Shan Siddiqi @shansiddiqi.bsky.social
@shansiddiqi
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Psychiatric neuroscientist (with capital Ψ) | Causal🧠 stim target mapper | Neuropsychiatrist @HarvardMed | ❤️@AaishahRaquib, twin turbos, blitz♟️, blues🎸
Boston, MA
Joined April 2019
Out @NatureNeuro: Network localization of brain stim targets for PTSD. TLDR: Lesions connected to this circuit REDUCE risk of PTSD in Vets. Also tested with fMRI and TMS. Free link: With @foxmdphd @NoahSPhilipMD @davidcarreon @AArulpragasam @MoreyLab
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Unpopular opinion: I love my job. I love psychiatry, I love neuroscience, I love academia, my patients (but not their insurance company), my students, MATLAB, and maybe even Reviewer 2. Just wanted to balance the seemingly-opposing viewpoints that seem to be all over Twitter.
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@designmom As a psychiatrist, I’ve seen a situation in which CPS in Boston tried very hard to do something similar to one of my patients. I had to fight with an aggressive CPS worker who clearly had a vendetta and was making false statements about the patient’s psychiatric condition.
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Out now in @BiologicalPsyc1 @SOBP . Our latest thoughts on "Targeting symptom-specific networks with TMS," with @foxmdphd of @BWHNeurology . Thanks to @harvardbrainsci @BrighamResearch @Brain_Circuits .
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Out now in @NatureHumBehav @SpringerNature:. TMS, DBS, and lesions converge on common causal circuits in neuropsychiatric disease. Lesions reveal better TMS/DBS targets. All 3 modalities can modulate similar circuits. Thanks @foxmdphd and 24 co-authors!.
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Just changed my email signature from "Instructor" to "Assistant Professor." Let's also make it Twitter official.
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Out now @NatureHumBehav w/Joe Taylor, .@foxmdphd.A common brain network unites heterogeneous published atrophy sites across mental illness. Surprisingly, lesions to the network led to DECREASED mental illness, suggesting it's compensatory, not causal.
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Check out our latest thoughts on translating recent innovations into concrete approaches for targeting brain circuits clinically. In @npp_journal #NPPR2024. With @foxmdphd @RolstonJohn @Khosravan2Sanaz @BWHNeurology @BWHNeurosurgery @harvardbrainsci .
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Our latest work, out now in @ScienceTM. Precision fMRI mapping reveals distinct connectivity patterns for depression associated with traumatic brain injury.. A brief explainer thread (1/n). Thanks to co-authors @DavidLBrody1 @leuthardt @MauCorbetta + more.
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NEW @NatRevNeurosci.Causal Mapping of Human Brain Function. We propose a structured framework, synthesizing great thinkers in theology, philosophy, econometrics, microbiology, epidemiology, computer science, and even neuroscience. Thanks @foxmdphd @josef_parvizi @KordingLab.1/n.
Causal mapping of human brain function: New review paper with @shansiddiqi, @josef_parvizi and Michael D. Fox
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I wonder if my paper would have a better shot at Nature Neuroscience if I referred to my patients as "primates.".
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I think psychiatry is mostly about treating diseases that haven't been discovered yet. and psychiatric neuroscience is mostly about discovering them and handing them over to the neurologists.
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Out now in @BiologicalPsyc1: Individualized TMS site connectivity predicts antidepressant efficacy. We independently replicated recent work by @cashmachine15, @PBFitzgerald, and @AndrewZalesky. Thanks to co-authors/mentors @alvaropleone and @foxmdphd!.
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I think we settled the debate about whether neuroanatomy of MS lesions is related to depression risk in a large sample (n=281). Peak in VTA. Excited to share our new paper @NatMentHealth with @IsaiahNeurology @foxmdphd @harvardbrainsci @BrighamResearch.
Excited to share - we identify a unique #MS #depression circuit by analyzing the connectivity of MS lesion locations. Possible #TMS target? @shansiddiqi @foxmdphd @BWHNeurology @Brain_Circuits @NatMentHealth Brigham MS Center
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1st trial comparing TMS to other augmentation strategies for MDD. Spoiler: TMS outperformed switch to venlafaxine, while Abilify augmentation (the only strategy that's ever been shown to be superior to others) did not.
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@esra_mbg People don't appreciate the value of a passport from the US, Europe, etc (i.e. where white people live). You have the freedom to go wherever you want, no ridiculousness. Giving up my Pakistani passport was the most liberating experience of my life. Hope you get the same chance.
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K23 funded!. Thanks to my mentor @foxmdphd; co-mentor David Silbersweig; collaborators/advisors @alvaropleone, @jonathandownar, @hesheng3, @ZhiDeDeng, Bruce Luber, and Robert Cloninger, and letter writers @KJBinSTL, @TheresaBPape, David Brody, Bruce Price, and Chuck Zorumski!
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Now published in Am J Psych: Distinct symptom-specific targets for circuit-based neuromodulation.@APAPubJournals @APAPsychiatric @foxmdphd.@alvaropleone
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I heard a neuroimaging joke, but now I can’t reproduce it.
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Our latest work, out now in @NatMentHealth, amazing collaboration with @Brainclinics and led by Eva Dijkstra. In short, heart-brain coupling may be used to probe TMS targets, and successfully identifies anti-sgACC targets in 12/14 patients.
Excited to see this published in @NatMentHealth: Probing prefrontal-sgACC connectivity using TMS-induced heart–brain coupling (HBC).Read the article here: Here we validated TMS induced heart-brain coupling as an agile technique to probe DLPFC-sgACC
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Now in print:.Distinct Symptom-Specific Treatment Targets for Circuit-Based Neuromodulation | American Journal of Psychiatry @foxmdphd @alvaropleone @BIDMChealth @tmslab @harvardmed @harvardbrainsci @ClinicalTMS @APAPubJournals
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One of the most interesting findings in TMS research in recent years. d-cycloserine (NMDA partial agonist) potentiates antidepressant efficacy of TMS, strongly supporting the NMDA-mediated plasticity hypothesis of brain stimulation. and it's actually clinically useful.
In this RCT w 50 participants, those receiving intermittent theta-burst stimulation w adjunctive D-Cycloserine had significantly greater improvements in depressive symptoms compared to stimulation w placebo. #Research.
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@DGlaucomflecken I identify as a weird little guy. I am offended by the implication that this term, or my dreams about p-values, is pejorative. btw I am indeed a medical doctor (or at least I used to be, before psych residency), and I spend almost all my time on research.
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Out now @BiologicalPsyc1 . Brain Circuits Involved in TMS Response in Adults are connected to a similar prefrontal target in children. With Joe Taylor, Stephan Palm, @DrDrXanderLi @DrPaulCroarkin @WilliamDrew_1 @foxmdphd . Conceived at @NNDC_official .
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Real-world outcomes with 226 patients receiving aiTBS for MDD . TLDR; it usually works, and it works fast. Outcomes appeared to improve after the clinic switched to fMRI-guided neuronavigation (not randomized). with @davidcarreon @NeuroDanielle.
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If teaching professors are worried that their assignments can be completed using AI, then it’s time to rethink the assignments. If AI can do it better than most humans, then why not teach humans to use the AI intelligently (pun) rather than trying to compete with it?.
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I'm looking for a postdoc @BrighamResearch (with appointment @harvardmed). I'm not doing the standard "come work on X with us!" because the most valuable part of my postdoc with @foxmdphd and pseudo-postdoc with @DavidLBrody1 was the intellectual freedom to study what I want.
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Looking for a research assistant. Send your CV to BWHCBCTAssistants@partners.org. Only apply if you'd like to be happy and successful. Position is not great for people who don't want those things. Also nice if you either (a) write code, or (b) want to grow into a lab manager.
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Just ran four subjects through @FreeSurferMRI in 4 hours on my laptop (Apple M1 Max, 64 gb RAM) without parallelizing each one, and still used my laptop to do other stuff in the meantime. Just 4-5 years ago, this was unfathomable. Can't believe tech is still moving so fast. .
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Check out our new commentary: bringing connectomics to clinical practice in psychiatry. Thanks to co-authors @andreashorn_, @foxmdphd, and Joe Taylor.
Commentary out by @shansiddiqi w/ Joe Taylor & @foxmdphd on how we could bring human brain connectomics into clinical practice in psychiatry (imho directly translatable to neurology).
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@NeurosciTheater I started making dad jokes the day I turned 30 - will it get even worse when I have kids?.
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This will go down as a seminal paper in neuroimaging by @DrScienceMan1 @DrDamienFair in @NatureNeuro. Can't recall the last time I read a paper that will singlehandedly change how I do multiple different things. Also, the intro is very well-written for a novice or an expert.
Our paper “A Precision Functional Atlas of Personalized Network Topography and Probabilities” is out now in @NatureNeuro! The MIDB Precision Brain Atlas is a collection of individualized neural network maps from n~10,000 and probabilistic atlases (1/8)
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You often see a scientist's best research, and maybe clinical innovations. But you don't always see the life-changing mentorship that the best Professors provide to their trainees as they grow from student to expert. Congrats to Professor @foxmdphd from your eternal student.
23 years ago, I received my rejection letter from @harvardmed. Today, I was promoted to full #professor @harvardmed @Harvard. Grateful to my mentors, colleagues, and students @WUSTLmed @harvardmed @Brain_Circuits that made this possible! #Persistence.
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I really wish our institutions would allow us to offer higher pay to postdocs, RAs, and everybody else. Has anybody come up with creative solutions to this problem? . We've tried buying everybody a laptop and paying for trips to conferences, but that doesn't feel like enough.
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Isaac Newton didn’t publish a single paper in Nature or Science.
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Ran into my uncle who has two daughters with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. He said "when will you make a circuit for them?" I told him we're at least 10 years away. Of course, that wasn't good enough. We need to work faster.
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Great review about how to avoid over-interpreting BOLD findings. Written by two of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Spoiler: functional connectivity measurements are not a proxy for cognitive processes.
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Honored and humbled to be in the company of esteemed senior colleagues such as @NolanRyWilliams, @sattertt, and others before….
Huge congrats to @shansiddiqi winner of the 2022 Klerman Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation @BrighamWomens @MassGenBrigham
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NEW: Monthly BWH Brain Circuit Therapeutics Speaker Series . Thursday 9/9/21 5pm EST.Talk and Q&A open to all.Inaugural speaker: Konrad Kording @KordingLab, on ."The use and misuse of causality in neuroscience.". @foxmdphd @neuromichael @harvardbrainsci.
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This keeps coming up in conversation, so I’m pinning it on my profile. Our thoughts on bringing human brain connectomics to clinical psychiatry, with @andreashorn_, Joe Taylor, and @foxmdphd .
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You know you married well when she asks you to find a first edition from the OG biological psychiatrist .@AaishahRaquib
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Exciting feature about our work at BWH.
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Looking for a research assistant to do imaging analyses (computational), and sometimes TMS (clinical). Need somebody good with data, ideally MATLAB, but I can tolerate Python. Only apply if you want to work with awesome people and be happy. Apply:
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This is an amazing tool for students!.
For Neuroimaging beginners: Ever found yourself lost in the world of atlases and needed someone to create a summary to find an atlas best suited for your study? Here it is -
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Editorial with @DavidLBrody1 in @NatureMedicine on recent cool work by @NolanRyWilliams and team with ibogaine for TBI.
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Neuropsychiatrists should read/publish more case reports, even when the case is not totally novel. Looking through a bunch of case reports of lesion-induced OCD, and I feel like my clinical intuition subtly grows each time - each case is slightly different.
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Super proud of our @Brain_Circuits team for cleaning up the poster awards at @anpadirect! . Congrats to @PinesAndrew @WilliamDrew_1 @IsaiahNeurology!
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Revealed: the millions of dollars in time wasted making papers fit journal guidelines
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Attention future clinical neuroscience postdocs!.Excited to announce that our lab is accepting applications (mentored by @foxmdphd or other BWH faculty) for the T32 Clinical Research Training Program @harvardmed, led by the legendary Martha Shenton!. (1/n).
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@aribidopsis Sounds like a description of every system that contains humans, not just the academic system.
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@martinmbauer The integer values are usually used to teach beginners. Advanced players know that:. Bishop +Knight > Rook + Pawn.two Bishops >> two Knights.Queen > Rook+Knight +Pawn. Or in a “closed” position, Knight > Bishop.Or Knight at outpost past 5th rank = Rook.
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Super exciting Phase 3 trial of a first-in-class antipsychotic: an M1/M4 agonist, paired with trospium (peripheral antimuscarinic that doesn’t cross BBB) to prevent GI side effects. Spoiler - it seems to be effective, with no weight gain or EPS.
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Claiming the implicit neuroimaging street cred that comes from being photographed in Singapore with @bttyeo and my host PC Tor.
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Somebody needs to make a guide for students on different names for similar brain regions (i.e. ventral striatum and NAcc), and similar names for very different regions (i.e. pgACC, sgACC, and "ACC" aka dACC). Keep seeing students drawing false distinctions or similarities.
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Paper accepted to Nature Total Landscaping! Oh wait. .
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Out now in JAMA: Despite very strong correlative literature, mindfulness and exercise didn’t prevent cognitive decline in a large RCT. Lesson for science: strong/reproducible correlations are no more causal than weak ones.
Our new study, published in JAMA today:. #exercise and #mindfulness do not boost cognitive function in older adults. Controversial? Probably. Disappointing? Maybe. But my lab will continue to test new ways to help older adults have a Healthy Mind.
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@AjvictoryMD @chandan_khandai I’ve done this for my wife and I’m about to do it again. My dad did it for my mom twice. People keep patting me on the back for making some great sacrifice, particularly given my cultural background. I think those sorts of comments are standing in the way of “normalizing” this.
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Excited to be part of this fascinating new paper in @NatureMedicine. I may be listed as co-first, but full credit to @JJoutsa and @foxmdphd for carrying this from conception to completion!.
Focal brain damage can lead to loss of #addiction - can we use these cases to identify therapeutic targets? New paper by @JJoutsa out in @NatureMedicine suggests we can. @shansiddiqi @MoussawiKhaled @boeslab @NIDAnews @NIMHgov. #OpenAccess .
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Thanks to a series of unexpected cancellations, I have FOUR CONSECUTIVE HOURS with no meetings!. Will finish the response to reviewers on that paper I've been working on for 7 years. get ready, it should be out any year now!.
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I think I’m scared of nonlinear models.
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Here’s what can happen when a company tries to exploit “market forces.”.
All NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports editors have resigned over the high publication fee, and are starting a new non-profit journal. This comes with great regret, and a huge amount of thought and discussion- please read announcement to get more details.
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Congrats @sbfrandsen1 for receiving a super-competitive NSF fellowship for grad school!. If you can take a clinical psychology PhD student in your lab this summer, you should get in line.
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Spent a couple of weeks traveling, lecturing, meeting people, planning stuff. Started to feel a bit disenchanted with my job, and even started googling career change possibilities. Then I caffeinated and sat down to do some science. and suddenly I love my job again, as usual.
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How many combined MD and PhD degrees does it take to figure out how to log in to an NIH website?. Just did the experiment with @foxmdphd, and found that the answer is 6.
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I'm thinking about becoming one of those psychiatrists you see in movies. with a really nice office, a really nice couch, and insightful opinions on everything.
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Thanks for sharing our work @DrJenniStevens! Excellent article summarizing our findings about symptom-specific TMS target circuits. @foxmdphd
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@NateurNeuro Ha they never made me take psychology or statistics or neuroscience, and now they have me doing computational modeling with neuroimaging and behavior… joke’s on them, I’m also an asst prof at HMS now….
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I get a strange satisfaction every time I cite something that was published >100 years ago. If you're reading my papers, I apologize for excessive references to Kraepelin/Alzheimer/Nissl, Ibn Sina, Aristotle, Hume, Phineas Gage/Harlowe, Broca, Aquinas, Al-Razi, or Al-Ghazali.
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Huge collaboration with 14 datasets (n=713) thanks to @fredschaper3 @andreashorn_ @joey_k_hsu @AmyBrodtmann @cashmachine15 @MauCorbetta @nataliaegorova @PBFitzgerald @FriederikeIrmen @AA_Kuhn @AndrewNaidech @alvaropleone @Vosstacular @AndrewZalesky @HMayberg @foxmdphd.
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Why does it always feel like next week will be lighter?.
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Precision matters!.
First study exploring the impact of 7T vs 3T MRI on DBS outcomes for tremor: Our study shows 7T offers superior precision, improving tremor reduction & requiring lower stimulation current! @TheJNS @MayoRadiology #MayoClinicFlorida 🧵 .
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Older age is associated with better antidepressant response to @BrainsWay H1-coil TMS in women. Congrats to Maria Kryatova @BWHPsyResidency for leading this study!.
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Prolonged course of TMS leads to further benefit in a substantial subgroup of patients. Important work from @tylerkaster and team .
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An important and underrecognized cause of disability.
#Anxiety disorders in older adults are common, impairing, and treatable. That's the point of a new article by @paula_span in @nytimes: Thanks to US Preventive Services Task Force for advocating for research on this!.
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I have one of the most powerful laptops on the market (M1 Ultra, 64gb RAM) for data processing. yet it gets clogged by Word's Track Changes feature.
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Amazing paper (and awesome explainer thread) by @b_hollunder and @andreashorn_ using differential DBS outcomes to start generating a causal taxonomy of prefrontal fiber tracts!.
Intrigued to discover more about how DBS reveals & therapeutically impacts on the dysfunctional circuits behind different brain disorders, from OCD to dystonia? 🪄🧠. So were we! Join us on this deep dive from core to cortex – now out @NatureNeuro: A 🧵
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Me: “where’s my phone?”.My wife: “It’s in your hand. You’re looking at Twitter right now.”.
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Every once in a while you see some proper well-controlled and methodologically rigorous research on psychedelics. .
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Me, every single time: "Oh no, the reviewer found the fatal flaw on my paper with this new analysis they recommended. PROCRASTINATE!". (8 months of procrastination). "Oh, it still works, and now it actually looks better. Thanks, insightful reviewer!".
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A comprehensive take on how to think about personalized image-guided brain stimulation.
🧠⚡️To personalize or not to personalize? That is the question. that we address in our latest review @BiologicalPsyc1 with @AndrewZalesky🥳. Open access: We examine (& illustrate) .the rationale, latest evidence, controversies & opportunities🧐
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If I had a nickel for every time I heard "doctor, [phenelzine or tranylcypromine] has changed my life," I'd have several nickels. I get why it makes people nervous, but MAO-A inhibitors must be the most underprescribed medication class in psychiatry.
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Wrote an entire grant proposal and only used the word "dorsolateral" once.
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@DJGould94 I submitted a paper I've been working on for 7 yrs. Also on Friday. Actually it was Sat, but that sounds less fun. I recall telling my wife shortly after our first date (5 yrs ago) that I wast just finishing it up. Yes, I'm a nerd - but to be fair, she asked me what I'm up to!.
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FREE Brain Circuit Therapeutics lecture series this week.
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@tezos_jeff @AjvictoryMD I hope you meet the right person someday. I used to think I wanted to spend the rest of my life in St. Louis, until I met my wife and suddenly didn’t care anymore.
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Honored to be part of this extraordinary collaboration to synthesize a lot of cutting-edge science into a single place! Massive academic street cred to @andreashorn_ for herding cats to make this happen.
Very excited to announce our book on Connectomic Deep Brain Stimulation is out for preorder here:. w/@foxmdphd @AndreaKhn1 @HarithAkram @richardfbetzel @jmacshine @ThijsDhollander @neumann_wj @jclauneuro @shansiddiqi @DembekTill @eduardo_alho @BaldermannJC
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Congrats @brainstimgrl! Obviously very well-deserved.
We are pleased to announce, Colleen Hanlon, PhD, is the recipient of the 2023 International Brain Stimulation Early Career Award, which will be presented at the #BrainStimConf, 18-22 Feb, 2023, in Portugal. Learn more about Colleen Hanlon here.
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Multiple times this year:. Me: "Ugh, that reviewer comment was actually insightful - running that additional analysis could totally invalidate my results.". (procrastinates for 9 months, then runs the analysis). Me: "Oh, the paper is actually even better now. Thanks, reviewer 2!".
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Please don't knowingly publish incorrect things just because you figured out how to get it past the reviewers. This isn't a game.
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My student @sbfrandsen1 said something about an "easy E-field modeling project," and I heard "Eazy-E field modeling project"
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Listening to @andreashorn_’s interview with @HMayberg on the @stimbrains podcast. full of sage advice for any young clinician-scientist!.
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Thanks @BBRFoundation for a nice piece on our recent work with @IsaiahNeurology @foxmdphd . Brain Network Analysis Reveals a Depression – Multiple Sclerosis Connection
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Reducing antipsychotics doesn’t help with social function, but leads to relapse/hospitalization. I’m glad they put this debate to rest, but why are people surprised by the fact that mainstream medicine actually works?.
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@AjvictoryMD I usually say “I’m from a lot of places, but more St. Louis than anywhere else. how about you?”.Usually the question is innocent, but rooted in underlying bias. I want to help people realize that they’re really trying to ask “what’s your ethnicity?”.
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Grant resubmission score identical to the original submission. ??
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Please put the sample size in your abstract. Or some sort of stats. Or at least one quantitative result.
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