Ali Rigby
@neuromusicnerd.bsky.social
Neuro PhD Student @UCSD | Jernigan & Dale Lab | Voytek Lab | BRIDGE Lab | Music Therapist, MT-BC | UCSD Colors of the Brain | UCSD Neuro Outreach | Stories of WiN | #DisabledinSTEM | #BiInSci
Potential mechanisms and functional significance of aperiodic neural activity
Potential mechanisms and functional significance of aperiodic neural activity
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 22 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02503-7In this Review, Preston, Smith and Voytek examine aperiodic neural activity in the brain and how measuring aperiodic activity can shed light on brain function and disease.
dlvr.it
Pleased to share that FEMA-Long is now published in PLOS Genetics! FEMA-Long, an efficient mixed-effects modeling method, includes modeling unstructured covariance, spline and spline interactions, and performing longitudinal GWAS to discover time-dependent genetic effects doi.org/10.1371/jour...
FEMA-Long: Modeling unstructured covariances for discovery of time-dependent effects in large-scale longitudinal datasets
Author summary Most large-scale datasets have complexities such as repeated measures, related individuals, or other dependencies across samples, preventing the use of standard regression approaches fo...
doi.org
Happy to announce one PhD and one postdoctoral position at the Rhythm & Brains Lab (PI: Pr. Sylvie Nozaradan), Institute of Neuroscience, UCLouvain, Brussels. Belgium. Connected to the ERC Consolidator Grant HUMAN RHYTHM. More info attached. Please share! #hiring #Neuroscience #MusicCognition
🚨Thrilled to share I am able to hire someone (PhD preferred) with coding expertise to work on our HAPPE software for EEG! Knowledge of Matlab, Python, and EEG signal processing required. Enthusiasm for teaching/mentoring, collaboration, and developmental science preferred!
If you are at #ACNP2026 and interested in metabolic psychiatry & psychiatric genetics - come check out my poster (W21) on the shared genetic architecture between Anorexia nervosa and metabolites! @acnporg.bsky.social
Motion Insensitive Resting-State Analysis (MIRA): meet me at poster 1595 at #OHBM2025 to discuss a new way of performing motion correction for resting state fMRI that effectively removes the confounding effect of motion on rsfMRI derived correlation matrices!
Meet me at #OHBM2025 poster 689 today/tomorrow to discuss using Fast and Efficient Mixed-Effects Algorithm (FEMA) for mixed-effects modeling with unstructured covariance and splines, perform longitudinal GWAS, and discover time-dependent genetic effects! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Stoked to be attending #OHBM2025 this week with our UCSD / JCVI team! If you’re here, be sure to stop by my poster to see some cool work from our lab using GAMMs: 📅 W/Th June 25th/26th 🧠 "Nonlinear age trajectories of subcortical microstructural and morphometric changes in the ABCD study"
We are also raising money to support undergrads at UCSF this summer! Help me, @neuronush.bsky.social and @quexarce.bsky.social buy ice cream and pizza for our little community of undergraduate researchers! 20% of sales for the rest of the month will go towards our programs!!!
Ximena Garcia Arceo@quexarce.bsky.social · last yr.My friend @christineliu.art and fellow IRACDA scholar (oof rip) designs wonderful wearable messages! The enamel pins especially make nice gifts for recent grads 👀 twophotonart.com
Check out our new preprint👇, work led by the incredible @parekhpravesh.bsky.social !!
Pravesh Parekh@parekhpravesh.bsky.social · last yr.Introducing FEMA-Long for high-dimensional large-scale mixed-effects modelling! Includes modelling unstructured covariance, non-linear effects using splines, time-dependent effects with spline interactions, and longitudinal GWAS with time-dependent genetic effects! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This interview with the neuroscience legend Dr Eve Marder is absolutely worth your time.
Stories of WiN@storiesofwin.bsky.social · last yr.Check out our latest profile! Dr. Eve Marder studies the stability and flexibility of neural circuit function. Follow the link below to learn more! www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202... #StoriesofWiN #WomenInNeuroscience #WomenInNeuro
Check out our new preprint on how infants respond to music over the first year of life! 👶🧠💃🎶 While neural responses are pretty much ready to go in the youngest, moving to music takes a bit longer, becoming more complex and potentially more dance-like by 12 months. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Development of Auditory and Spontaneous Movement Responses to Music over the First Year of Life
Humans across cultures not only share the ability to recognise music but also respond to it through movement. While the sensory encoding of music is well-studied, when and how infants naturally start ...
biorxiv.org
wild to see my entire peer network in neuroscience having their funding terminated (or about to be terminated)
I'm organizing a "Data for Good Rapid Response Team", i.e. a set of people who can be mobilized to work on short data science projects to help various groups and organizations. Sign up here if this is of interest to you, and please share with others with data science skills.
Data-for-good rapid response team
I'm collecting people with data science skills who may want to hear about sporadic opportunities to use their skills for good on short projects. Project themes will center on topics I am connected wit...
docs.google.com
The crush of new grant cancellations hasn't let up. If your grant was terminated (or your app was pulled) please use this Google Form👇 to submit details for tracking purposes. Multiple advocacy efforts are moving forward, but we must must must know more about what grants were cancelled and why.
Cancelled NIH grant information submission form
Please use this form to submit information identifying specific NIH grants that have been cancelled for any reason after January 20, 2025. Data from this form will be used to update the Rescinded NIH...
forms.gle
If you have a federal grant, I *highly* recommend going to this Friday's webinar on responding to grant terminations. Lisa Brown, former general counsel at Dept of Ed, will present along with other lawyers. Friday, March 21, 2-3 pm. More info & register here: www.linkedin.com/pulse/regist...
Excited to share that dissertation work is published in Human Brain Mapping! Self-selected nostalgic music engaged the DMN, reward network, and MTL in younger and older adults. With @assalh.bsky.social, @jonaskaplan.bsky.social, Petr Janata, and Talia Ginsberg onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Music‐Evoked Nostalgia Activates Default Mode and Reward Networks Across the Lifespan
Music-evoked nostalgia activates the default mode network, reward network, medial temporal lobe, and supplementary motor regions of the brain more than non-nostalgic but familiar music that sounds mu....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
It’s #BrainAwarenessWeek! Today, we're highlighting songbirds as a key model organism in #neuroscience research. These vocal learners help scientists study how the brain processes speech, learning, and memory. #KavliNeuro #BAW
KEEP CALLING. PEEL OFF ALL DEM SENATORS YOU CAN. ☎️: (202) 224-3121 Tell them to vote NO on Cloture and NO on CR. Vote is pushed to after 1:15ish for now. Situation is fluid. The only public YES votes are Schumer and Fetterman. They need 7-8 total. KEEP CALLING. Call retiring Senators too!
Check out our review to learn about all things joint music making! 🎶
Giacomo Novembre@giacomonovembre.bsky.social · last yr.🎶 Everything you ever wanted to know about Joint Music Making—but were afraid to ask! 🎶 A comprehensive review by Sara Abalde, @neuromusicnerd.bsky.social , @perikeller.bsky.social rikeller.bsky.social & me, bridging behavioural findings, neural processes, and computational models (link below).
I don’t even know how this could be presented as being in service of anything other than hindering scientific progress.
CDC Staff Prohibited From Co-Authoring Papers With World Health Organization Personnel
It’s just the latest “Orwellian” crackdown on government scientists.
huffingtonpost.co.uk
Principal researchers inside and outside academia: do you know groups self-organizing to protect academic science in the US? How can we connect and mobilize? Could you share your thoughts? 🧬🔬🔭🧪🧠🤖
F99/R00 AND K99/R00 DIVERSITY AWARD APPLICANTS If you have applied for a F99/R00 or K99/R00 Diversity award and the study section for review is not listed on your eRA Commons page, please reach out to me. DM me, email berg.grants.2029@gmail.com, Signal jeremymberg.78 THANK YOU
a picture of a cartoon character with the words call me on it
ALT: a picture of a cartoon character with the words call me on it
media.tenor.com
New essay on NIH and indirect costs: goodscience.substack.com/p/indirect-c...
Indirect Costs at NIH . . .
I wasn’t planning on spending part of a Saturday writing about cost accounting principles and the like, but NIH-world was hit with a doozy of a policy announcement on Friday night:
goodscience.substack.com
Andy Whiten and I wrote a @science.org perspective about a cool new study from @inbalarnon.bsky.social @simonkirby.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social et al! They found humpback whale song has language-like statistical structure, using methods inspired by infant language learning 🐋🎶 Links below ⬇️
You can read our new paper on modelling multiple data streams with varying dimensionality (alternately titled "What am I going to do with all these dimensions?!") if you want to. It's not even a little bit illegal.
Imaging Neuroscience@imagingneurosci.bsky.social · 2y agoNew paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Sarah Faber, A.R. McIntosh, et al: Mapping multi-modal dynamic network activity during naturalistic music listening direct.mit.edu/imag/article...
Good talking to @cenmag.bsky.social and @kvasquez.bsky.social about neurodivergence in STEM. Great article. My callout is to neurotypical folks to learn more so they can provide supports to students. #ActuallyAutistic cen.acs.org/careers/dive...
The challenge of being neurodivergent in STEM
Neurodivergent scientists say STEM isn’t built for them, despite the contributions they bring
cen.acs.org
I don't know how to prepare for the next challenging chapter of doing science in this country. I do know that supporting students is necessary. It's been the most meaningful part of my job, especially in times like these. But to do so, we need your help. crowdsurf.ucsd.edu/campaigns/su...
