Honored to be named the runner-up for the Science & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation, with my essay now published by @science.org science.org/doi/10.1126/... The essay lays out how mapping the brain's functional circuits lets us move neuromodulation from deep toward the brain surface.

I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.

Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2w ago

Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:

“I have done all of the things that one is supposed to do to earn a tenure-track position. And I have done approximately 85% of them by typing prompts into a large language model and then moderately editing the output.” 🤣🤣🤣 brilliant 👌🏽 open.substack.com/pub/inprepar...

Opinion: I Was Not Allowed To Type Prompts Into ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk And This Is Discrimination

By Dr. Rachel Simmons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

open.substack.com

A great resource! We've been using NSI to quality-control all of our recent data.

@cjl2007.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy to share that our paper on objective quality assessment for "precision" fMRI is now out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social A recap of what it does, what's new since the preprint, and code you can run on your own data. cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Happy to share that our paper on objective quality assessment for "precision" fMRI is now out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social A recap of what it does, what's new since the preprint, and code you can run on your own data. cell.com/neuron/fullt...

The Battle over the Constitution Has Spread to American Science. I'm out in the @theatlantic.com today about the new OMB proposed rule. It's just the longtime agenda of the the Supreme Court. US science and cancer cures now all depend on us picking up a fight with the Roberts Court.

The Unitary Executive Takes Over New Territory

The Trump administration’s theory of how the federal government should work is a threat to American science.

theatlantic.com

Tremor is highly heterogeneous. Our new study in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social shows that rest and action tremor map to different networks within the motor cortex. By refining DBS contact selection, we can engage these circuits to optimize treatment for both. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Action and rest tremor map to distinct networks within the primary motor cortex

Goede et al. show that different tremor types engage distinct regions of the motor cortex. Using deep brain stimulation network mapping, they find that optimal treatment of rest tremor involves effect...

cell.com

We've known that socioeconomics (SES) matters for the 🧠. New & 🤯 is that SES drowns out all other brain associations, incl. IQ. If you train an algorithm to predict IQ from brain data, it's still way better at predicting SES. Science Mag: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @smarek0502.bsky.social 👀🧵👇

Scott Marek@smarek0502.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What matters most for childhood brain organization? We analyzed 649 variables. The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers. Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES. In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Remarkable stability in functional brain networks over time!

Caterina Gratton@caterinagratton.bsky.social · 2mo ago

How can we acquire new knowledge and skills on a daily basis while remaining the same person? I'm excited to share our new preprint led by @hyejinjadelee.bsky.social & Ally Dworetsky tackling this question, just in time for #OHBM2026: doi.org/10.64898/202... 🧵👇 #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky

A new Science study suggests variables linked to socioeconomic status—increased stress and reduced sleep—have strong relationships to brain structure and function in children. Brain differences observed are unrelated to genetic ancestry and may not be permanent. https://scim.ag/4opL5PF

Children living in areas with low socioeconomic opportunities have more tired and stressed brains, a new study finds

Children's zip codes change their brains

Children living in areas with low socioeconomic opportunities have more tired and stressed brains, a new study finds

scientificamerican.com

A new study found that the number one environmental factor influencing brain structure and function is the socioeconomic status of a child's family. www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/s...

Study highlights influence of socioeconomic status on children’s brain development

A new study found that the number one environmental factor influencing brain structure and function is the socioeconomic status of a child's family.

statnews.com

Brain scans can predict a child's socioeconomic status better than they can predict the child’s IQ. #neuroskyence By @natmesanash.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...

IQ’s link to brain structure, function in children may be a mirage

A child’s socioeconomic status, screen time and amount of sleep all show stronger associations with measures of brain structure and function, according to an imaging study of nearly 12,000…

thetransmitter.org

Or perhaps a child’s SES better predicts their brain scans than their IQ does.

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Brain scans can predict a child's socioeconomic status better than they can predict the child’s IQ. #neuroskyence By @natmesanash.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...

A study of more than 2,300 9- to 10-year-olds found that socioeconomic factors explained most differences in the preteens' brain development. n.pr/4xoA70O

Socioeconomic factors are becoming 'biologically embedded' in children's brains

A study of more than 2,300 9- to 10-year-olds found that socioeconomic factors explained most differences in the preteens' brain development.

n.pr

Is zip code everything? A new study involving U.S. children found it influences brain function and structure—specifically, kids in lower socioeconomic opportunity areas had sleep deprived and stressed brains. New on @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/chil...

Children's zip codes change their brains

Children living in areas with low socioeconomic opportunities have more tired and stressed brains, a new study finds

scientificamerican.com

How can we acquire new knowledge and skills on a daily basis while remaining the same person? I'm excited to share our new preprint led by @hyejinjadelee.bsky.social & Ally Dworetsky tackling this question, just in time for #OHBM2026: doi.org/10.64898/202... 🧵👇 #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky

Functional brain organization is stable within individuals across years

Brain regions exhibit dynamic yet highly coordinated activity patterns that form large-scale functional networks measurable through resting-state correlations. While their association with fluctuating...

doi.org

This is one of the most socially important scientific findings I've ever been a part of. SES has a larger cross-sectional effect on brain function than any other variable. Prediction of IQ from brain data is actually mostly just predicting SES. Mind blowing.

Scott Marek@smarek0502.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What matters most for childhood brain organization? We analyzed 649 variables. The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers. Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES. In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In sum, SES dominates childhood brain organization. Zip code matters most. These findings have been at the forefront of my mind daily, with Darwin’s quote living rent free in my head: “if the misery of the poor not be caused by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great be our sin.”

This was evidence of shortcut learning, a well-known problem in machine learning & AI. Rather than models learning brain-IQ associations, they are learning links between the brain and SES. So much so that models trained to predict brain-IQ associations were better at predicting SES than IQ.

When the correlation between SES and IQ was r<0.1, brain-IQ prediction performance was poor (out of sample r < 0.1). This was not the case for varying the training sample by the p-factor. Brain-IQ predictions only performed well when IQ & SES were correlated in the training sample.

We first asked what happens if we control for SES in regression models? Tldr; the majority of brain-IQ associations became much weaker, so that 70% were no longer statistically significant. The strongest IQ associations were those most affected by SES.

The BWAS maps of SES, exposome, and IQ did not match those of known neurobiology related to higher-order cognition (fronto-parietal). Rather, they overlapped with arousal - norepinephrine receptors, sleep, & stimulant use.

What matters most for childhood brain organization? We analyzed 649 variables. The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers. Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES. In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇

Paying peer reviewers works. Expanded Fast & Fair experiment @biologyopen.bsky.social: • 5.5 vs 37.7 working days to decision with reviews • ~3 vs ~9 reviewer invitations per manuscript • no reduction in editor-assessed review quality • similar acceptance rates www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Andrew N. Van, Nico U.F. Dosenbach, et al: Frame-wise multi-echo distortion correction for superior functional MRI doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

Excited to share our new preprint “Functional brain network correlates of pubertal timing and depressive symptoms in preadolescence” doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.22.727009 We examined how pubertal timing relates to whole-brain functional connectivity and depression risk in >9,000 youth (ABCD Study)

I assigned random gender/ethnicity labels to scientific abstracts from the literature and then asked Claude to do a thematic analysis. Claude identified a clinical versus computational split for female/male authors and a DEI focus for Black/URM authors. All in completely random data.

On second thought, the functional connectivity results make more sense. The electrically determined connections are a subset of the functional connectivity estimates. The correlation derived maps likely reflect recurrent connectivity of broader networks. Which is what a lot of us assume anyway.