David Seminowicz

New preprint out, where we show that TMS-induced pupil dilations can be used as a measurable proxy of cortical excitability.

With:
@frasermacrae.bsky.social
@freekvanede.bsky.social
@daspainbrain.bsky.social
@drsmschabrun.bsky.social
et al.

Details below 🧵 [1/n]

check out this new work led by @phivph.com

here's a quick primer
bsky.app/profile/phiv...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation induced pupil dilations can serve as a cortical excitability measure https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.02.668303v1

great work by Erin Holzscherer (now off to vet school) with a ton of help from @az15.bsky.social‬ in @stefan-everling.bsky.social‬ lab and postdoc Chun Yin Liu who is leading our ongoing 7T fMRI claustrum studies in humans

rsfMRI of the claustrum in 234 scans in awake marmosets, now in press at @imagingneurosci.bsky.social

like we showed in humans, rats, and mice previously, claustrum has widespread connectivity to the cortex, especially prefrontal, cingulate, and posterior parietal

direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

Come work with us! @researchtmu.bsky.social

Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University is recruiting a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Mental Health!

#neurosky #psychology
#jobs #AcademicChatter

hr.cf.torontomu.ca/ams/faculty/...

yes and very specific criteria it seems

New paper from my lab in Nature Scientific Reports!

Using #spinal cord MRIs, we show 1st evidence of decreased cervical gray matter volume in opioid-using #Fibromyalgia cohort, but with less GMV relating to less #pain severity & interference. #Duke_CTPM

Full paper here (free!)
👉🏼 rdcu.be/eywsK

Almost missed that this is out! Former postdoc Liz Necka led this long overdue FMRI study formally comparing two types of pain modulation: Placebo analgesia & predictive cues. TLDR: these are NOT the same! Placebo analgesia reduced cue effects, & brain mechanisms were nearly all dissociable. 1/4

Should You ‘Lean Into’ Your Chronic Pain to Relieve It? Chasing Life · Episode

Strengthening recovery from chronic pain and opioid use: I was recently interviewed by Dr Sanjay Gupta on CNN about my work on Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE). Check it out! open.spotify.com/episode/5IWA...

Reducing type II error: Sample size affects fMRI cluster-extent threshold to correct for multiple comparisons https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.23.666419v1

Evidence for a role of skull bone marrow in human chronic pain as revealed by TSPO PET imaging https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.19.25331817v1

It’s not every day you walk into @cfmm.bsky.social and see this on the door of one of the scanners.

I’m looking for a postdoc to join me at UCSD, ideally a clinical psychologist PhD who can deliver mindfulness interventions as well as write papers and do analyses. I have one of the world’s largest psychophysiology datasets of opioid misuse, OUD, & chronic pain. Competitive salary. DM or email.

⚡️🧠A nociceptive amygdala-striatal pathway modulating affective-motivational pain

Now published on the cover of Science Advances @science.org

Check it out 👇
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Concern About Predictive Performance of a Pain Sensitivity Biomarker—Reply In Reply We thank the authors for engaging with our study1 and for their reanalysis of our data. On behalf of our coauthors, we argue that the post hoc analysis presented does not provide a more robus...

here's our reply icymi

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

well done systematic review of neuropathic pain treatments

TLDR:
strong recommendation: TCAs, α2δ-ligands, SNRIs as first-line

weak recommendation: capsaicin or lidocaine patches as second-line

weak recommendation: BTX-A, rTMS, opioids as third-line

lots more research needed and underway

@torwager.bsky.social argues that pain is an inference to mount a behavioural response (à la Ben Seymour). Reinforcing that chronic pain is a brain disease. This provides more impetus for brain-based biomarker

@canadianpain.bsky.social ASK2025

Furthermore, even when using their approach, the auc of .74 still suggests the biomarker has potential and should be tested in a clinical population - their conclusions dont alter the next steps

GitHub - DrNahianC/PREDICT_Script: Script for PREDICT Study https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2829261 Script for PREDICT Study https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2829261 - DrNahianC/PREDICT_Script

We further directly address their concerns in our GitHub repository
github.com/DrNahianC/PR...

The key issue with their re analysis is the mixing of training and test set - yet we evaluated model performance on an unseen holdout set and report excellent performance (even after addressing their report issues with initial model selection)

and reply

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Concern About Predictive Performance of a Pain Sensitivity Biomarker—Reply In Reply We thank the authors for engaging with our study1 and for their reanalysis of our data. On behalf of our coauthors, we argue that the post hoc analysis presented does not provide a more robus...

guess time will tell.
here's a reply

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

It's back up now

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Nahian S. Chowdhury, Siobhan M. Schabrun, et al:

The effect of prolonged elbow pain and rTMS on TMS-evoked potentials: A TMS-EEG study

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

this is the cafe we've been looking for since we moved to London

This is a nice new study showing the mechanisms why CBV fMRI is so specific to cortical layers:
The somatostatin neurons are driving the hemodynamic response at fMRI-typical time scales.
By Vo et al, from Seong-Gi Kim's lab.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

good thread and great ending #academicguilt 😅

Thanks @iasp.bsky.social and @painthejournal.bsky.social for featuring our figure! 🫶

A potential explanation for the reduced excitatory/inhibitory balance in the PAG in individuals with chronic pain. ⚖️🔴

Inspired by amazing work from R. Kuner, V. Neugebauer, P.Sheets, and more. 🙌✨

#PAIN #research

interesting findings