Lina Skora

The first step to publishing null results is to learn about equivalence testing, so that you can design studies that statistically support the conclusion that there is no meaningful effect. lakens.github.io/statistical_.... If you are a statistics teacher, include this into 2nd year courses.

Undoubtedly the most massive group effort I was ever lucky to be involved in. Led by the ever-unwavering
@annekeitel.bsky.social, this preprint synthesizes the status quo of what we (don't) know about neural oscillations. Grateful to be part of the @scone-neuro.bsky.social network. #neuroskyence

Respiration as a dynamic modulator of sensory sampling Respiration dynamically modulates sensory perception by orchestrating transient states of the brain and the body. Using simultaneous recordings of high-density magneto-encephalography (MEG), respirati...

New preprint with amazing work from @nchalas.bsky.social:

How does respiration influence (un-)predictable near-threshold perception? MEG, arousal modulation, excitability states, respiration phase-resolved connectivity changes - it's all there :)

#neuroskyence

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Are you hurting?

'Mental health diagnoses are not just misapplied, but invented.'

Camilla Nord on the mental illness epidemic

Out in Cognitive Psychology, led by @maxmaier.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A new lottery task with choices that matter across trials; the risky option has a chance of going extinct, which ends the study. We derive optimal policies and develop a strategy-classification model.

Super interesting! Do you think there is any reason why the location (L/R ear) would matter? We didn’t find an effect of subjective intensity perception in our left-ear study… In any case, I think we might have to come up with a new sham control

A plot showing that taVNS does not induce larger pupil dilation compared to sham.

A plot showing that sham-induced pupil dilation is much more variable

Pulsed taVNS elicits pupil dilation. However, if sham feels as intense, there is not much left. Based on our comparatively large sample (94 participants, single-blind crossover), we show that a highly variable sham response explains this.
#neuroskyence 🩺
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Make science more collegial: why the time for ‘adversarial collaboration’ has come Bringing together proponents of rival theories to test their ideas against each other can advance science — but only if all sides can accept that they might be wrong.

Thanks I hate it. This "let's settle things in the ring once and for all" approach to science is weird as hell. There are no easy formulas, no promised answers, and science isn't to be determined by an agreement between two parties.

When your heart isn't in it anymore: Cardiac correlates of task disengagement Neuroscience is beginning to uncover the role of interoceptive feedback in perception, learning, and decision-making; however, the relation between spontaneous visceral and cognitive dynamics has rece...

Mind-wandering is associated with late modulation of the heartbeat-evoked potential; mind-blanking is associated with greater decoupling of heart-brain phase coupling.

New findings from our radically-revised study of spontaneous cognitive & physiological dynamics

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death

The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People. A couple of years old now, from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social A long read so get yourself a cuppa. TLDR = 8 billion+ people need an efficient food system not a rural fantasy. #food #sustainability #doughnuteconomics www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/t...

These fluffy white wolves explain everything wrong with bringing back extinct animals Don’t buy the hype about “de-extinction.”

The fun thing abt my job is sometimes I have no idea what will be plopped onto my agenda—which is to say, I got roped into writing about the new wolves. They're neither dire wolves nor "de-extincted," & they have more to do w/ enacting human fantasies than helping animals
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

1. One of capitalism’s greatest successes is to shut down our imaginations. With the help of its favoured tools - neoliberalism and fascism - it persuades us that “there is no alternative”. Our first task is to re-ignite our moral imaginations and name our alternatives. 🧵

Great news Jonathan, congrats!

A graphical abstract titled "Can Beta-Blockers Manipulate Interoception? A Placebo-Controlled Study." The image illustrates how bisoprolol and propranolol affect interoception. On the left, a green figure represents bisoprolol, showing a zoomed-in synapse where it selectively blocks β1 receptors. On the right, a purple figure represents propranolol, blocking both β1 and β2 receptors, affecting both brain and body. A psychophysics graph models interoceptive responses, showing response intensity over trials. Below, line plots compare placebo, propranolol, and bisoprolol effects on interoception—cardioception (threshold) and respiroception (slope)—indicating drug effects on bodily awareness.

Can we enhance interoception by controlling the heart? Thrilled to share our new study, led by @ashleytyrer.bsky.social , where we use computational modeling to show that blockading peripheral noradrenaline uniquely alters awareness of heart rate & breathing! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵👇

An important thread on a straggeringly irresponsible Nature(?!) piece ⬇️

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Almost no papers using the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) report cardiovascular features, like blood pressure or stroke volume. When done, clear correlations appear. Another one here: doi.org/10.1016/j.bb...
If not properly processed or controlled, HEPs are not measures of brain-heart interaction

<em>Psychophysiology</em> | SPR Journal | Wiley Online Library Heart rate variability, measured by HF-HRV and RMSSD, is conventionally used to index cardiac vagal activity. Our study demonstrates that transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) decr...

Published now in Psychophysiology:
We show that taVNS decreases HRV independent of a caloric load. This suggests that acute taVNS does not increase cardiovagal activity ("vagal tone"). #neuroskyence 🩺
Led by @kristinkaduk.bsky.social w/ @koeniglab.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

There’s a Term for What Trump and Musk Are Doing How regime change happens in America

The Department of Government Efficiency isn't interested in efficiency. Or transparency, or cutting costs. It's real goal is to destroy the federal civil service. In other words, regime change. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Congratulations, sounds really exciting!

Across 18 studies, the meta-analysis shows moderate evidence against an effect of taVNS on pupil dilation

Stimulation effects of taVNS on pupil dilation depend on the use of a phasic vs. conventional protocol.

Does tVNS elicit replicable effects beyond BOLD responses in the brainstem? Yes, pulsed, but not conventional tVNS leads to robust pupil dilation in our new meta-analysis.

Published in Brain Stim w/ @cecivez.bsky.social @akuehnel.bsky.social #neuroskyence 🩺
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Amazing news, congrats Micah!

Great idea, would love to be added please!

A screenshot of a paper on bioarxiv illustrating the lack of blue sky share button!

Would you like to see @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social add a share to blue sky button?! I know I would! Share this post to let @richardsever.bsky.social @erictopol.bsky.social and others at bioarxiv know!

OK If we are moving to Bluesky I am rescuing my favourite ever twitter thread (Jan 2019).

The renamed:

Bluesky-sized history of neuroscience (biased by my interests)

Refocusing neuroscience: moving away from mental categories and towards complex behaviours | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Mental terms—such as perception, cognition, action, emotion, as well as attention, memory, decision-making—are epistemically sterile. We support our thesis based on extensive comparative neuroanatomy ...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Refocusing neuroscience: moving away from mental categories and towards complex behaviours royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

The metaphors of artificial intelligence A few months after ChatGPT was released, the neural network pioneer Terrence Sejnowski wrote about coming to grips with the shock of what large language models (LLMs) could do: “Something is beginning...

For Science Magazine, I wrote about "The Metaphors of Artificial Intelligence".

The way you conceptualize AI systems affects how you interact with them, do science on them, and create policy and apply laws to them.

Hope you will check it out!

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Welcome all ye new and bedraggled accounts from the bad place! I've made a science comics and cartoonists starter pack to get you going! #sciart
go.bsky.app/KJ7rerJ

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation | HKS Misinformation Review Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, genera...

We're so fucked.

"Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing."

Preprint time: "Measures and Models of Brain-Heart Interaction". We made a comprehensive overview on the signal processing methodologies to estimate brain-heart interactions 🧠🫀 with Luca Faes, Fabrizio de Vico Fallani and Mario Chavez #neuroskyence #compneurosky doi.org/10.48550/arX... 🧵