What drives the bidirectional relationship between metabolic and mental ill-health? Read our new metabolic psychiatry paper, “An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... led by @saramehrhof.bsky.social @hugofleming.bsky.social

We often hear from reviewers: "what about demand effects?" So we developed a method to eliminate them. Something weird happened during testing: We couldn’t detect demand effects in the first place! (1/8)

Brilliant work by @saramehrhof.bsky.social on shared neurocognitive signatures of psychiatric and metabolic disorder at #cpconf2025

New preprint! People vary in healthy food preferences, with some veering towards obsessive. We found #orthorexia associated with disgust-like facial responses to unhealthy foods. BUT: also with appetitive stomach responses! Is it an interoceptive self-control mechanism? doi.org/10.1101/2025... (1/7)

Finally, the amazing Professor Camilla Nord presents on interoception - including some cool lived experience work on body sensations, and work on disgust and gastric rhythms, alongside work on energy conservation. #BAP2025

It’s #BAP2025 time! Kicking us off is Dr Megan Jackson, the winner of the junior non-clinical award talking about animal models of apathy and motivation. Key quote: ‘as scientists, we love a tight error bar’. @bapsych.bsky.social

Today at #BAP2025 we heard from both lived-experience and pharmacology experts that clozapine,“Britain’s most dangerous drug” is lifesaving for people with treatment-resistance— with current thresholds for discontinuation racially unequal (some people have naturally lower but safe neutrophil levels)

'Mental health diagnoses are not just misapplied, but invented.' Camilla Nord on the mental illness epidemic

Summer Books 2025; the mental illness epidemic; teen-centric novels; mass protest in the modern era; a philosophy of eating – and much more www.the-tls.co.uk/issues/cu...

I'm so grateful to write my first magazine article with Psyche Magazine! psyche.co/ideas/how-mu... It features our preprint on 🫁 'Body-Wandering' 🫀 with invaluable guidance from @micahgallen.com and @themindwanders.bsky.social : biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

My favorite genre of horrifying but fascinating interoception research - Modification of Human Gastric Acid Secretion with Operant-Conditioning Procedures - Whitehead et al, 1975 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

🚨 New paper out in JAMAPsych: 🦣 project led by the brilliant @anahitm.bsky.social & @docqhuys.bsky.social ’ group. Our meta-analysis found that #dopamine & #serotonin have distinct effects on reinforcement learning. A step toward biomarker guided treatment? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

There is also good news embedded in the report. We find that taVNS briefly purturbs the correlation of the pupil dilation trace of the left and the right eye. This novel marker is not as strongly associated with sensory ratings. But it makes sense since we stimulate one side of the vagus.

My new paper with Jennifer Cook sets out potential reasons for high rates of Parkinson's disease (PD) diagnosis in the autistic population: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @mrccbu.bsky.social @thechbh.bsky.social 🧵1/n

Academic life, and sometimes life in general, can feel chock-full of disappointments. But not today, satan! 😈

Look what came in the mail! Looking forward to getting into @camillanord.bsky.social ‘s “The Balanced Brain.” 🥳 I’ve heard good things…

Jeff Dalley presenting our translational animal-to-human collaboration targeting uncertainty in anxiety - a @wellcometrust.bsky.social mental health award led by @beckyneuro.bsky.social at @britishneuro.bsky.social #BNA2025

so, so excited to share our new theory which endeavours to answer why depression and poor metabolic health go hand-in-hand: "An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health" 💪🧠🔋 @saramehrhof.bsky.social @hugofleming.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps...

Our lecturer had a picture of a blonde woman up on a slide and clearly expected us to know who she was, but we're all Gen Z so none of us did. I guessed Princess Diana which was incorrect. It's this photo btw

Thrilled to see @lydiajhickman.bsky.social win the BNA Postgraduate Prize @britishneuro.bsky.social in Liverpool. Hard to think of a better start to a conference!

A postdoc in my lab contacted a fellow scientist to get some advice and was told that, because he's currently working on the topic, he "can't give away all his secrets." I find this extremely lame, and yet I keep encountering it. Science is not a zero-sum game!!

Elementary

Fab new pub setting lived experience priorities for interoception research in mental health. Congrats @lydiajhickman.bsky.social‬ & team 👏

Reading The Balanced Brain by @camillanord.bsky.social and finding it fascinating 😀

I just can't remember the story of Charles Darwin writing On the origin of species being that he sliced it into 40 papers while supervising four PhD students, answering 70 emails and attending 4 Microsoft Teams meetings a day while completing an e-Learning course about fire safety in the background

Workshop contributors had a variety of initial thoughts in response to the question: “how are bodily signals related to your mental health?” This was conducted prior to any detailed information about the aims of the workshop, or the field's perceived notions of interoception. 🧵4/n

Patient priorities for interoception research, just out in Lancet eClinicalMedicine 🧠🫁🫀 ⬇️⬇️⬇️ — the first pub from our @wellcometrust.bsky.social Mental Health Award Led by the brilliant @gabmackie.bsky.social & @lydiajhickman.bsky.social

Phase IIb trial of 5-MeO-DMT in depression reports big results: -15.5 MADRS reduction -57% remission by day 8 But where has the placebo response gone? Barely there: 0% remission, +0.3 MADRS at day 8. 🤔 investor.ghres.com/news-release...

I am excited to share our latest paper @Nature where we construct a hi-res spatial map of the human hypothalamus, the brain region central in appetite control. It is a collaboration between @IMS_MRL @Cambridge_Uni & @MPI_Metabolism www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Me in the WSJ today, arguing that the relationship between social media and mental health is not clear cut, and bans for teenagers aren't the answer. (NB I did not pick this title, I would have gone for something kinder. I understand why people are worried.) 1/ www.wsj.com/health/welln...

Publishing in (and reviewing for) eLife rocks. End of.

The mind/body revolution: how the division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness fails us all

Going beyond integrating value - dopamine responses are more sophisticated: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In today’s Times Magazine, a piece warm towards the umbrella review of antidepressants. It’s interesting how the journalist highlights that it took a year for our critique to come out, and only a month for their reply. Implying that there was not much to the criticism.

Fantastic article in Brain by Tom Pollak on why so many are attributing their ills to inflammation- part psychiatric stigma, part misunderstanding of emerging research & part ‘monocausotaxophilia’ (tendency to see everything through one explanatory causal narrative) t.co/wXBXzKSUhi

Can what you eat change your mind? 🍎 My first piece in @theguardian.com on why we like what we like, and the role the gut might play in mental health. Hint: it’s probably not all about the microbiome.

For all women in science Eleanor Maguire should be an inspiration. Unlike Rosalind Franklin, her contribution was fully appreciated during her lifetime. So it is fitting that in 2008 she was awarded the Rosalind Franklin medal by the Royal Society. #neuroscience #psychology

Great take as ever from @garwboy.bsky.social “where the majority of children own a smartphone, then if a chunk of that population ends up requiring mental healthcare, then the majority…will also own a smartphone. It does not logically follow that smartphones are the cause of mental health issues”

We’re recruiting participants for the Em-Body study! Check your eligibility and sign up here: shorturl.at/AEelF

Dec 24th as per my daughter’s current favourite book, from my own childhood. Parenting was different in the 1990s.

Couldn't agree more with Paul Nurse that “Research institutes and units play a unique, beneficial role in the UK’s RDI landscape and this sector should be expanded....” So the MRC should rethink their regressive decision to close MRC Units. www.science.org/content/arti...

Metabolic health is closely intertwined with brain health, I write as I eat my breakfast

Congratulations to @lydiajhickman.bsky.social , winner of the 2024 BNA Postgraduate Prize! Lydia’s pioneering research explores the complex intersections of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Parkinson’s disease. bna.org.uk/mediacentre/... #NeuroscienceAwards #BNAPrizeWinner #WomenInSTEM

Happy Christmas to the best lab in the world, and commiserations to my team for a truly stunning 💫loss at “real or fake Christmas paper titles” (designed by @lydiajhickman.bsky.social, copyright pending) 🎄 🎄🎄

I'm recruiting a 23-month postdoc! If you're interesting in #ComputationalPsychiatry or #EatingDisorders research please apply and/or get in touch - very happy to have informal chats with potential applicants, and put you in touch with existing members of my lab. jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

Hugely exciting focussed ultrasound neuromodulation data from JeYoung Jung today - substantial behavioral, neurochemical, and even volumetric effects of theta burst sonication of anterior temporal lobe. But how do 🧠 changes cause behavioral improvement? We still don’t fully understand…

It is appalling and terrifying to think that if you discovered your toddler was not related to you or your partner (because of an IVF clinic’s error!!!), they would be taken away from you

Social media ban for under-16s 'on the table' in UK www.bbc.co.uk/news/a... You know what else I'd like to know is 'on the table'? Safeguards or exemptions for young people and teens who will be legitimately harmed by this move. 1/15

A computational signature of self-other mergence in Borderline Personality Disorder So pleased to have contributed to this work led by the brilliant Giles Story (we'll get him over here eventually) www.nature.com/articles/s41...