Simon Titone

Frodo: “I wish it need not have happened in my time."

Gandalf: "So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

My mom called me last night about the Kimmel firing, saying "This is how Hitler got started!" I quickly responded, "By firing the late night tv hosts?"

Turns out, mom was right.

Goebbels Ends Careers of Five 'Aryan' Actors Who Made Witticisms About the Nazi Regime (Published 1939)

These are precedented times and the precedent is a loud ass warning

www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/a...

Map of Regional Public Health Coalitions Northeast Public Health Collaborative (Blue) West Coast Health Alliance (Yellow)

IT'S OFFICIAL: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York City have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative.

The collaborative will issue their own vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts.

Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.

Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads theconversation.com/studying-phi...

"You know the Reichstag fire? Where the Nazis, oh that's us in this analogy, they used it as an excuse to take over the government and then start WWII and commit heinous genocide? Yeah that's us right now. It's like the Mitchell & Webb skit except I'm saying we ARE the baddies. Like the Nazis."

🧠 New preprint! 🧠

As part of a forthcoming book on consciousness, we wrote a chapter on:

Spontaneous thoughts and experiences across wakefulness and sleep
osf.io/preprints/ps...

with @parboulakis.bsky.social @ademertzi.bsky.social and @jdsitt.bsky.social

A brief 🧵!

✨✨ We are excited to announce the OHBM Australian Chapter 2025 Annual Meeting! 🧠🇦🇺

📢 Abstract submissions & registration now OPEN (abstract submission closes September 15th at 5pm)

📍 Melbourne 🏙️☕
📅 Wednesday, November 12, 2025

ohbm-aus.github.io/posts/2025-a...

We hope to see you there! 🤩

Noradrenaline drives learning across scales of time and neurobiological organisation The noradrenergic system plays a diverse role in learning, from optimising learning behaviour to modulating plasticity. Work bridging across micro- and macroscale levels is revealing how noradrenaline achieves this diverse role in learning. Through its balance of targeted versus broad modulation of neurons and non-neuronal astrocytes, the noradrenergic system acts across multiple neurobiological and temporal scales to support adaptive learning. With a multiscale organisation that constrains behaviour and brain dynamics based on value-laden information, and the capacity to bridge the fast neural timescales of milliseconds with the slower timescales of natural behaviour, the noradrenergic system acts as an ‘orchestra conductor’ coordinating learning across scales.

Online Now: Noradrenaline drives learning across scales of time and neurobiological organisation

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Carinna Torgerson, Megan M. Herting, et al:

More similarity than difference: Comparison of within- and between-sex variance in early adolescent brain structure

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

Distinct theta signatures of involuntary and voluntary memory retrieval. A. Left, top: time course of theta power in significant electrodes. T-sum values above zero indicate significant time points. Left, bottom: time-frequency plot of theta-band activity as mean across all significant electrodes. Time-frequency plots are only displayed for illustrative purposes and were not used for inference statistics. Right: topographical plot of significant electrode clusters. Significant electrodes are highlighted as bold dots. B. Source localization of significant theta-band cluster and bar plot depicting mean theta-power of full-hits (FH) and correct rejections (CR) within source localized clusters. C. Corresponding time-frequency analysis for voluntary retrieval. D. Source localization of significant theta-band clusters during voluntary retrieval and bar plots illustrating mean theta-power of full-hits and correct rejections within source localized clusters.

Involuntary memory retrieval is a common phenomenon in autobiographical #memory, and a symptom of #PTSD. This study reveals the neural mechanism of #InvoluntaryMemory, showing that involuntary & voluntary memories rely on distinct neural processes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oQkb3e

A dream EEG and mentation database Nature Communications - The authors present a multicenter database to investigate the neural correlates of dreaming, including physiological, behavioral and experiential data. This database could...

Dream start for database that aims to improve our understanding of conscious experience in sleep

Free link to the paper in Nature Communication is rdcu.be/eAwni !

People living under fascism didn’t survive by giving up joy—they protected it.

They held onto the things fascism tried to erase: art, friendship, jokes, rituals, language, memory.

Not as escapism but as resistance. As proof they were still human.

Joy isn’t frivolous under fascism. It’s strategic.

It's like, how many warnings do we have to give?
Every disaster starts with scientists being ignored and that is not a movie... #BirdFlu #H5N1
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This increased functional connectivity continues to be robust in musicians (esp singers) - more evidence that learning to play an instrument is beneficial. 🧠🎶 (And yes, you can start learning to sing at any age!) #neuroskyence #music

BREAKING NEWS: CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed. Any unpublished manuscript mentioning certain topics, including gender and "LGBT," must be pulled or revised.

BREAKING NEWS: CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed.

Goes beyond MMWR +other CDC pubs. Applies to research already submitted to top medical journals.

Take a look.
open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

As a licensed psychologist I am saying with my whole chest: Gender-affirming care for young people is health care. Medically necessary, age-appropriate, science-backed, life-saving health care, supported by EVERY major medical association.

It is our duty to protect trans youth at all costs.

The Chaos in Higher Ed Is Only Getting Started Grant reviews have been suspended at the NIH. This could be an omen.

The fact that NIH grant-making has been switched off so haphazardly, for reasons that remain unclear, and despite the scope of troubles it creates, suggests that higher ed will be profoundly vulnerable during the second Trump era, writes @ibogost.bsky.social:

A progress pride flag painted onto a street crosswalk, with crosswalk intersection striping on the left hand side.

Hello everyone! We compiled a list of Trans Inclusive / LGBTQIA+ health resources. Normally we wouldn't ask for engagement, but sharing this around would be deeply appreciated. Remember: You're not alone. We'll endure.

www.broadlyepi.com/lgbtqia-heal...

#MedSky #LGBTQIA+ #TransRights #HumanRights

Everyone who works at nasa must have come there with hearts full of exploration and wonder and love of humanity and I don’t know how you can read that email and not feel like you work at a place that is small and cruel

I'm new to the area, so any suggestions of groups or positions that may value experience in ephys recordings of human subjects would be super valuable at this point. ☺️

I'm experienced in experimental design, data collection, advanced statistical analysis, scientific writing, and public presentations, and have worked in academia and clinical research settings.

Hello! I'm looking for work in the Melbourne area in academia or industry. My experience is mainly in non-invasive neurophys recording (hd-EEG, fMRI) and my interests include sleep, memory/learning, and mental health. Any leads would be so appreciated!

😂🥲there’s always some small detail 😵‍💫🫠

You've heard about the stages of sleep, but what about the stages of WAKE?

New preprint from our lab just posted on PsyArXiv. This follows other recent studies from our lab using a data-driven method to parse long periods of wake into discrete "online" and "offline" states.

🧠🟦
#PsychSciSky

We are the sensors of consciousness! A review and analysis on how awakenings during sleep influence dream recall. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.13.623388v1 Purpose: Since the 1930s, researchers have awakened people from different stages of sleep to record

We are the sensors of consciousness! A review and analysis on how awakenings during sleep influence dream recall. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.13.623388v1

Learning during sleep in humans:

A comprehensive overview of the history of sleep learning research, from its empirical beginnings in the 1940s to the present day. 

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...