I'm recruiting a postdoc! The Sheahan Lab at the Medical College of Wisconsin is looking to add a postdoctoral fellow to our team to expand our work studying the neurobiology of itch and pain in the central nervous system. Please share and reach out if you have any questions!

Stoked for #SOBP2026! Come by poster F324 to chat about some new imaging genetics work - "Genetic Contributions to Working Memory Activation in Early Adolescence - Links to Psychopathology and Cognition"

The first preprint from the lab is up! Are structural MRI correlates of substance use shared across substances, or are there unique associations? And do these reflect predispositional risk and/or possibly the effects of substance exposure? www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... #neuroskyence

So infuriating. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...

Please say hi at #ACNP if you'd like to chat with either of us about this opportunity!!

Toddler requested a "Master Yoda" bedtime story

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬. New from us, led by @sarahepaul.bsky.social. PheWAS in ABCD identifies many potentially modifiable substance use risk factors! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Great work led by Andrew Castillo extending sample size stability analyses to interactions! We've also added a function implementing these analyses to the InteractionPoweR R package: dbaranger.github.io/InteractionP... #rstats

When do interaction/moderation effects stabilize in linear regression?: https://osf.io/35t84

Reliability and sample size have a non-linear relationship. Linear increases in reliability yield diminishing reductions in the required sample size.

If you are ever working on a project and see r=0.98 between variables that are supposedly different, your first thought should be "oh $&*! what went wrong?", NOT "I wonder what mediates this???"

Shout out to BEAR Lab research tech Daniella Fernandez (who only joined 4 months ago!) whose poster abstract was selected for a nanosymposium at the annual meeting of the Upper Midwest Chapter of SFN this weekend! #neuroskyence #MRI 🧠🍺

Applications for the Career Development Institute (CDI) in Psychiatry are open! Strongly recommend for senior grad students and postdocs. cdipsychiatry.org

Interesting approach that aligns mouse and human brain-wide data using transcriptomics and structural connectivity. I'm curious if anyone here has tried using it yet? #neuroskyence www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... transbrain.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Official job ad is up! careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

A new favorite citation appeared!

TIL in Windows you can use PowerShell to search not only file names but also text file contents - including .R and .Rhistory files. In a moment of pure insanity, 1.5 years ago I did not save the code for a figure, but it was recorded in an old .Rhistory file!

Excited to share that I am officially recruiting a postdoc to study the neurobiology of addiction! Looking for someone who would be excited to lead current projects in the lab and develop new directions in related areas. More info: bearlab.science/opportunities/

🧠📊 New research examines potential bias in brain age algorithms across racial groups 📈 Study of 6 popular algorithms found lower accuracy for African American participants (r=0.51-0.85) compared to White/Hispanic participants (r=0.57-0.89)/1

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭-𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 | "The predominant lifespan trajectory is inverted U-shaped, rising from childhood to peak in young adulthood before declining in later adulthood" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐬 | "Although interaction effects were detected, they were small and practically negligible in their explanation of variance in externalizing behaviors" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Wooo NOA day! Phew.

If you're looking at pre-6.0 ABCD results with subcortical rs-fMRI correlations, the labels are all wrong! We reported a result as Auditory - L Putamen, but it it was actually Default Mode - L Cerebellum. docs.abcdstudy.org/latest/docum...

If interactions are incorrectly used when the actual hypothesis is an additive effect, then what's the appropriate test? stats.stackexchange.com/questions/66... #stats #rstats

Folks who had RAs learn R while in your lab - what resources were helpful? Are things like datacamp worth it?

Don't miss this interview with ✨new✨ @npp-journal.bsky.social Associate Editor Dr. Arpana Agrawal & our Special Projects Manager @brikchen.bsky.social Hear Dr. Agrawal's thoughts on the scope of the journal, NPP articles, and the role of peer reviewers (aka YOU!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HqN...

Collecting large genome-wide samples may de-risk reinvestment in psychopharmaceuticals. Expanding on past work that lumped all psychiatric disorders together, we conducted a test of the utility of GWAS for specific psychiatric indications. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Out now, led by @alexanderhatoum.bsky.social! GWAS associations are enriched for existing psychiatric drug targets www.nature.com/articles/s43...

I'm sorry, what is this scale????

Reliability of a difference score vs. reliability of an interaction term.

The BEAR Lab will be opening it's doors in July at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and we are looking for our first Research Tech! This position will help with funded MRI studies looking at the brain and alcohol use. More info: bearlab.science/contact/ #neuroscience #psychology #sciencejobs

Despite all of *waves around*, the Sheahan Lab is putting one foot in front of the other and is looking for a research technician. A great position for someone interested in gaining more neuroscience experience in itch & pain before applying for grad/med school: shorturl.at/DW3fU 🧠 #PainResearch

I'll be standing up for science tomorrow at Madison! www.eventbrite.com/e/stand-up-f...

Are there any lists of which labs are hiring postbacs this year? With the IRTA program down, there are many more undergrads looking for positions! 🧪 🧠 #science #neuroscience #psychology

Bryce Canyon, 2021

Chuffed to share my latest! A review of fMRI MVPA methods specifically tailored for developmental cognitive neuroscientists.

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state... This is by far the best, clearest and most realistic analysis of what we're in for that I've seen.

End of an era. I have so many friends and colleagues who I met as an IRTA. How many of us would be scientists, clinicians, doctors, or researchers without that training? Probably many many fewer. Would I be a scientist right now? Likely not.

Good #dataviz of how much will be lost with the NIH cuts: flo.uri.sh/visualisatio...

Oh. My. God. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Cool study by @ndosenbach.bsky.social et al. looking at individual prediction of traits in tasks 👇 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... Nice addition to our work looking at the same problem using our state space method in the HCP Led by the amazing @hardigirl.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42...

It feels weird to be promoting myself in the midst of *gestures wildly*, but I've been working on this project for a while and I'm super proud of it! One possible answer to the question of "What to do about the low reliability of task fMRI?" a 🧵 #neuroskyence #fMRI #Neuroimaging (1/11):

Multi-ancestral genome-wide association study of clinically defined nicotine dependence reveals strong genetic correlations with other substance use disorders and health-related traits. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.29.25320962v1

Of course this is the week when my car gets stolen 😡

Nice work with conclusions that I largely agree with www.nature.com/articles/s41.... I do worry that the application of #SEM significance testing, bootstrapping, and factor threshold approaches without accounting for the massive spatial auto-correlation in #fMRI may set an unfortunate precedent...

New from us, led by the sky-less Alex Miller, gray-matter associations with substance use initiation in the ABCD study are largely present prior to initiation. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... #neuroimaging

My kind of year-in-review: ranked #5 in the most jobs submitted to WashUs cluster, with over 400k jobs! 😂

Phase Transition xkcd.com/3025