Comparison of dimensionality reduction and feature selection for cognitive task decoding in functional magnetic resonance imaging Background Advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have led to the ability to study the brain across many contexts. However, the large number of features generated by functional conne...

Pleased to share another preprint! In this paper, we compare a suite of dimensionality reduction and feature selection methods for fMRI task decoding.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to (finally!) be able to share a preprint of the first of papers from my dissertation! In this work we examined brain age prediction in individuals with and without GAD with structural MRI.

I’m looking for trainees to follow and boost to uplift us all but my feed is full of not-trainees. I’ll keep looking, but please send me tips of trainees posting things we should celebrate (my DMs are open)!

I'm a member of the NIMH BSC. The members who were fired are outstanding scientists, which is why they were appointed to the BSC in the first place. Their firing for unspecified reasons is unconscionable.

Seems like a good time to bump this excellent piece written by (at the time) trainees. Highlights many longstanding issues with the internship model as well as insights gleaned from new challenges encountered during the pandemic.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

BREAKING:
The NIH summer internship program (SIP) has been officially cancelled, across all institutes.

It’s a sad loss for the brightest science students in America, for American science, and for future cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. 🧪 1/

VA Research Funding Slashed Though not as prominent as the NIH, VA researchers play a major role in advancing basic health science. Hundreds of projects have been cut.

NIH cuts are getting the press, but VA research is getting slashed too. What do we lose when VA research goes away? Here's some greatest hits: The nicotine patch, invention of the cardiac pacemaker, first successful liver transplant, development of the CAT/CT scan

prospect.org/health/2025-...

Congrats!!!

To say nothing of intramural research. So many rare diseases under investigation bc NIH is the only option, pharma isn't interested. And the NIH hospital announced today their clinical labs will have long turnaround times and they won't even do certain tests anymore bc they lost the staff.

The thing about destroying NIH is NIH’s scale in medical research just dwarfs everyone else.

For ex, in 2023 the American Cancer Society gave out $64.5 million worth of grants. Sounds big, right?
But NIH’s budget was $49 billion. With a B.

Kill NIH and the floor drops out of US science.

Last thing to note on @joshtpm.bsky.social’s thread:

The top scientists at NIH are not billionaires, and in fact they make a lot less than $500k per year. People take huge pay cuts to come to NIH because they believe in public service and think they can do the best science there.

Thanks to all of the NIHers and their friends who reached out to me. I am still here (DM me or Signal jeremymberg.78)

I still have a very incomplete picture but based on what I have been told, the damage to NIH and to many wonderful people who work(ed) there is/was impossible for me to imagine

1/n

Many in biotech/private sector are boasting about their ways of funding and doing science

But they are staffed with PhDs and postdocs we train in our NIH and NSF funded labs in universities

With university labs lacking funds to train, the private sector will be profoundly harmed

Dear US scientists: we love you all, but don't be that "heartened" by legal action. Musk is saying he will ignore judicial orders. USAID/CFPB actions are blatantly illegal.

We're begging you: read @jamellebouie.net @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and @gregsargent.bsky.social on law and politics. 1/ 🧪

Parents, college students:
Please be aware that NIH wants to interview and hire IRTAs - postbacs, PhD students, and postdocs this year, but we are currently banned from doing so. We may have a gaping hole.
You can and should contact your Senator and House member in your home state.

/end

I think we should be cautious about embracing the "NIH needs reform" nonsense. The sort of reform you are all thinking about bears little resemblance to what the right wingers have in mind. Don't be naive.

Which all reinforces the view that the pathology of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia is better thought of as an emergent maladaptive attractor state of a dynamical system than a direct result of acute genetic dysfunction in some specific cells of the brain

It could be otherwise because these are false distinctions projected onto clumsy, outdated frameworks. One isn't happening within another. It's all one thing.

I think it’s hands down the best 2D Mario has ever been!

I also have not read it but I will look into it!

And it is certainly intensive! Our program is a six-program, and then also includes the predoctoral internship year that clinical psych students must complete. It’s a long road for sure!

Given the size of the applicant pool I’m sure there’s interest for it! I think the issue is quite simply the bottleneck of available programs, which is even smaller if one considers only the research-focused clinical psych programs (e.g., PCSAS programs)

It was my preference to be in the clinical area so that I could have the training and exposure to the populations I wanted to do research with. I applied to one cognitive neuroscience program as a backup, so I imagine that is what I would have done if I had not made it to a clinical program

It is ruthlessly competitive. I applied to 16 programs and only was admitted to one! I consider myself extremely lucky to have landed anywhere. Every program I applied to was on the order of hundreds of applications for ~5-10 slots

the data can speak for itself when the data can clean itself

I agree with this - Python dependency management truly is a dumpster fire.

A phenome-wide examination of neural and cognitive function - Scientific Data Design Type(s) repeated measure design • stimulus or stress design Measurement Type(s) functional magnetic resonance imaging • nuclear magnetic resonance 3D structure determination assay • Diffu...

We have used this one in the past (and it's great!) but looking to supplement with other datasets if possible!

www.nature.com/articles/sda...

Question for fellow imaging peeps: I am looking to find any open source fMRI datasets (preferably resting state, but task-based is also ok) that may have subjects with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or ADHD. Any recommendations?