynamic brain adaptation. Thanks to @jorgejovicich.bsky.social, @dimitrivdv.bsky.social, @asiaferrari.bsky.social, @bcassone.bsky.social & amazing co-authors 🙏 🔗 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Just discovered (a bit late I admit) this fascinating talk from @hugospiers.bsky.social Now I really want to play that SeaHeroQuest game! Hope it gets available again soon!

New paper from the lab on the predictive role of prefrontal cortex metabolites in motivated effortful behavior in humans. Congrats to Arthur Barakat and @nclairis.bsky.social who led the work & to all our collaborators!

Arthur's main & final PhD paper is finally out! In it, we show that a few metabolites (mainly glutamate, aspartate and lactate) measured at baseline with 1H-MRS in the dmPFC/dACC allow to predict inter-individual differences in the motivation to engage with cognitively effortful tasks! 1/2

Looking for a PhD next year? Want to come and work on the next generation of OPM-MEG/EEG biomarkers in computational psychiatry? Apply for our MRC iCase studentship with @mkflugge.bsky.social, collabs with @lilweb.bsky.social + industrial placement at P1Vital: www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/gradua...

Now out in @natneuro.nature.com What happens to the brain’s body map when a body-part is removed? Scanning patients before and up to 5 yrs after arm amputation, we discovered the brain’s body map is strikingly preserved despite amputation www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02037-7 🧵1/18

"Springer Nature’s group revenue has risen by 6% to €926m (£800m) in the first half of 2025, while adjusted operating profit (AOP) was up by 10% to €241m (£208m)." they could at least say thanks to all of us researchers who made that waste of public money possible 🥲

Not a good development

New paper by @bsiepe.bsky.social & WARN-D team out now in JoPACS, on the (lack of) relation between EMA selfreport and Garmin passive data. Guardian @theguardian.com coverage: www.theguardian.com/technology/2... Paper: psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d... 🧪 #PsychSciSky #StatsSky #EpiSky

"Discover" currently has 66 journals: 25 have *identical* names to #MDPI journals, 11 are one letter off (Food vs Foods), and 22 more are clear mimics (Chemical Engineering vs. ChemEngineering). From 2020-2024, #SpringerDiscover opened 61 new journals and grew its output by 🎊 8077% 🎊 Gross! 🤮 3/n

We are recruiting a new PI at the FIL @imagingneuroucl.bsky.social, Associate or Full Professor. This is an amazing place to do cognitive neuroscience, in the heart of London. If you or someone you know might be interested, please pass it on. #neuroskyence www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

If I could change one thing about #ScientificPublishing I'd ask funding bodies to stipulate all work they fund be published in non-profit journals. The knock-on effects would alleviate most of the strain on #AcademicSky. This isn't hard. It's big, but actually, it's pretty easy. 1/n

tough times for fMRI... The main world providers being US, Russia, Algeria and Qatar

Does ChatGPT store chat logs, even after you've deleted them? Short answer: Yes.

Interesting system: "Icebox." A way to publish findings and why they've stopped. Maybe the project's completed. Maybe it hit a roadblock, or became underwhelming. One concern (that could be addressed)... 1/5

Use Signal. We promise, no AI clutter, and no surveillance ads, whatever the rest of the industry does. <3

Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model. What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it? A 🧵 the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻-𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 Looks like an interesting paper about brain-wide processes. Sure to generate discussion. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #neuroscience #neuroskyence

The quality of evidence in psychology publications has improved substantially over the last two decades, across all subareas. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

nature.com/articles/s44220-025-00427-1 a challenging paper for computational psychiatry by @stepalminteri.bsky.social @mael-lebreton.bsky.social, but it's luckily not just a black/white picture with possibly state being better captured by behavioral tasks vs trait by self-reported questionnaires

"In the US, the average age at which a scientist becomes “independent” has increased from about 35 in 1980 to 44 in 2020. That’s almost 10 fewer years in which they are most actively and vigorously pursuing their own ideas, and 10 more spent in service to the ideas of the previous generation."

super excited that the first paper from my PhD is now out! we develop a "philosophical toolkit" for computational cognitive modeling & use it to conceptually re-analyze a long-standing debate about evidence accumulation models of decision making 🧠📈 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The million dollar question And the answer, naturally, is: 1. Cloud providers (offering GPU compute at scale) 2. GPU manufacturers Because LLMs need a TON of GPU compute!

Public Access > Open Access

fediscience.org/@geekoo@mast... "LLMs like ChatGPT can appear fluent while providing incorrect or incoherent answers. This behavior mirrors Wernicke’s aphasia, a human brain disorder." finally a good diagnosis of LLMs #chatgpt #LLM #aphasia

Check out our new special issue on cognitive flexibility @coolscontrol.bsky.social: authors.elsevier.com/a/1l4vl8MqMi...

"Le terme “intelligence artificielle” m’embête, car le mot “intelligence” amène des fantasmes anthropomorphiques. Cela fait croire que ces systèmes pensent comme nous, alors que cela n’a rien à voir", explique Luc Julia à @chloew.bsky.social.

1/n Beyond the well-characterized #neuro-anatomical, -functional and -#cognitive changes, 50-70% of individuals with #Parkinson's Disease (PD) exhibit #autonomic #dysfunctions. We performed a systematic #review: shorturl.at/LEjKR

As grant money starts drying up, it's more important than ever not to waste it on paying publishers' open access "article processing fees" when we can host PDFs for free. Tom Morgan and I wrote a paper on this, forthcoming at Science and Public Policy. Accepted draft here: osf.io/preprints/os...

Hello #neuroeconomists and decision (neuro)scientists - did I miss you in this starterpack? Just reply to this post or DM if you'd like to be added! go.bsky.app/1K9Suh

First post on an exciting new manuscript online today @natneuro.nature.com - in collab with @lucinauddin.bsky.social and Catie Chang. We take a fresh look at the physiological dynamics associated with the global signal 🧠 ... www.nature.com/articles/s41... Read here: rdcu.be/ek01F

On this day 2y ago we announced our move away from the huge profits that NeuroImage makes for Elsevier. Things at Imaging Neuroscience have progressed fantastically thanks to the support for this move by the brain imaging community and @mitpress.bsky.social. 565 papers published already!

We show that eye-movements are selected based on effort minimization - finally final in @elife.bsky.social eLife's digest: elifesciences.org/digests/9776... & the 'convincing & important' paper: elifesciences.org/articles/97760 I consider this my coolest ever project! #VisionScience #Neuroscience

wisskomm.social/@iqwig/11422... They recommend to backup articles on europepmc in case of pubmed going down. I guess now is really the time for Europe to wake up #pubmed #europepmc

jneurosci.org/content/early/2025/03/14/JNEUROSCI.1740-24.2025 "Dissociation of value and confidence signals in the orbitofrontal cortex during decision-making: an intracerebral electrophysiology study in humans"

"LLMs can help us to think but they cannot think for us. People must read and approve what they generate before passing it on. Realizing that hallucinations are inherent in LLMs seems important before the technology is put in charge of computers, weapons and economies."

Looking into PhD studentship opportunities for any US students seeking to study abroad 🎓. There are a few I've found here... happy to chat to prospective students (I work in evolution, molecular biology, immunity, genetics). A thread 🧵 1/n