I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics.
It turns out I was wrong.
Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The brain–computer interface is the first in the world to be available for wider use outside of clinical trials
go.nature.com/472hzbd
Selective DBS-induced deactivations in the SCAN, building on our recent @nature.com paper.
Thrilled to announce our new paper in @natneuro.nature.com!
We managed the impossible: precision functional mapping during #DBS, with 11.7h fMRI/patient.
Selective DBS-induced deactivations in the SCAN, building on our recent @nature.com paper.
nature.com/articles/s41...
@ndosenbach.bsky.social
The 6x US memory champion – Nelson Dellis – can memorize a deck of cards in 40 seconds and knows the first 10K digits of pi.
To figure out how, he let us peak inside his brain. Here is what we learned in our precision brain mapping study www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
youtube.com/shorts/MryMq...
Most of what's known about human memory stems from H.M., who had his hippocampus removed bilaterally. So we studied memory champion Nelson Dellis with precision brain mapping. Everyone's memory for numbers is crap ... 10 digits. He's memorized 10,000, by turning it into a skill, more like juggling
This project has been a marathon, starting from the early days of my PhD, almost 10 years ago 🏃♂️
Many thanks to the 14 patients and our fantastic collaborators.
DBS evokes distinct responses in two sub-circuits:
🧠 Cortical SCAN circuit is deactivated and shows time-dependent effect
🌰 GP circuit is activated and shows frequency-dependent effect.
Per PD patient:
• 11.7h fMRI (across 7 stim conditions)
• 2.2h structural MRI (6 modalities)
• 1.3h DTI
• clinical assessments
+ 27 healthy controls for comparison.
High-SNR data = Individual-level precision. 🎯
The dataset is fully open: doi.org/10.57760/sci...
Selective DBS-induced deactivations in the SCAN, building on our recent @nature.com paper.
Thrilled to announce our new paper in @natneuro.nature.com!
We managed the impossible: precision functional mapping during #DBS, with 11.7h fMRI/patient.
Selective DBS-induced deactivations in the SCAN, building on our recent @nature.com paper.
nature.com/articles/s41...
@ndosenbach.bsky.social
Parkinson’s disease as a somato-cognitive action network disorder @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
It’s time to rethink Parkinson’s disease. Our work reframes PD as a disorder of the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN), and shows that normalizing SCAN connectivity represents a shared mechanism across diverse effective therapies.
rdcu.be/e2n4t
@ndosenbach.bsky.social @gordonneuro.bsky.social
I am thrilled to share that I’ll be joining the University of Notre Dame (@notredame.bsky.social) as an Assistant Professor of Psychology this July!☘️🧠 Please reach out if you're interested in joining my lab! More details to follow soon.
🚨 New preprint: Objective Quality Assessment for Precision fMRI
Precision functional mapping (PFM) enables individual-level brain network studies — but demands more, and better, data.
We introduce an objective framework to determine when a dataset truly supports interpretable, replicable PFM.
Non-invasive brain surface stimulation targeting personalized SCAN alleviated symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease. See the videos below.(www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
Really cool attempt to link together multiple neuromodulation methods (DBS, TMS, TUS) to understand the neural basis of Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson’s disease has the fastest-growing prevalence of any neurodegenerative disorder worldwide
go.nature.com/4r0xZsk
Washington University researchers scanned 863 patients and found that Parkinson’s is not just a motor disorder.
It stems from hyperactivity in the brain’s somato-cognitive action network, and treatments work best when they calm this network.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fantastic work showint how SCAN is related to Parkinson’s disease. Much promise for the future of battling the disease!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Such a fascinating paper! Less than 3 years after the discovery of the new motor network (SCAN) interleaved between effector motor regions, SCAN is proving highly relevant for Parkinson’s! It offers potential to improve treatment and reduce symptoms non-invasively.
Good news for Parkinson's sufferers. These researchers should review recent papers on Essential Tremor. ET researchers have identified the back of the brain as the ET problem area, the same area identified as part of the Parkinson's problem.
Potential for beneficial cooperation.
(I have ET.)
Happy Friday! For those of you who didn't see the excellent @nature.com paper showing that scientists who use AI tools produce more research but on a narrower range of topics, consider listening to the podcast: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
This is a nice animation illustrating the key points in the Parkinson's SCAN paper about which I posted previously.
Ren, J., Zhang, W., Dahmani, L. et al. Parkinson’s disease as a somato-cognitive action network disorder. Nature (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
A social club — started by Nico Dosenbach, MD, PhD and a colleague — dubbed the "Midnight Scan Club," leveraged low-cost nighttime fMRI scans to provide unique insights into individual brain function.
Read all about the history of precision self-scanning: https://bit.ly/4qeuLjR
Researchers propose that the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN) "hyperconnectivity is central to PD pathophysiology & its alleviation is a hallmark of successful neuromodulation"; #Parkinsons as a somato-cognitive action network disorder
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Don’t miss out reading about this amazing work linking the SCAN to Parkinson’s disease. What are the best ways we could use this new knowledge?!
Parkinson's disease appears to disrupt a brain network involved in everything from movement to memory. n.pr/4kpKWtv
In case this important point gets overlooked: along with our Nature paper, we’ve publicly released two large and scarce datasets—PIPD and PIET. IMHO, these are the best open Parkinson's and Tremor datasets available to date.
See threads (1/4) 👇
nature.com/articles/s41...
More excellent reporting by NPR's Jon Hamilton about a new brain network that explains symptoms of Parkinson's that have befuddled brain researchers for decades. Kudos to @jianxunren.bsky.social and Hesheng Liu for this groundbreaking research in the journal Nature! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
This is figure 5, which shows TMS targeting the SCAN versus effector-specific motor regions.
A recently discovered brain network that links cognition and actions may have an important role in Parkinson’s disease and could improve its treatment, according to a study in Nature. go.nature.com/49VBuKI #Neuroskyence 🧪
