11/11 Sincere thanks to our editors and reviewers at @naturecomms.bsky.social, and to all our collaborators at @camhnews.bsky.social, @stanfordbrain.bsky.social, @stanfordpntlab.bsky.social, @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social and @Università Milano who made this work possible!
10/11 These findings have exciting implications for brain stimulation therapies in psychiatry and neurology. Targeting high-order vs low-order networks might require completely different stimulation approaches!
9/11 As
@DanteSommoPoeta
wrote: "The more perfect a thing is, the more it feels." In the brain, like basketball, star players like
@Lebron James
(cognitive networks) react dramatically to game changes while role players (sensory networks) maintain steadier, independent performance.
8/11 Meanwhile, low-order sensory networks were barely affected by removing these feedback connections! Their responses remained strong, suggesting they rely mostly on local processing rather than whole-brain feedback.
7/11 The results were striking: high-order networks NEED feedback from the rest of the brain to generate their full response. When we cut these feedback connections, their responses were significantly reduced.
6/11 But why? To understand the mechanism, we built computational models of each patient's brain based on their anatomical connections, and then performed "virtual dissections" - selectively removing connections between networks.
5/11 We discovered an "excitability gradient" across the brain! High-order cognitive networks (like the Default Mode Network) showed much stronger responses to stimulation than low-order sensory networks.
4/11 Based on our previous computational modeling work (elifesciences.org/articles/83232), we used rare data from 36 epilepsy patients, recording brain activity during 323 electrical stimulation sessions. This gave us a unique window into how stimulation activates different brain regions!
3/11 Building on
@Daniel S. Margulies' seminal work on the "principal gradient" of brain organization (pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...), we asked how these different networks respond to direct electrical stimulation.
2/11 The human brain has a fascinating organization: from simple sensory regions to complex cognitive networks. We wondered: do these different networks respond differently when stimulated? And does this follow the brain's known hierarchical organization?
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...
1/11 How does our brain's hierarchical organization impact its response to stimulation? We found striking differences between "high-order" networks (involved in complex cognition) vs "low-order" networks (handling sensory/motor functions)
@naturecomms.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
My school in Tanzania is running well! The Giona Basketball Academy just hosted a U12–U19 tournament last week—so much fun! Want to join me in Tanzania, explore the country, and make an impact at my school? DM me! #FreeEducation #SportsValue #Basketball #Tanzania
🚀 @GiovanniRabuffo is presenting our poster "Large-Scale Neural Dynamics as a Predictor of Stimulus Effects" at the 6th #BrainStimConf!
📍 Poster P2.064
Don't miss it—come discuss our latest findings on neural dynamics and stimulation effects! #BrainStimulation #Neuroscience
Excited to attend Brain Stimulation Conference! Presenting 3 talks and chairing the symposium on Computational and Mathematical Models of Brain Stimulation-Induced Synaptic Plasticity. Looking forward to great discussions and connecting with this amazing community! #BrainStimConf
Truly honored and grateful that our symposium Advancements in Brain Stimulation Modeling has been accepted for #OHBM2025 marking our third time being part of this incredible event. Heartfelt thanks to the @ohbmofficial.bsky.social community for this opportunity! #BrainStimulation #modelling
🎉 Thrilled to announce that our course on Neural Field Theory & Brain Networks has been accepted for #OHBM2025! Third year teaching computational neuroscience at OHBM. Can't wait to explore brain dynamics in Brisbane!
@ohbmtrainees.bsky.social
@drbreaky.bsky.social @johndgriffiths.bsky.social