Andrew Pines

🧠⚡ New year, fresh StimBrains talks!

Join us when we explore the brain networks driving schizophrenia & how we can treat them via DBS.

January session (Thurs, Jan 29, noon ET / 6pm CET)
feat. the amazing @andrewpines.bsky.social & Nicola Cascella

✨ Get Zoom link here: talks.stimulatingbrains.org

What is the status of DBS for epilepsy?
Find out in our new review/metaanalysis spearheaded by @laurenahart.bsky.social & Garance Meyer in JNNP: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40666371/

A 🧵 — please RT for reach! 🙏

Super excited about this!

Can training your brain boost immune response? Vaccination study highlights power of positive thinking Training people to activate a part of the brain linked to reward and positive expectations may be associated with an increase in the body's immune response to a vaccine.

Activating brain regions linked to reward and positive expectations may be associated with increased antibody responses following vaccination, suggesting a connection between mental states and immune function. doi.org/hbkjfq

Investigating the methodological foundation of lesion network mapping - Nature Neuroscience The lesion network mapping method links diverse brain lesions to similar functional brain networks, reflecting general brain organization rather than disorder-specific circuits.

Are connectome-based network mapping methods and the >200 papers that have used it invalid?

New paper out in
@NatureNeuro
says YES. nature.com/articles/s41...

I have concerns about this new paper's methods and conclusions, but am biased. What do others think?

Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization Nature Neuroscience - Parcellation of the cortex into functionally modular brain areas is foundational to neuroscience. Here, Hayden, Heilbronner and Yoo question the central status of brain areas...

New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵

rdcu.be/eVZ1A

Flyer to join Holmes Lab

The Holmes Lab is #hiring a full-time research assistant/predoc! Our work focuses on functional brain networks-- how they change, how they are impacted in psychiatric illness, and much more!
Please rt and reach out if you’re interested 👀
Find out more holmeslab.rutgers.edu

🚨 New preprint out! 🚨
“Translating the Transcriptome: A Connectomics Approach for Gene-Network Mapping and Clinical Application”
🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025... 

🧵 A short thread:

1/11 Excited to share our @Naturestudy led by @leonooi.bsky.social @csabaorban.bsky.social @shaoshiz.bsky.social

AI performance is known to scale with logarithm of sample size (Kaplan 2020), but in many domains, sample size can be # participants or # measurements...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Alert!!!!

“An Action Networks Model for Pain”

We propose a new model for chronic pain — and highlight two functionally connected cortical networks that could revolutionize how we treat it.

👉 thread below 🧵

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Coordinate Network Mapping of Focal Brain Volume Differences in ADHD Reveals Common Patterns That Lack Specificity: A Systematic Review Objective Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with decreased regional brain volume, yet no consistent localization has emerged across studies. This discrepancy has be...

Thrilled our ADHD network mapping work is now out in Annals of the Child Neurology Society, and honored to be featured on the cover!
🔗 Full article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

@childneurosoc.bsky.social @bostonchildrens.bsky.social @simonwarfield.bsky.social @braincircuits.bsky.social

Out now in Brain

A distinct pattern of brain damage intensifies political involvement, regardless of whether you're liberal, conservative, Democrat, or Republican.

With coauthors S.Balters,S. Cohen-Zimerman,G.Zamboni,J.Grafman

academic.oup.com/brain/advanc...

@braincircuits.bsky.social

Mixed Bag #22: Nils Wendel on Learning Psychopharmacology A book, a concept, a person, an article, and a surprise item

Mixed Bag #22: Nils Wendel on Learning Psychopharmacology

Wendel explores the topic using a book, a concept, a person, an article, and a surprise item

www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/mixed-bag-...

MR guided focused ultrasound surgery is an effective and uprising treatment option for Essential tremor. But where is the optimal site to sonicate? Which spots to avoid due to side-effects?

@science.org @braincircuits.bsky.social @netstim.org

– a thread🧵!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

‘Old’ brainstem structure evolved beyond basic motor control The human red nucleus may also help coordinate action, reward and motivated behavior, a new study suggests.

The brainstem’s red nucleus is an evolutionarily old structure that emerged as animals began to use limbs for walking, but its function in humans reaches beyond motor control, a new study suggests.

By @sydneywyatt.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...

Rightfully so!

When modeling volumes of tissue activated in subthalamic DBS for clinical outcomes, does it matter whether we process data in native or template space? Julianna Pijar and Clemens Neudorfer say No in the Brain Stimulation Journal:
doi.org/10.1016/j.br...

🧠💊New preprint differentiating antipsychotic medication vs. illness effects on cortical thickness in people w/ psychosis.

Finding: People receiving placebo show prominent cortical thinning over 1st year of illness, whereas those receiving antipsychotics do not. 1/3

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

We’re hiring a clinical research coordinator to lead a neuroimaging study on brain changes across pregnancy and perinatal depression.

wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui...

Please RT.

It was a great honor to talk with the founding editor of Brain Stimulation, Dr. Harold Sackeim!
Beyond the past, present and future of ECT, we covered the entire field of neuromodulation.

Priceless insights from a key leader in the field!

Tune in here 👇

stimulatingbrains.org/71-harold-sa...

Really interesting thread and super cool work!

We had a truly inspiring and insightful conversation with Dr. Rees Cosgrove, Director of Epilepsy and Functional Neurosurgery at @brighamandwomens.bsky.social & Professor of Neurosurgery @harvardmed.bsky.social

Rediscovering the lost art of brain lesions…!

stimulatingbrains.org/70-rees-cosg...

A postdoc in my lab contacted a fellow scientist to get some advice and was told that, because he's currently working on the topic, he "can't give away all his secrets." I find this extremely lame, and yet I keep encountering it. Science is not a zero-sum game!!

This was a hard one to click the ‘like’ button on. You will be missed!

Probably the most insightful and most important paper on physiomarkers of subthalamic DBS in a long while. Bravo @julianneumann.bsky.social @tsbinns.com and team!!

Out at @natcomms.nature.com:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

DLPFC Stimulation Suppresses High-Frequency Neural Activity in the Human sgACC Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is hypothesized to relieve symptoms of depression by inhibiting activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate corte...

When we use TMS to treat depression, we think it alters neural activity in a deep brain structure known as the subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC). But this is hard to test directly, until our preprint with @coreykeller.bsky.social, @neuro-engineer.bsky.social, Nick Trapp, and Aaron Boes (UIowa) 1/

A network correspondence toolbox for quantitative evaluation of novel neuroimaging results - Nature Communications Here, the authors present the Network Correspondence Toolbox, which enables researchers to examine and report spatial correspondence between their neuroimaging results and widely used brain atlases.

It's finally here! Use the Network Correspondence Toolbox to help contextualize your neuroimaging findings 🧠

Cool talk by Aaron Boes on clinical applications and cognitive prognosis from network neuroimaging @bostonchildrens.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social

Started my morning with a super interesting literature search thanks to this prompt!
Were currently analyzing volumetric changes pre and post ECT in schizophrenia - will be really cool to compare seizures that cause psychosis to seizures that improve psychosis. Really admire your work, by the way

We think of white matter as the brain's highways—uniform conduits between cortices. But what if we study development along tracts? Turns out the journey matters as much as the cortical destination! We're thrilled to share “Two Axes of White Matter Development” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/n