We'd also like to congratulate our Best Poster & Presenter winners, Madison Henderson and Joshua Hoddinott, as well as our People's Choice Poster & Presenter winners, Taamir Nanji and Thu Pham!
Posts by Phivos Phylactou
Proud of this one, led by former lab student Ali Caron (not on bluesky) and online at @jocn.bsky.social.
direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...
Our 2026 kNOw-PAIN Conference is coming up this Thursday, March 26 from 8 AM - 5 PM at the Great Hall, Western University. Registration is still open using this link: www.knowpain.ca/2026conference
Registration is $35, but free for trainees and patient partners.
Meeting #14: March 27th, 12h GMT
Tahnée Engelen @tahnee-engelen.bsky.social will tell us how:
"Cardiac, respiratory & gastric rhythms independently modulate motor corticospinal excitability in humans"
you can also read about it here:
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
meeting link via Slack/GitHub: ask! 🧠⚡
This Friday at 14:00 GMT, if you've got nothing better to do, but talk about #TMS #BrainStim theory & methods
👇
⚡ #TMS #Preprint ⚡🐀 🧪 🧠 🧵
Brain stimulation methods are complex; reproducibility depends on knowing what was done.
@solyas.bsky.social's paper reports work with myself & 15 other @tmsmultilab.bsky.social members to develop a modular, flexible reporting tool: the TMS-RAT
doi.org/10.64898/202...
There’s probably a proper post coming from @thehandlab.bsky.social soon, but you heard it from me first. TMS-RAT ⚡️🐀 just landed.
@solyas.bsky.social @tmsmultilab.bsky.social
TMSMultiLab's next monthly meeting:
27th February 14:00 GMT 🤝⚡️🧠
"Dose-response (input-output) curves: Ground truth for testing TMS methods?"
by me (@TheHandLab)
Details & Zoom link via github 👇 & slack (request an invite)
github.com/TMSMultiLab/...
I like to think that this can be extremely helpful, especially when an early career researcher is leading the work. Receiving reviews is almost always stressful, especially at early career stages. Let’s make it a bit more positive.
5/5
3. I start every review with a “Strengths” section. Reviews are heavily biased to point out everything we think is wrong with the manuscript/work. Pointing out the strenghts can remind the authors that it’s not all bad.
4/5
Studies with a clear rationale, justified methods, and transparency deserve to be published. Limitations can be disseminated and alternatives can be discussed. And who are we kidding, we are gonna judge and disagree with the final paper anyway.
3/5
2. I rarely suggest rejections. My reasons for rejection include serious conceptual or methodological flaws and suspicion of misconduct or malpractise.
2/5
Some thoughts on reviewing papers:
1. I always sign my reviews. I think it allows me to do a better job, remain kind, and be transparent about my potential biases or conflicts of interest with their work. Some journals hate it when I do it, but I still do, and always will. You should try it.
1/5
Today, together with @eester.bsky.social we are checking and fixing all electrodes.
A procedure we like to call surgerEEG.
What if it is to scale? 🤔 What are they hiding?
Registration is open for our 2026 kNOw-PAIN Conference! Our conference this year features keynotes Dr. Margot Latimer, John R. Sylliboy, Dr. Norm Buckley, and Dr. Hance Clarke! To learn more and to register for the conference, visit our website at www.knowpain.ca/2026conference.
Applying for jobs vs funding as an early career researcher:
Jobs-Here’s how I’m awesome & why my career will be awesome forever.
Funding-Here’s how I suck & how my career will suck forever unless I get this grant.
#academicsky #skyence #academia #science
The 12th TMSMultiLab meeting will be lead by
Dr Giacomo Bertazzoli
(orcid.org/0000-0003-16...)
on
"The NIBS-BIDS proposal"
Friday 30th Jan, 14h GMT, Zoom
All acronyms will be explained, but its about:
#DataSharing #OpenScience #Standards #TMS #BrainStim
github.com/TMSMultiLab/...
Looking forward to the first Consciousness Club of the year tomorrow!
@suryagayet.bsky.social will be talking to us about “Tracking perceptual competition with Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT)”
Wed 14th Jan at 11am UK time
All welcome, to join please see metacoglab.org/consciousnes...
The solution is to stop lying to students about what a PhD is.
Please help me change my mind about this, happy to hear your views.
6/6
This also causes a ripple effect, where industry leaders start seeing the PhD as a requirement for various positions.
Academic institutions should be more transparent about this. The solution is not to include industry in the PhD.
5/n
To me, offering more industry related opportunities during a PhD is deception. I see it as a way for institutions to “sell” more PhDs, making it seem like it’s beneficial outside of academia when realistically it is not.
4/n
Yes, a PhD will provide some transferable skills. However, you can obtain such skills with work experience rather than doing a PhD, which will also likely end up being a higher return investment (i.e., entering a role for 5-6 years vs spending those years for a PhD).
3/n
A PhD has traditionally been training for transitioning to independent academic research in a specified field. It is meant for people who want to follow an academic path.
It has nothing to offer outside of academia.
2/n
I disagree with arguments that PhD training should include more industry related skills, opportunities, etc.
A thread 🧵
1/n
#academicsky #skyence #industry
Holmes’ theorem: N is not "large" if 1. p>.05 2. p<.05 and the Result is Displeasing
Working on a principled way to describe the sample size, N, in #science papers. Will be attempting to prove Holmes' theorem over the next few years. Feedback welcome 🙏 #stats
Is the correction for the ω-protocol?
TIL from @thehandlab.bsky.social that there are as many TMS related acronyms (tRA) as there are papers in the field.
It’s not the new year that needs to be better. It’s us.
This is your reminder to hug your loved ones a little bit tighter and for a bit longer during the holiday season.
For those who are alone.
For those who are away from friends & family.
For those who need to work.
For those who are unhoused.
For those who need a hug but can’t get one.