Olu Ajilore, MD, PhD

YouTube video by Simons Foundation Nicole Rust - The representation of mood in the primate insula (May 6, 2025)

Please spread the word! I am recruiting a PhD student this cycle (Fall 2026 start) to join my team in a new venture: the neuroscience of mood.

If you are curious to learn more, this short talk provides a good overview of why, what and how.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIK...

Psychedelic compounds directly excite 5-HT2A layer V medial prefrontal cortex neurons through 5-HT2A Gq activation - Translational Psychiatry Translational Psychiatry - Psychedelic compounds directly excite 5-HT2A layer V medial prefrontal cortex neurons through 5-HT2A Gq activation

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Finally out!!

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/14

Shout out to the Chicago local news! @blockclubchi.bsky.social @thetriibe.com @southsideweekly.bsky.social
@unraveledpress.com
@borderlessmag.bsky.social

Follow the locals!

Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions - Schizophrenia Schizophrenia - Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions

Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If you want a palate cleanser after yesterday’s autism discussion, listening to Kevin Mitchell is a good place to start…

Excited to share that our work introducing the Reproducible Brain Charts (RBC) data resource is now published in Neuron!! 🎉

📚 Read the paper: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lpaF3BtfH...
🧠 Explore the RBC dataset: reprobrainchart.github.io

A huge shoutout to all the dedicated grants management specialists at the NIH who are working around the clock to push grants out before the Sep 30 deadline. And also to the POs responding to frantic emails.
Not an easy job under the best of circumstances and right now it's the pits.
Thank you!

No notes

1: This is a really cool study I was excited to be a part of! I was skeptical that brief unguided single session interventions could be effective in adults with depression as we had two studies in which we found minuscule effects vs weak controls (waiting), one in a large sample, N=828. I was wrong!

a close up of a sign that says al ALT: a close up of a sign that says al

I missed the big Alaskan press conference

What does "minimizing the possibility of gatekeeping within an institute or center" even mean?

Different institutes cover research on different disorders or organ systems so there has to be some form of gatekeeping to make sure funded projects fall within the purview of the institute or center.

Image of brain networks in a group average and individual LPFC. Individuals show: 1) smaller FP network 2) more interdigitation 3) conserved motifs 4) idiosyncratic features This was validated with task and rest fMRI

The lateral prefrontal cortex 🧠— which we think of as critical for goal driven behavior + is a target for psychiatric treatments— is fundamentally different in individuals relative to the group averages we’ve often studied.

👇see preprint and thread, led by Zach Ladwig
#neuroskyence #PsychSciSky

a man in a suit and tie is giving a speech at the second day of 2024 democratic national convention ALT: a man in a suit and tie is giving a speech at the second day of 2024 democratic national convention

"Small men hide from history's giants" - Gov. Newsom

A scene from Alien Earth with a caption that reads "It presents as flora, but it may be fauna"

What I say when I haven't open my fridge in a while #AlienEarth

Danielle Spencer, Child Star on ‘What’s Happening!!,’ Is Dead at 60 She played a witty teenager on one of the first American television shows that centered Black teenagers.

Danielle Spencer, the actress who played the lovably bratty and witty teenager on the 1970s hit sitcom, “What’s Happening!!,” died on Monday at 60.

Precision Functional Mapping (PFM). 8 yrs ago some told us it wasn't interesting. Now it's helping cure depression as part of PACE (Personalized Adaptive Cortical Electro-stimulation), ... commercialized by @turingmedical.bsky.social.

osf.io/preprints/ps...
www.cell.com/neuron/comme...

Stand Up for UC We must stand together to protect our students, staff, faculty and our mission.

Let’s do this www.universityofcalifornia.edu/get-involved...

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...

The new normal: neural network adaptations in late-life depression Neuropsychopharmacology - The new normal: neural network adaptations in late-life depression

In this Research Highlight, the authors propose that depression relapse occurs when brains can't create a stable "new normal" after recovery, with some patients staying 'stuck' in unstable limbo between illness & recovery

www.nature.com/artic...

Purdue student detained by ICE and taken to troubled Louisiana holding facility Yeonsoo Go, 20, was detained after her immigration hearing in Manhattan and taken away by ICE agents.

Go, a college student, has a dependent visa (her mother, an Episcopal minister, is here on a religious worker visa), which doesn't expire until Dec. But when she tried to renew it early, ICE nabbed her and sent her halfway across the US to a detention center.
www.wthr.com/article/news...

Targeting intracranial electrical stimulation to network regions defined within individuals causes network-level effects https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.31.667730v1

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Will Shut Down

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/b...

Looking for @theabcdstudy.bsky.social fMRI timeseries data?It's all in the 6.0 data release, thanks to @drdamienfair.bsky.social and team at ABCC 🧠: docs.abcdstudy.org/latest/docum...

Remember how FOX had to pay almost a billion dollars for promoting lies?

Cane sugar is 50% fructose.

“High-fructose” corn syrup is 55% fructose.

Unless your body is as stupid as Diana Atieh, it does “know what to do” with that 5% & there’s no different effect on the body at all. It’s still sugar.

Despite our grant being terminated, we are doing what we can with modest bridge funding. If you are a PI of a K24, TL1, R25, R38, or T32, you’re eligible! To learn more or enroll, check out our site!

Here’s some feedback from our last cohort:

“I thought that this training was exceptional…

YouTube video by NPP - Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience (DPN) Will AI revolutionize or undermine mental health care?

Will AI revolutionize or undermine mental health care?

Today's Deep Dive focuses on opportunities & risks of using large language models in psychiatric care & research.

By @skhalsa.bsky.social, @pshrink.bsky.social, @royperlis.bsky.social, @mpwpaulus.bsky.social et al

youtu.be/i8RfTa-dCU0?...

New preprint from the lab on habit learning in compulsivity from the fantastic @kellydonegan.bsky.social! ✅ N=1000, ✅ pre-registered, ✅ within-person crossover design...we study individual differences in habit learning using the Neureka App

YouTube video by Geoffrey Hettel The Electric Company silent E

RIP the great Tom Lehrer and a reminder to all of his excellent songs on the original Electric Company. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kftn...

14 Republican senators urge White House to release delayed NIH funds Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) is leading the letter making the ask of OMB director Russ Vought.

14 Republican senators urge White House to release delayed NIH funds - POLITICO share.google/lFiHdiPwKGGw...