Timothy J. McDermott, PhD

I still get chills

Meet Mike
*30+ years severe depression
*first hospitalized @ 13y
*20 meds
*3 rounds of ECT
*2 near-fatal suicide attempts

Mike felt joy for the first time in decades after we turned on his new brain pacemaker or PACE

see videos, read paper, follow thread
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

CICADA: An automated and flexible tool for comprehensive fMRI noise reduction Abstract. Independent component analysis (ICA) denoising methods can be highly effective for reducing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) noise. ICA denoising method success heavily depends, ...

My brilliant labmate, Keith Dodd, created this non-aggressive denoising pipeline for fMRI data for his dissertation! It has been super useful on some of our high-motion datasets, and I highly suggest folks check it out for their own studies 🧠📈🪲:
direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

Health is more than the absence of disease, and depends on harmony across multiple brain-body systems. We need more research on whole-person health! The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) @thenccih.bsky.social funds vital whole-person research. RP and #KEEP_NCCIH!

😔

Congratulations!

A few years ago, I (w/2 other training directors) participated in an SSCP Q&A on the #ClinicalPsych internship application process. Thinking about applicants who like to use this time of year to get a head start on the process, I thought it might be another good time to share...

Submissions are NOW OPEN for poster abstracts for the ACNP 64th Annual Meeting: January 12-15, 2026, Nassau, Bahamas. You must be registered for the meeting before you can submit a poster. Deadline to submit is August 28, 2025, at 5:00 pm Central. https://bit.ly/3TXuYcz #ACNP2026

This is a great question! I know some students who have not had the opportunity to complete VA practicum experiences that were previously offered following recent changes, and I'm also curious how this might affect those applying to VA psychology internships.

My most favorite week of the year! 🎉

Heads up! APA is urging anyone who cares about health and science to let their reps/senators know now that they should oppose the admin's murder budget.

Easy to do here: www.votervoice.net/Shares/BAAAA...

APA is plugged in. If they say NOW, listen! #StandUpForScience

NIH Autism Research Funding Down 26% Under Trump, Analysis Shows HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he wants to get to the bottom of surging autism rates, but a new analysis finds that the Trump administration has cut funding for such research by double digit...

RFK Jr says autism research is a priority, and that he wants to find the cause of the condition by September.

He's also overseen a 26% cut to autism research at NIH, per @disabilityscoop.bsky.social.

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic.

Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.

But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.

Speak up now before it is too late.

(inflation adjusted $-s below)

Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...

Viewpoint in JAMA details the consequences of the proposed cuts to NIH:

❌15% reduction in new therapies
❌reduction in life expectancy by 83M life years in the US = $8.2T
❌loss of $51B in economic output annually

All to save $20B annually. The math ain't mathin.'
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Excited about this!

Wednesday June 4th, Dr. @negarfani.bsky.social (Emory University) will present on neurophysiological signatures of stress in minoritized populations and how neurostimulation can support stress relief.

Join live via Zoom: ColumbiaPsychiatry.org/Grand-Rounds

Finally getting to post the thread on this, and excited to force you all to read some of the new work from our group on trying to understand if traumatic stress might impact reactivity to basic stimuli.

Or, honestly, where we asked “what if we just flash a checkerboard at trauma survivors?” 1/🧵

Contact We are actively recruiting a Research Technologist! (start date ~7/1/25) Job ad is coming soon. This position will primarily assist with funded studies examining brain function in people who drink …

The BEAR Lab will be opening it's doors in July at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and we are looking for our first Research Tech! This position will help with funded MRI studies looking at the brain and alcohol use. More info: bearlab.science/contact/ #neuroscience #psychology #sciencejobs

Computational mechanisms underlying multi-step planning deficits in methamphetamine use disorder - Translational Psychiatry Translational Psychiatry - Computational mechanisms underlying multi-step planning deficits in methamphetamine use disorder

Huge congrats to @clairelavalley.bsky.social on this new paper. www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Results show that methamphetamine users show a specific deficit in model-based planning, in which they fail to simulate plans with large short-term losses (elevated aversive pruning). Brief thread below!

Polygenic Scores for Schizophrenia and Educational Attainment Predict Global Functioning Across Psychiatric Hospitalization Among People with Schizophrenia Question Is variation in global functioning among people with schizophrenia associated with genetic differences? Findings In this genetic association study of 5991 adults with schizophrenia and 59,79...

🚨🧬 New preprint! We tested whether PGS predicted global functioning across psychiatric hospitalization among 5991 people with schizophrenia. medrxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Federal funding plays a critical role in supporting life-saving research. In the recent APA Div56 newsletter, we outline how Trump policies place trauma research at risk and emphasize the importance of collective action.

apatraumadivision.org/spring-2025-...

Amazing! Congrats to you and the team for completing data collection!

🚨New Postdoc Opportunity

We have an opening for a postdoc jointly mentored by
Justin Baker and me for work on digital therapeutics and passive sensing using smartphones and wearables (smartwatches + smart rings). More info 👉: webbslab.com/job-postings

Please RT & share!

Congratulations to co-first author @clairelavalley.bsky.social on validating this new performance-based measure of social emotion regulation ability: emotionandpsychopathology.org/journal/arti...

In psychopathology, this may be crucial for maintaining social support. We hope others find it useful!

How delays in issuing NIH funds may create the appearance of a budget 'surplus' that becomes justification to cut the NIH budget. @statnews.com #neuroskyence

Great panel on the benefits of Social Media use, how we can promote ourselves and our work, and how we need to engage more on BlueSky (😜)
With @mayoonthebrain.bsky.social @scientificruvvy.bsky.social & @tamargurmdphd.bsky.social #SOBP2025

Thank you, Negar! Very excited to present our novel findings!

Rock star postdoc @timmcdermottphd.bsky.social shows some amazing evidence that temporal interference can do the same things as FU (but lots easier and cheaper) - check it out tonight #SOBP2025

I’ll be presenting poster F121 tonight at #SOBP2025, which is titled: “Temporal Interference Brain Stimulation of Bilateral Striatum During Breath-Focused Meditation Practice Enhances the Reward-Positivity Event-Related Potential”. Come on by if you’re attending and would like to learn more!

Doc1 complaint Uddin

About time!

Scientists led by @lucinauddin.bsky.social are suing academic publishers for running an illegal cartel that violates US antitrust law

www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

My flight is about to take off for #SoBP2025. I’m looking forward to connecting with other researchers in the field of biological psychiatry, and it’s my first time visiting Toronto too! 🇨🇦