Very excited to share new findings from an NIMH-funded R21 on the neurodevelopment of worry! Manuscript led by super 🌟 Postdoctoral Scholar in the lab @ceciwestbrook.bsky.social , check it out! 👇👇👇 @psychiatry.pitt.edu

Congratulations!! 🎉🥂

Excited to share recent findings from the lab examining how puberty-related changes in connectivity within the mesocorticolimbic circuitry is associated with sensitivity to reward/punishment. Manuscript led by the talented @amarojha.bsky.social - check it out in @npp-journal.bsky.social ! 👇👇👇

Precision reward/affect fMRI study out now in HBM! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

@dvsmith.bsky.social @olinotom.bsky.social @coopersharp.bsky.social and @shenghanwang.bsky.social

Intensively sampled task + rest fMRI data with behavioral manipulation openly available on OpenNeuro!
(1/2)

👇👇👇

🚨FREE WEBINAR ANNOUNCEMENT🚨

Get an early start to #statnerdsummer with a free seminar on how multilevel models and structural equation models intersect.

I'll be showing this through MLM and SEM growth curves.

Sign up for free! Share widely!

You can register here: smart-workshops.com/workshops

The human amygdala in threat learning and extinction Ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human amygdala provides causal evidence for its role in forming persistent threat memories.

Super proud of @sjoerdmeijer.bsky.social who demonstrated that amygdala-TUS slows initial threat acquisition and enhances subsequent extinction. Great collaboration with @lennartverhagen.bsky.social and @deVoogdld.bsky.social ea. Thanks to @ERC.europa.eu.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

👇👇👇

I Wrote Research Funding Announcements for NIH for 22 Years. This Year They’ve Published 14 How NIH went from 756 funding announcements to 14 in two years — and what it means for every disease that depends on federal research

This is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi.

open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

Emotional Interference in Early Adolescence: Positive Reinforcement Modulates the Behavioral and Neural Effects of Negative Emotional Distracters Abstract. Limited research has examined functioning within fronto-limbic systems subserving the resistance to emotional interference in adolescence despite

academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

Positive reinforcement modulates fronto-limbic systems subserving emotional interference in adolescents - PubMed Fronto-limbic systems play an important role in supporting resistance to emotional distraction to promote goal-directed behavior. Despite evidence that alterations in the functioning of these systems are implicated in developmental trajectories of psychopathology, most studies have been conducted in …

Interesting! Consistent with what we found in two samples of adolescents using an emotional working memory task in which we used monetary reward to enhance emotional interference resistance.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29079512/

Long-range axon branching: contributions to brain network plasticity and repair Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Connectome reconstructions across multiple species reveal that the morphology of axonal projections is highly variable, even between neurons of the same location or...

Recent review about long-range axons rdcu.be/eXeDG

Yay!! Congratulations! Well-deserved!🎊🎊🎊

Registration is open!!!! You can also submit a poster abstract! Come join us for an amazing set of talks and insightful discussions on the impact of stress on brain development and implications for the development of affective disorders…

@pittpsychiatry.bsky.social

Excited to share these findings from our CATS center in a manuscript led by the talented Ceci Westbrook, MD, PhD, Post-doctoral Scholar in the lab!🤩
👇👇👇

The surprising science of adolescent brains | Jennifer Pfeifer | TEDxPortland YouTube video by TEDx Talks

Excited to share that my TEDx talk is finally available online. I loved sharing what the science shows us: that it's time to reframe adolescence - from problem to ✨ potential ✨ 1/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr8V...

Spread the word!! DANS 2025 registration is opening very soon…take a look at some of our amazing speakers! You can present a poster you will present or have presented elsewhere…the goal is to foster discussion. Check dans.pitt.edu for updates!

Wow…awesome and impactful work!!! Bravo! 👏👏👏

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NIH will only accept six applications per PI per calendar year. NIH has issued NOT-OD-25-132 Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications which informs us that NIH will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications fro…

drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/n...

Neuroimaging insights into adolescent depression risk and development Nature Mental Health - Adolescence marks a critical period for the onset of depression, yet the neurobiological mechanisms remain unclear. Here the authors review literature linking adolescent...

Our paper - Neuroimaging Insights into Adolescent Depression and Development - is now out in Nature Mental Health! 🧠 Huge thanks to my wonderful co-authors @yaratoenders.bsky.social and @cktamnes.bsky.social. I loved bringing these ideas together with you! rdcu.be/eugUM

Screens, Sleep, and White Matter in Childhood and Adolescent Depression url:jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/...

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Got my hopes up for a hot minute when the R13 notice came out-for our DANS conf- only to find this notice today 😢

But happy to see Fs are finally out!

CAN-D lab staff and trainees had fun showcasing their work at our Dept annual Research Day! Celebrating science! 🤩

Network homeostasis: functional brain network alterations and relapse in remitted late-life depression - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Network homeostasis: functional brain network alterations and relapse in remitted late-life depression

#ThisWeekInNPP

This study explored relapse & recurrence in late-life depression, finding widespread 🧠 network configuration was required for resilience, while failure to reconfigure was associated w/ vulnerability to relapse @agerlachphd.bsky.social

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

1/6 Why does the brain maintain such precise excitatory-inhibitory balance?
Our new preprint explores a provocative idea: Small, targeted deviations from this balance may serve a purpose: to encode local error signals for learning.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
led by @jrbch.bsky.social

Me with Coming Of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us

Really happy to receive my first paperback copy of Coming Of Age 🎉

I wrote this book to examine the emotional power of the adolescent years – I explore why adolescents behave the way they do, but also about why events from those years continue to affect who we are, even many years later

1/

DANS is happening!! 🎉🎉
Mark your calendars and please spread the word!

Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rap...

FYI: The Spencer Foundation, Kapor Foundation, The William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have collaborated to offer $25K rapid response grants.

"This rapid response bridge funding opportunity is for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by NSF."

Welcome to Save The U.S. National Science Foundation A Girl Looking at a Physics Model TAKE ACTION Save NSF is a coalition of concerned scientists and allies who are working to save funding for scientific grants through the U.S. National Science Foundation. Our mission is to support and advocate for the continuation of vital research and innovation in various scientific fields. NSF funding is critical to this work. Join us in our endeavor to ensure a sustainable future for scientific exploration and discovery.

I am so heartened to this seriously AWESOME #SaveNSF website go up today!!!!

Has a take action toolkit with:

1. Press outreach templates
2. Social media toolkit
3. Elected official outreach
4. Talking points

Check it out and share widely!!!! Likely more to come.

www.savensf.com