Matt Cieslak
@cieslakmatt.bsky.social
Director of Informatics at PennLINC. Diffusion MRI, open science, computation and statistics
New dataset out in Data in Brief 🧠 We're releasing an open, test-retest neuroimaging dataset built for directly comparing single-echo vs. multi-echo fMRI, head-to-head, in the same people. 1/
A single-echo/multi-echo BOLD fMRI test-retest dataset
Functional MRI (fMRI) remains one of the primary tools for non-invasive studies of brain activity and organization in humans. Recently, multi-echo ima…
sciencedirect.com
Very cool bundle-based findings
How much does the childhood environment shape the brain? In our new preprint, we study the exposome (300+ environmental exposures) and link it to white matter structure in 8,000+ kids. 🧠✨ 🔗 Read the preprint: bit.ly/4wfsybZ 🧵 Thread below
One of the most beautiful, comprehensive, large scale studies of dMRI outputs I've ever seen. The amount of work and thought required was truly massive, but the results are clear and will be guiding how I think about these dMRI measures going forward. I replicated @stevenmeisler.com's analyses
Steven Meisler@stevenmeisler.com · 4mo agoDiffusion MRI (dMRI) is a powerful tool to study white matter maturation. In our new preprint, we process and distribute a new resource of >24,000 ABCD dMRI scans using open source tools! We then evaluate how methods shape inferences about development. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a powerful tool to study white matter maturation. In our new preprint, we process and distribute a new resource of >24,000 ABCD dMRI scans using open source tools! We then evaluate how methods shape inferences about development. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🍄 Our new living systematic review and meta-analysis on MDMA for PTSD is now live on medRxiv. Here's what we found and how we built upon our open science infrastructure to support it 🧵 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
A living systematic review, meta-analysis, and open data resource of trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has emerged as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generating considerable enthusiasm in the field. However, rapidly changing evid...
medrxiv.org
🏔️ Announcing IST 2026 in the Canadian Rockies! The 2nd annual meeting of the International Society for Tractography is happening this fall. Following Bordeaux, we’re gathering researchers, clinicians & developers pushing tractography, diffusion MRI & brain connectivity forward.
We think of white matter as the highways of the brain. But when we followed development along those highways, we were surprised. The journey is more complex than we thought. My final PhD paper, “Two Axes of White Matter Development”, is now out in @natcomms.nature.com! 🛣️🧠✨ 🔗 bit.ly/wm2axes
Ever wondered how white matter tracts actually map onto the cortical hierarchy and cognition—beyond the usual “projection vs association” labels? Our new preprint tackles exactly that! 🧠✨ doi.org/10.64898/202... Thread below 🧵
Anatomical White Matter Tracts Span the Cortical Hierarchy to Support Cognitive Diversity
Long-range white matter (WM) tracts support cognition by enabling communication between distant cortical regions, which are organized along a hierarchy defined by the sensorimotor-to-association (S-A)...
doi.org
Excited to share that our new review, "Depression as a disease of white matter network disruption: Learning from Multiple Sclerosis," is out now in Biological Psychiatry! We propose MS as a powerful model for studying how white matter network changes contribute to depression.
Depression as a disease of white matter network disruption: Learning from Multiple Sclerosis
Depression is a common and debilitating psychiatric disorder that is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. For nearly 40 years, scientists have attempted to localize depression in the b...
biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com
BEYOND delighted to see two brilliant #PennLINC alumni -- @valeriejsydnor.bsky.social + @lindenmp.bsky.social -- named by The Transmitter as "Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025". Super well deserved -- CONGRATS!!! www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...
The Transmitter’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025
We recognize the outstanding achievements of 25 neuroscientists who stand to shape the field for years to come.
thetransmitter.org
🧠I am excited to announce that our manuscript introducing a new data resource – PennLEAD (Penn Longitudinal Executive functioning in Adolescent Development) – is now available on bioRxiv. Below are some details highlighting our data resource🧵funded by NIMH R01MH113550 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
After years of development and testing, we are happy to present our work in "Diffusion MRI Processing in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study: Innovations and Applications"! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... A thread:
Diffusion MRI Processing in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study: Innovations and Applications
The landmark ongoing HEALthy Brain and Cognitive Development (HBCD) study will longitudinally chart brain development in a large sample (projected n=7,200) of infants through age 10 years with multimo...
biorxiv.org
Join us for the #NeuroHackademy Neuroimaging and Data Science networking event at this year's @sfn.org meeting. Tues. Nov. 18th from 7–9pm at the Marriott Marquis, Grand Ballroom 4. The event is free; food and drink will be available for purchase from the hotel.
🚨 New science alert! Our cross-species study, now in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrates psychedelics distort how we should interpret functional brain imaging. 👇🧵 nature.com/articles/s41... #Neuroscience #Psychedelics #BrainImaging
Psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonism alters neurovascular coupling and differentially affects neuronal and hemodynamic measures of brain function
Nature Neuroscience - Padawer-Curry et al. show that the hallucinogenic 5-HT2A receptor agonist DOI alters neurovascular coupling in mice, with implications for the interpretation of human fMRI...
nature.com
Excited to share that our work introducing the Reproducible Brain Charts (RBC) data resource is now published in Neuron!! 🎉 📚 Read the paper: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lpaF3BtfH... 🧠 Explore the RBC dataset: reprobrainchart.github.io
Golia Shafiei@goliashf.bsky.social · last yr.(1/18) Now out on BioRxiv‼️ Reproducible Brain Charts: An open data resource for mapping brain development and its associations with mental health | doi.org/10.1101/2025... Funded by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
New preprint from stellar IRTG PhD student Amelie Rauland + team on white matter bundle reconstruction! Shows that WM bundles can be reliably extracted from simple 32-direction dMRI & features predict cognition - huge potential for legacy and clinical data. Thread 👇 www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
New paper alert! This paper describes the work that we have been doing in the last few years to create a software ecosystem for tractometry that is extensible, interoperable, and generally useful.
eScience Institute@uwescience.bsky.social · 12mo agoNew pub alert 📖 Our very own @arokem.org co-authored "A software ecosystem for brain tractometry processing, analysis, and insight" for PLoS Computational Biology. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Looking for @theabcdstudy.bsky.social fMRI timeseries data?It's all in the 6.0 data release, thanks to @drdamienfair.bsky.social and team at ABCC 🧠: docs.abcdstudy.org/latest/docum...
ABCD-BIDS community collection
docs.abcdstudy.org
(1/4) Our recent work shows DTI-ALPS is confounded by white matter geometry (crossing fibers, undulation, dispersion), ALPS-asymmetry signature (ALPS measures asymmetry of diffusion) occurs throughout all WM, and ALPS-WM is not always orthogonal to PVS onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/TPCABU...
SO COOL
Valerie Jill Sydnor@valeriejsydnor.bsky.social · last yr.How does the human brain coordinate hierarchical cortical development? Our work in Nature Neuroscience identifies a role for thalamocortical structural connectivity in the expression of hierarchical periods of cortical plasticity & environmental receptivity in youth 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Alert! ... for the child development world! @fluxsociety.bsky.social @fitngin.bsky.social The Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study has released its first data wave - it’s massive. Check here: docs.hbcdstudy.org and here: nbdc-datahub.org Here’s why it matters 🧠🍼
(1/18) Now out on BioRxiv‼️ Reproducible Brain Charts: An open data resource for mapping brain development and its associations with mental health | doi.org/10.1101/2025... Funded by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Reproducible Brain Charts: An open data resource for mapping brain development and its associations with mental health
Major mental disorders are increasingly understood as disorders of brain development. Large and heterogeneous samples are required to define generalizable links between brain development and psychopat...
doi.org
@kevin-y-sun.bsky.social will be presenting his work on "Copy Number Variant Risk Scores Are Associated with Personalized Functional Brain Network Topography" Wed, June 25, 13:15 - 15:15 & Thus, June 26, 13:45 - 15:45
@audreycluo.bsky.social will be presenting her fab work on "Two Axes of White Matter Development" on Wed, June 25, 13:15 -15:15 & Thurs, June 26, 13:45 -15:45; Poster #1010.
@goliashf.bsky.social is ALSO presenting "Systematic dynamical profiling to discover and manipulate the dynamical regime of the primate brain" Thursday, Jun 26: 9:00 AM – 10:15 AM during the computational dynamics symposium in Room M2.
@goliashf.bsky.social is presenting (via video, 🥲) "Reproducible Brain Charts: An Open Data Resource for Mapping the Developing Brain and Mental Health" on Friday, Jun 27: 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM. This talk is part the Neuroinformatics and Data Sharing session in Room M3 (Mezzanine Level).
@stevenmeisler.com is presenting "A quality-rated, analysis-ready release of 26,174 dMRI sessions from the ABCD Study" Friday / Saturday 1810. Wooo!!!!
The Baller Lab is thrilled to announce that @elenaccooper.bsky.social just had her first first-author publication! “Investigating mood and cognition in people with multiple sclerosis: a prospective cross-sectional study protocol” is now published on BMJ Open: bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/5/e094733! 🧠
Investigating mood and cognition in people with multiple sclerosis: a prospective cross-sectional study protocol
Introduction Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated neurological disorder that affects one million people in the USA. Up to 50% of patients with MS experience depression, yet the mechanisms of ...
bmjopen.bmj.com
Some very cool imaging sequences in this one
Juliette Brook@juliettebrook.bsky.social · last yr.Dreaming of a dataset that tracks mood, sleep & activity to better understand affective instability (AI)…AND paired with advanced MRI? 🤯 Check out our new bioRxiv preprint for a 13–23 y/o community sample (n=10 and growing!) with multi-echo fMRI, EMA & actigraphy: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
