Sydney E. Smith

What makes some melodies feel "right" and others totally "off"? We have an intuitive affinity for some musical scales over others, like Bobby McFerrin shows here (youtu.be/ne6tB2KiZuk?...). Check out @omriraccah.bsky.social's paper - a clever collision of psychology and music - to learn more.

Tomorrow is the last day to register for our in-person event!

Join us, and our incredible lineup of speakers, on the UCSD campus Nov 15 from 9am-1pm. Registration is free!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The latest Stories of WiN profile features Dr. Emi Nagoshi. Out now! I loved capturing her story--rich with serendipitous discoveries and humility, her resilient attitude towards "surviving academia" shines through. Check out Emi's profile and listen her interview to hear more about her science.

Registration for our in-person event is still open! We hope to see you all in San Diego!

U-Miami has a postdoctoral mentored research training program in Alzheimer's / neurodegeneration, with 2 years of funding for fellows. If you're interested in my lab and applying cognitive neuroscience and precision neuroimaging methods to studying AD, please reach out! mbi-umiami.org/training/

GIF queen at it again 🤩

Public engagement: building common ground How can we help to bridge this divide? Simply producing more excep­ tional science will not be enough to rebuild public trust. Rather, we must adopt a new model that recognizes communication and advocacy as core pillars of science, on a par with rigor and reproducibility. Public engagement efforts should be valued for faculty promotions, much like obtaining grants and publishing our findings in scientific journals. Researchers should be recognized and rewarded for activities such as giving public talks, working with local schools, engaging with policy­ makers, developing social media campaigns and platforms or writing accessible articles for general audiences. Developing these skills must be an integral part of scientific training, reinforcing the notion that the responsibility to champion science lies with us. Courses that teach graduate students and postdocs to communicate complex ideas clearly, to use social media effectively and to advocate for evidence­based policies must be deemed critical and supported by our universities. These efforts should not be viewed as distractions from research but woven into the fabric of what we do as scientists. Rebuilding public trust requires a cultural paradigm shift: scientists must see themselves not just as producers of knowledge, but also as its ambassadors and translators. Such a fundamental change will occur only if it is embraced by our scientific leaders and institutions, emphasizing the critical role of public engagement for science to succeed.

A thought-provoking piece in Nature Neuroscience by many neuroscience colleagues: "Science must break its silence to rebuild public trust". Lots to think about here.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The review we all needed! Thank you for your attention to detail and for sharing your materials.

A Systematic Review of Aperiodic Neural Activity in Clinical Investigations This systematic literature review examines aperiodic neural activity in clinical disorders, summarizing current findings and discussion topics. One-hundred seventy-seven reports from across 38 distin...

📜🎉 I'm happy to share that my review of clinical research investigating aperiodic neural activity is now published!

It examines 177 reports of aperiodic activity in clinical disorders summarizing findings, discussion topics, & making some recommendations!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Gonna be in San Diego for #sfn25? Come join us for our first ever in-person event for @storiesofwin.bsky.social - registration is now OPEN!! 👇 gonna be a great time for getting inspired and building community (and stay tuned for an exciting lineup of 🤩speakers/panelists)! Help us spread the word!

Functional connectivity is dominated by aperiodic, rather than oscillatory, coupling Functional connectivity (FC) has attracted significant interest in the identification of specific circuits underlying brain (dys-)function. Classical analyses to estimate FC ( i.e ., filtering electro...

This is a fascinating study dissecting the degree to which functional connectivity in EEG is driven by aperiodic activity instead of oscillations -- how robust are connectivity findings in a frequency band (theta, alpha) when oscillations are not omni-present?

www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Changes in cognition are some of the first noticeable symptoms of mental health conditions like depression. This study is a roadmap for neuroscientists and clinicians looking to personalize psychiatric interventions and identify where cognitive deficits and diagnostic symptoms overlap in the brain.

Dr. Nicole Rust — Stories of WiN studies the neural representations of mood and has recently published a book about new ways we can conduct neuroscience research to better undersand mental illness.

Our latest profile is here! Dr. Nicole Rust (@nicolecrust.bsky.social) studies the neural representations of mood & has recently published a book about new ways we can conduct neuroscience research to better undersand mental illness. Learn more below:

www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

Stories of WiN

Let’s talk @storiesofwin.bsky.social. I’m flattered to be among their profiles (coming soon) & I want to elevate the team behind this terrific effort. /1

www.storiesofwin.org

🥰

Excited to share this profile + interview with Dr. Emily Jacobs! Amazing work on human precision brain imaging across hormonal fluctuations, and such an inspiring story! I had such a great time interviewing her!

Listening to the Brain’s Hidden Rhythms: How Aperiodic Activity is Changing EEG and Depression… Rates of depression have been rising steadily over the past few decades, affecting more than 280 million people worldwide (World Health…

Theo Kertesz, a brilliant intern here in the B&C lab, wrote a fantastic piece about my PhD research. Read it on Medium! medium.com/p/listening-...

Started a new postdoc at Yale in @brognition.bsky.social Lab with Kia Nobre! Studying adaptive cognition in humans using brain recordings—both on and in the head. New lab, new city, new chapter!

New Stories of WiN profile. Writing about Melissa's journey was so fun. I love hearing about scientists who are having a blast doing research and it's a gift to pass along their enthusiasm!

We need multimodal data 💯 current frameworks overlook that single-nuclei transcriptomics reveals over 50 distinct inhibitory subtypes with potentially different contributions to circuit function throughout the lifespan! My research aims to relate these macro-scale measures to microcircuits 🙏

Thanks for reading! Full piece here: doi.org/10.1016/j.bp... #EEG #Neuroscience #Psychiatry #Biomarkers

If we want biomarkers that actually reflect biology, we need signal
analyses that are both specific and grounded in physiology.
Otherwise, we’re just guessing at the trunk.

Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant—everyone’s right in part, but none have the full picture.

The core message: EEG signals are complicated. You can see the same signal feature arise from very different underlying physiological events.

The piece unpacks a recent EEG study that aims to identify biomarkers for a novel therapeutic using a physiologically-informed analysis pipeline.

Just published a commentary in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science titled: 🧠 Analyzing the elephant: The search for electroencephalography biomarkers 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...