Michael Fox

Can specialized physical therapy help you to live longer with Parkinson’s? What if physical therapy did more than improve balance and reduce falls? Specialized physical therapy, like that provided through the PDNet model linked to a modest but real reduction in mortality for people w/ Parkinson’s.

Is there a brain circuit target for restoring consciousness after brain injury? New work by @rolstonjohn.bsky.social @braincircuits.bsky.social says yes!

A human brain network linked to restoration of consciousness after deep brain stimulation - Nature Communications In people with severe brain injuries, stimulation restored consciousness by engaging a deep brain circuit for wakefulness—revealing a target that may also guide treatment in stroke and epilepsy.

Just dropped in @natcomms.nature.com: we show that re-engaging a thalamic–ventral tegmental circuit with deep brain stimulation can reignite consciousness in patients with severe brain injury. Work led by Aaron Warren, with @andreashorn.org @foxmdphd.bsky.social @ others! tinyurl.com/4kz8j89b

Honored to highlight our work @braincircuits.bsky.social @massgenbrigham.bsky.social Neuro Research Day. Thank you @shansiddiqi.bsky.social @fredschaper.bsky.social Sheena Baratano and Sam Snider for sharing your experience.

Can dogs really smell Parkinson’s? Spoiler alert: Yes. A new study by Rooney and colleagues in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease confirms what many people have long suspected. Dogs can be trained to detect Parkinson’s just by sniffing oily skin swabs. @parkinsondotorg.bsky.social #parkinson

Can we rewire and recover from an eating disorder? We must understand the actual underlying brain circuits. A terrific review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience urges us all to rethink eating disorders, not just as psychological struggles, but rather as disorders of brain circuitry. #bingeeating

Say cheese to detect Parkinson’s? Can AI see what doctors and healthcare providers miss? What if a simple smile could screen for Parkinson’s disease? A new study just published in NEJM AI shows that AI can potentially spot Parkinson’s simply by analyzing facial expressions. #parkinson

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...

Massive, Herculanean work by @laurenahart.bsky.social and Garance Meyer to compile and integrate findings from DBS for epilepsy (20 targets!) including meta-analytical evidence for optimal stimulation sites for the two main targets (ANT & CM). Preprint out now 👇👇

Benchmarking methods for mapping functional connectivity in the brain | doi.org/10.1038/s415...

What is the best measure of functional connectivity (FC)?

led by @zhenqi.bsky.social in @natmethods.nature.com ⤵️

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

White matter disconnection in acquired criminality - Molecular Psychiatry Molecular Psychiatry - White matter disconnection in acquired criminality

Can a brain injury lead someone to commit a crime?

Brain imaging is increasingly introduced as evidence in criminal trials but it remains unclear which structural injuries play a causal role in criminal behavior. @braincircuits.bsky.social @foxmdphd.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@foxmdphd.bsky.social's legendary anticorrelation paper has now been cited over 10.000 times and this was reason for a dedicated PNAS cake. Congratulations again, Mike, for this unbelievable pioneering effort that opened up the then novel field of resting-state fMRI!

@braincircuits.bsky.social

Thank you @andreashorn.org @braincircuits.bsky.social for the wonderful celebration. Thank you to everyone who cited this paper.

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/...

Can brain injury cause the loss of visual imagination?

We studied #aphantasia due to brain injury. Lesions were in many different regions but 100% were connected to the fusiform imagery node - a region active during visual mental imagery @braincircuits.bsky.social

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

The history and future of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging - Nature This Review provides an overview of the history of resting-state functional MRI research, which has helped to reveal the spatiotemporal organization of the brain, and discusses how it can contribute f...

When I first started working with resting state fMRI as a postdoc, there was a lot of skepticism about what we could learn from it. 20 years later, it's hard to imagine where the field of neuroscience would be without it. Here's a summary 🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Is there a shared brain circuit target for tremor that transcends diagnosis and DBS site? New work by @lukasgoede.bsky.social @andreashorn.org @braincircuits.bsky.social says YES

Convergent mapping of a tremor treatment network - Nature Communications Goede et al. combined multiple modalities to define a common tremor network across disorders. This finding may help optimize deep brain stimulation and guide future noninvasive therapies.

This was a huge team effort - combining datasets across disorders, continents, and methods.

We hope this work helps advance neuromodulation toward guided, symptom-specific treatment.

Full paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tremor is a common symptom across many neurological disorders.

But is there a shared tremor circuit across disorders - one that could guide treatment, regardless of diagnosis?

We think: yes.

Our study is out now in @natcomms.nature.com:

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵 A thread.

A neuroscientific model of near-death experiences - Nature Reviews Neurology Near-death experiences (NDEs) are episodes of disconnected consciousness that typically occur in actual or perceived life-threatening situations. This Review discusses the mechanisms that might underl...

A neuroscientific model of near-death experiences

Near-death experiences are episodes of disconnected consciousness that occur when you are on the brink of death. These experiences are characterized by rich content and prototypical mystical characteristics.

1/2

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

Multiple headlines about the first CRISPR 2.0 personalized genome editing and photo of the baby treated

This week's genome editing triumph is a big deal.
Here's why
erictopol.substack.com/p/the-first-...

Dr. Alfonso Fasano, a neurologist at University Health Network in Toronto, talks with Dwyer. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

Early results of an Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation trial show promising improvements in speech, movement and quality of life for patients with #Parkinsons.

Learn more through the eyes of patient Fabio Dywer and #TeamUHN neurologist Dr. @alfonsofasano.bsky.social Fasano:
bit.ly/3F4bTCB

Autonomic physiological coupling of the global fMRI signal Nature Neuroscience - The brain and body are necessarily connected. Here the authors show that brain blood flow and electrical activity are coupled with systemic physiological changes in the body.

First post on an exciting new manuscript online today @natneuro.nature.com - in collab with @lucinauddin.bsky.social and Catie Chang. We take a fresh look at the physiological dynamics associated with the global signal 🧠 ...

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

Read here:
rdcu.be/ek01F

Check out this new open data resource led by the amazing @juliettebrook.bsky.social and @tsalo.bsky.social with @pennlinc.bsky.social and stellar collabs. Imaging data includes multi-echo fMRI, compressed-sensing dMRI + advanced ASL-- both unprocessed + fully-processed imaging in BIDS!

Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong? With diagnoses at a record high, some experts have begun to question our assumptions about the condition — and how to treat it.

Engaging article about ADHD and the risks of pathologizing the tail of a normally distributed behavior that then justifies the widespread use of methamphetamines in kids. Particularly impressed by investigators questioning decades of their own work (not easy to do).
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/m...

fMRI must break out of its silo We need to develop research programs that link phenomena across levels, from genes and molecules to cells, circuits, networks and behavior.

The scientific community needs to develop processes to support, hire and retain researchers whose work sits between traditional fields of study, writes @avramholmes.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/future-of-fm...

Very hard to say goodbye to these fantastic people.
I will miss you guys! @braincircuits.bsky.social!

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...

Transcranial Brain Stimulation Fails to Enhance Stroke Recovery in Phase II Study Discover why brain stimulation didn’t improve stroke recovery in a major trial. Explore implications for clinical practice.

www.emjreviews.com/neurology/ne...