Brendan Stiltner

@brendanstiltner.bsky.social

Boston, he/him

We've spent decades predicting who will "convert" to psychosis — while conversion rates keep falling and the people in our clinics keep struggling. Our new Viewpoint in JAMA Psychiatry makes the case: it's time to stop counting conversions.

With @remyfurrer.bsky.social, a new piece in Nature Human Behavior. The standard description of a polygenic score as a "genetic predisposition" essentializes a statistical construct. It's not language policing: PGS are a new kind of entity; now is the time to think carefully about what they are.

Polygenic risk scores are not genetic predispositions - Nature Human Behaviour

Nature Human Behaviour - Polygenic risk scores are not genetic predispositions

nature.com

Our lab (w/ @patrickgbissett) is hiring a full-time research coordinator to work with us on cognitive control, dense fMRI, computational modeling, and human-AI interaction. Designed for post-bacs looking to start a Ph. D in ~2 years. Please repost. phxc1b.rfer.us/STANFORDNLbWAG

Social Science Research Coordinator (Hybrid Opportunity) in School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, United States

Professor Russ Poldrack’s lab is seeking a new full-time Research Coordinator. The RC will work closely with and report directly to Dr. Patrick...

phxc1b.rfer.us

NIH is requesting comments on a new draft policy that may require human brain imaging data (and other data) from nih-funded research to only be shared via controlled access, & only with certain countries. I suggest neuroimagers read closely & submit comments by 3/18. osp.od.nih.gov/comment-form...

Comment Form: Draft NIH Controlled-Access Data Policy and Proposed Revisions to NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Science Policy (OSP): Request for Information on Draft NIH Controlled-Access Data Policy and Proposed Revisions to NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy

osp.od.nih.gov

Both chambers of Congress have now passed the FY26 minibus with NIH provisions. The President will sign. (1) $48.7 billion for NIH (2) Full IDC recovery (3) No more multi-year funding (4) No NIH reorganization, maintaining the current IC structure.

Bild

Kansas just passed a monstrous bill enabling criminal penalties and vigilante lawsuits for trans people using the bathroom according to their gender identity and requires them to surrender their current drivers licenses and birth certificates if it does not match their sex assigned at birth.

He discussed autism/vaccines with Jay Bhattacharya on his show in June saying “If the data are robust that vaccines don’t cause autism, then run a proper trial” (those studies have been done) and discounted the idea that the rise in autism diagnoses can be explained by changes in testing/criteria.

In sum: all global prevalence rates about gaming addiction/disorder seem to be a partial combination of both gaming *and* gambling prevalence. The same applies to other studies, which use gaming measures in relevant languages. Chinese seems to be a major exception.

New preprint alert! We used connectome-based predictive modeling in a transdiagnostic sample to identify brain network correlates of wide array of behavioral measures. We also identify where networks supporting cognition overlap with those linked to diagnostically related clinical symptomatology.

Transdiagnostic connectome-based predictive modeling of many behavioral phenotypes reveals brain network mediators of clinical-cognitive relationships

Connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) applied to functional MRI connectivity data can identify brain networks that vary with behavioral measures across subjects. The prediction strength also prov...

biorxiv.org

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...

thecrimson.com