"Elevated pre-pandemic depressive symptoms increased the hazard of severe COVID-19 in fully-adjusted (aHR=1.27; 95%CI: 1.03-1.57) models." pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42678769/ Does the immune system get depressed too?
First Episode Mania with Delusions of Grandeur and Reference Developed During Intense Use of ChatGPT www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... "During his hospital admission, the patient kept corresponding with ChatGPT"
Best meta-(psych) science piece I have read in a while! I think this is exactly what is needed in #consci, i.e. phenomena before theories
Neuroskeptic@neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 7d ago"We argue that psychology should aim its empirical research efforts at establishing phenomena... In this conceptualization, phenomena are understood as robust features of the world, which are evidenced by patterns in data." osf.io/download/rh9...
"We argue that psychology should aim its empirical research efforts at establishing phenomena... In this conceptualization, phenomena are understood as robust features of the world, which are evidenced by patterns in data." osf.io/download/rh9...
Dysregulated adult hippocampal neurogenesis in depression - "evidence for a stalled neurogenic process" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42629468/ This is an old theory, but could this new paper bring it back? 🤔 It has n=123 which is a very large sample for this kind of hard-to-get postmortem data.
What dashboard-based research means for author responsibility and accountability retractionwatch.com/2026/08/25/g... A great piece on the emerging problem of researchers not having full access to the data they work with.
Guest post: The uncomfortable truth an explosion of papers reveals about authors’ access to data
wildpixel/iStock The involvement of independent academic researchers in examining data and conducting analyses is central to producing trustworthy research. Because of this, many journals require a…
retractionwatch.com
"We introduce Tetrix, a novel and flexible Tetris-based paradigm for fMRI experiments" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42637970/
"If our brains get too smart they will become self aware and take over our bodies." – Ken M
"Are you in control of your brain, or is your brain controlling you?" nhpbs.org/schedule/sum... Yes, and yes. Or alternatively, no and no.
Your Brain: Who's In Control? - Nova
Your Brain: Who's In Control? - NovaTV Schedule for New Hampshire's only statewide locally owned and operated television network, engages minds, connects communities, and celebrates New Hampshire with...
nhpbs.org
This is one of the worst scientific papers I’ve ever seen. statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/08/22/t...
This is one of the worst scientific papers I’ve ever seen. | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
It's possible to decode which movie someone was watching just from the *post-movie* resting state fMRI. This is because the voxels active during the movie are persistently deactivated afterwards! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... What goes up must come down...
Monkeys learn to report their own sensory cortical population activity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... "The key idea is to train subjects to report specific patterns of population activity in a sensory area recorded online, rather than the actual stimuli presented"
Monkeys learn to report their own sensory cortical population activity
How sensory cortical activity is read out by downstream circuits to guide behavior is a fundamental unsolved problem. Substantial work has examined correlations between sensory neural responses and an...
biorxiv.org
"Most" mice can survive brain stimulation that makes them sleep 70% less than normal, while showing no deficits pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42618797/ Hmm, so maybe sleep is largely unnecessary? "most" survive is not all that reassuring, though...
"Networks that ordinarily segregate internal and external processing integrated" during psychedelic experiences pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42618786/ hmm
Cortical organoids can survive for up to five years in culture - and they show signs of "aging" www.thetransmitter.org/organoids/fi...
An fMRI study in which artists "made aesthetic judgments on their own and other artists' paintings" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42616727/ Hmm, in my opinion, I am great
I'm all for it, but these papers seem to surface periodically (e.g., pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11986119/ from 2002, reference 8 in the current paper) with slightly different perspectives and increased empirical evidence base, yet the message stays the same.
The integration of neurology, psychiatry, and neuroscience in the 21st century - PubMed
Neurology and psychiatry have, for much of the past century, been separated by an artificial wall created by the divergence of their philosophical approaches and research and treatment methods. Scientific advances in recent decades have made it clear that this separation is arbitrary and counterprod …
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Towards a joint classification of neurological and psychiatric disorders www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... Hmm... but if we're doing that, why not put endocrinology into the mix as well? Endocrine disorders can have many psychiatric symptoms.
"Trying to change one's sexual orientation is health-undermining and ineffective" - a study of 315 sexual minority Mormons, 75% of whom tried to change their own sexuality at some point in their lives pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42603819/
In mice, hibernation causes the loss of more than 50% of all hippocampal synapses. But after recovery, memories are preserved and most of the 'lost' synapses grow back! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... "Somehow, the synapse returned."
Artificial hibernation reveals synaptic engram architecture associated with memory retention
Memories leave lasting physical changes at the synaptic level. Although stable, larger spines are thought to support memory, the high turnover of dendritic spines and the drifting of neuronal represen...
science.org
My first post on my new site: in which I suggest that neuroscientists may be sleeping on important developments in AI neuroskepticbsky.substack.com/p/why-neuros...
Why Neuroscientists Should Take Transformers Seriously
What if transformers are disguised models of brain function?
neuroskepticbsky.substack.com
The non-specificity of placebo effects link.springer.com/article/10.1... I prefer the term "non-specific effects" to "placebo effect" in most cases. There's a tendency to mystify and reify "the placebo effect"
The non-specificity of placebo effects - European Journal for Philosophy of Science
The notion of placebo effect plays an important role in medicine, yet there is no widely accepted characterization of it. This paper defends and refines the view, originating with psychiatrist Arthur ...
link.springer.com
Why Neuroscientists Should Take Transformers Seriously neuroskepticbsky.substack.com/p/why-neuros... My first proper post in 5 years! Perhaps it will turn out that there is nothing in the brain that resembles a transformer, but we should have a close look.
Why Neuroscientists Should Take Transformers Seriously
What if transformers are disguised models of brain function?
neuroskepticbsky.substack.com
After five years, I have decided to return to blogging! My new Substack is here: neuroskepticbsky.substack.com First post coming soon...
Neuroskeptic Publication | Substack
Welcome to my publication. Click to read Neuroskeptic Publication, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.
neuroskepticbsky.substack.com
Reverse engineering neural circuits - @wiringthebrain.bsky.social talks to @behrenstimb.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/computationa...
Success stories from computational neuroscience
Kevin Mitchell talks with Timothy Behrens about ring attractors, the role of innate structure, and an expanded view of cognitive maps.
thetransmitter.org
From guillotine to EEG: Revisiting the neurological controversies of decapitation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🪓😖
From guillotine to EEG: Revisiting the neurological controversies of decapitation through modern neurophysiology
The question of whether consciousness persists after decapitation has fascinated scientists, philosophers, and the public for over two centuries, from…
sciencedirect.com
Permissive vs. instructive causality in mental health - "biological substrates shape a space of possibilities; contextual factors - such as life challenges or subjective appraisal - steer toward specific trajectories." pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42563280/
Decade-long fraud by market survey firm a ‘gut punch’ for researchers - @retractionwatch.com retractionwatch.com/2026/08/06/o... The company was called Op4G aka "Opinions 4 Good" 🤢
Decade-long fraud by market survey firm a ‘gut punch’ for researchers
Credit: AndreyPopov/iStock In April 2025, David Victorson, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Chicago, was polishing several manuscripts for submission when a colleague sent him a link to…
retractionwatch.com
An interesting case on @retractionwatch.com - an amateur physicist (day job: composer) published a paper on general relativity, admitting to using AI to help write it. Is that a problem? retractionwatch.com/2026/08/05/a...
A composer published a paper on theoretical physics. His lack of credentials drew criticism.
Some people compose music or make YouTube videos for a hobby. That’s Brandon Yates’ job — so in his spare time, he tries his hand at theoretical physics. But his only published paper was questioned…
retractionwatch.com
The onset of farming may have led to a linguistic 'golden age', when far more different languages were spoken than before (or afterwards) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The rise and fall of language diversity through the Holocene
Characterizing the factors that have shaped linguistic diversity is fundamental for understanding human history, culture, and cognition. In this study, we combined statistical and social computational...
science.org