Laura Case PhD

doi.org/10.1016/j.ne.... First time leading a review/theory paper! We review how trauma and stress can alter the somatosensory system towards threat prediction, and propose ways that touch-based therapies may normalize pain and threat sensing, through a lens of predictive coding.

Congrats to my team (all first time at SFN) on their successful poster presentations! Sorry to all the folks who traveled from afar for the rain!

Introducing the j-metric: a true measure of what matters in academia Science has become obsessed with publishing numbers. With this new satirical proposal, have we reached peak metric?

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Wowow 😮

This is indeed one of the greatest paper endings of the century. Scientists: if you outsource writing to LLMs, you will end up filing off and blunting the good parts of writing — and thus science.

It’s not the thought that counts: Allostasis at the core of brain function The authors review evidence that the primary function of the brain, supported by distributed neural systems, is the predictive regulation of physiology (i.e., allostasis). An example from Alzheimer’s ...

It’s not the thought that counts: Allostasis at the core of brain function
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
#neuroscience

soft money folks, how are we surviving?? things i am required to do but not paid for:

-write grants
-serve on committees
-guest lecture
-review papers
-editor for journals
-dissertation committees
-annual trainings
-faculty meetings
-mentor undergrads
-raise money for supplies

what am I missing?

This week’s #PAIN Featured Image is an overview of microneurography recording technique. Namer et al. highlight new data on the potential for high threshold mechanosensitive Aβ fibers to code for physiological mechanical pain and allodynia bit.ly/4gEVMJW 

Dr. Tristen Inagaki and I found that warmth and pressure interact to boost feelings of social connection with close others. Everyone enjoyed this study, including the participants! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This morning, NASA released the #VoyagerDeclaration. This afternoon, NIH #BethesdaDeclaration signers met w/ Jay Bhattacharya. Earlier, EPA staff were terminated for their act of resistance.

I made this in solidarity. @altnih4science.bsky.social @altnasa.bsky.social @alt-epa-workers.bsky.social

You get about 100 million breaths. So does every other animal big or small. Don't waste them. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Can you spare a minute to help this campaign? Healthcare Professionals Demand Unimpeded Humanitarian Aid and Medical Access in Gaza

Friends, rates of severe malnutrition and dehydration—particularly among children—have reached catastrophic levels in that politically complex place I will not name for the algorithm. Please urgently sign and share this petition for humanitarian aid from my colleague: chng.it/Mbqh4gXFpC

(5/5)

🚨 It’s time to flood the zone.

NIH scientists just took a huge risk speaking out. Now it’s our turn.

📜 Read the Bethesda Declaration
✍️ Sign the Public Letter of Support
👯‍♀️Follow NIHers doing the work: @nihvigils.bsky.social

Read and sign here 👉 www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

Our new paper is out. We point out that large brained (and often smart) mammals and birds have evolved very different distribution of neurons numbers in the brain.
This means that similar cognitive abilities have evolved in very different brains.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Not to show bias, but this symposium from
@sirileknes.bsky.social featuring one of my all-time favourite people, India Morrison, is going to be epic!!!

Nobel laureate: I owe America my success. Today, its scientific future is in danger | CNN Dr. Ardem Patapoutian says he watches “with deep sadness as the United States’ remarkable scientific enterprise, which took generations of hard work and national investment to build, faces a concerted...

Published an op-ed for @cnn.com: “Nobel laureate: I owe America my success. Today, its scientific future is in danger.”
A personal reflection on what’s at stake as science funding gets slashed. I’d be grateful if you could amplify both in and beyond the science world.
www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/h...

Some good news from NIH - they have restarted the intramural training programs for postbacs and postdocs. www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...

what a massive effort. an incredible resource for anyone studying the claustrum.

We have slots for 2-3 postbacs! Get in touch if you’re interested in joining the Affective Neuroscience and Pain lab & contributing to our studies of pain, emotion, and social processing in the 🧠

This is a good explainer! But I want to be even more blunt:

You can't cure cancer in the dark.

Federal (F&A) funding is what pays to keep the lights on so that doctors and scientists can do this work.

As a Jewish faculty member at one of these institutions, I am saying right now, in the clearest tones possible: not in my name. This violent exploitation of Jews as an alibi for achieving Fascist ends is itself textbook antisemitism.

Rallying for Science @ucsdhealthsci.bsky.social !

Brain-wide presynaptic networks of functionally distinct cortical neurons - Nature Behavioural-state-dependent pyramidal neurons have a distinct pattern of long-range glutamatergic inputs, with a larger proportion of thalamic versus motor cortex inputs compared with non-behavio...

Groundbreaking work by Dr. Soohyun Lee from the National Institute of Mental Health at NIH
The brilliant young scientist faces termination.
Science like this leads to discoveries that can revolutionize how we understand the brain.
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
#neuroscience #neuroskyence

‘Silence is complicity’ — universities must fight the anti-DEI crackdown Higher-education establishments must not be bullied into abandoning their mission of diversity, equity and inclusion.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Webinar: Experimental pain versus clinical pain in mechanistic research To date, most mechanistic research studies on the hypoalgesic effects of music have used experimentally induced pain. Even though the use of experimentally induced pain presents important methodologic...

March 26, free to register

Webinar: Experimental pain versus clinical pain in mechanistic research

music4pain.org/event/webina...

so cool and highly relevant for social touch research!

Inside the Collapse at the NIH Administration officials pressured the NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.

This new Atlantic piece on the timeline of the NIH shutdown reads like the script to a new Soderbergh film. It is so, so dark and perfectly captures the evil and intentional chaos behind everything we've experienced over the last month www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Luke Farritor has been given access, by NIH civil service leadership, to the NIH business systems.

That will allow him to do this to NIH grants, and to purchasing for research and clinical trials. 🚨 🧪

Soft touch quells loneliness in mice Touch modulates one of two dueling types of hypothalamic neurons that, thermostat-like, balance an animal’s drive for social interaction.

Two dueling sets of hypothalamic neurons—one that responds to isolation and one to reunion—help maintain a mouse's social homeostasis, a new study reveals.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/social-behav...

kinda! most of the buildings are quite maze-like, they live in cubicle caves among the folds of walls. (former intramural)