Patrick Piantadosi

Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the distinct motivational influences of reward and punishment on cognitive control Human motivation is fundamentally shaped by one's expectations of the reward they could earn for good performance or the punishment they would avoid for poor performance. However, the extent to which ...

Thrilled to share our new preprint highlighting distinct neurocomputational mechanisms underlying how reward and punishment determine adaptive cognitive control - a massive fMRI study and collaborative team effort with the @shenhavlab.bsky.social 🧠

Link here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

thanks so much Jonas - including for all of your advice while I set this experiment up. PdCO is truly one of the only opsins I trust right now!

Risk reshapes amygdala representation of choice Modifying behavior in response to changing environmental conditions is a crucial adaptive function. This capacity is exemplified when animals curtail pursuit of a valued outcome that risks being punis...

for anyone interested in the amygdala and risky decision-making, check out our new preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

amygdala neurons track reward-seeking actions, and punishment risk dramatically alters this function. lots of other (BLA-accumbens!) data included.

I promise I was not fishing for this with my re-tweet 😂 really happy to hear about the work though, looks very cool!

Depression Curbs Ability to Actively Avoid Unpleasant Events Depression in young patients is linked to difficulty in taking action to avoid something unpleasant, while the ability to withdraw and not act remains intact.

1. Media coverage of a new paper by @ryantomm.bsky.social w @brandonforys.com, @dr-stan.bsky.social et al. Building on Stan’s rodent work, Ryan found that > depression levels were associated w reduced capacity to learn to actively button-press to avoid a nasty sound www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

This is absolutely revolutionary.

Please comment. The Administration is trying to turn the NIH IC Directors and program staff roles into political appointees that serve at the whim of the President. Imagine if each change in administration brought sweeping changes in professional NIH staff across your favorite ICs.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is demanding a meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele over the detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and says he’ll go to El Salvador himself if the Marylander isn’t returned.

Acting NIH director dismisses four neuroscientists from advisory boards The letters they received this week did not include a reason for their termination.

At least four neuroscientists received termination letters this week dismissing them from NIH advisory boards. “This is unusual and unprecedented,” says @thebalelab.bsky.social, one of the terminated board members.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

bit.ly/4hM0Xa3

I maxed out my credit card, emptied my savings account, and took out a loan to move from Alabama to Bethesda, MD. I don’t even qualify for unemployment since I’ve only worked at NIH for a month. I will be financially and medically devastated.

Seeking suggestions for anywhere that’s hiring!!

To all those saying "shouldn't we root out government inefficiency? What's wrong with DOGE?" a quick background on Constitutional law and why the WAY it is being violated exposes the true motives of the criminals:

Update: They were removed from our reviewer assignments completely. I'm so sorry to all those graduate students. Anonymous to protect the identity of the NIH employee I spoke to...I am on study section next month to discuss F awards. We were just instructed to put the F31-Diversity applications on the bottom of our priority list for review because there is a chance we may not be able to review them. My heart is breaking for the grad students and their mentors that put so much work into these just for them to be disqualified and thrown out.

Just in case you thought that removing DEI criteria would mean that everyone is competing equally: NIH is removing grad students from underrepresented backgrounds from the applicant pool altogether. Their applications will not be considered. Other students, not from these backgrounds, will be.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro's full post ordering an increase of import tariffs on U.S. goods, says he doesn't really like traveling to the U.S. because it's “a bit boring” and invokes the ancestors

My paper is out!! 🎉

"Opponent control of reinforcement by striatal dopamine and serotonin", @Nature

Here, we show that dopamine and serotonin signals form a gas-brake system for reward in the mammalian brain

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