Thomas Wolfers

This is your brain on Ritalin. Got your attention? Stimulant medications like Ritalin (methylphenidate) do, but not in the way you might think. They don't act directly on the brain’s attention systems! Find out what's really happening in @cellpress.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Code: github.com/neurotuning/...

The 'Mozart of Math' rarely speaks about politics. The wide-ranging cuts to science funding made him change that. UCLA's Terence Tao called the Trump administration's actions an "existential threat" to academic research in the U.S.

"Tao is one of the most prominent mathematicians and academics to publicly oppose the administration’s actions, calling them an “existential threat” to his field, and academic science, more broadly. He said public advocacy is a priority over his research, for now."

www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Promise tariffs ⟶ faff around ⟶ announce tariffs ⟶ pause tariffs ⟶ promise deals ⟶ court rules tariffs illegal ⟶ appeal ⟶ court order stayed ⟶ make no deals ⟶ 90 days expires ⟶ delay tariffs again ⟶ announce tariffs again ⟶ appeals court rules tariffs illegal again ⟶ you are here

Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity - Nature By analysing the smartphone data of 2,112,288 participants, in particular observing and comparing the activity of the same individual in two different environments, we find that increases in the walkability of environments result in increases in daily physical activity, providing evidence of the importance of the built environment on physical health.

Nature research paper: Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity

go.nature.com/46W2lFl

Reevaluating the role of education on cognitive decline and brain aging in longitudinal cohorts across 33 Western countries - Nature Medicine In a large cross-national study, education was linked to better memory and larger brain volumes but not to slower cognitive or brain decline with age, suggesting that the association reflects early-li...

🧠 Education boosts memory levels but not brain aging resistance

A new study across 33 countries found more education links to better memory and larger brain volume, but not slower cognitive or brain decline.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#SciComm 🧪

Congratulations! This is very important work.

I still get chills

Meet Mike
*30+ years severe depression
*first hospitalized @ 13y
*20 meds
*3 rounds of ECT
*2 near-fatal suicide attempts

Mike felt joy for the first time in decades after we turned on his new brain pacemaker or PACE

see videos, read paper, follow thread
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

He just announced the 90 day pause.

The overlapping genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders and cortical brain structure - Nature Mental Health This study highlights sex differences in major depressive disorder using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Findings suggest hormonal fluctuations influence onset, emphasizing the ne...

💥🧠🧬Finally out!! Our new paper on the overlapping genetic basis of brain structures and psychiatric disorders has been published in Nature Mental Health. The full list of shared genetic loci is also available online. Thank you so much, Aaron and all co-authors.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Poor image quality introduces systematic bias into MRI data Analyses that include low-quality MRI data underestimate cortical thickness and overestimate surface area, according to new work from the ABCD Study.

Big data won't solve anything if it's crappy data. 😒

We need to 1) train people to inspect datasets before using them and 2) ensure that openly shared data is good data.

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/poo...

Eye puffs prompt separable sensory, affective brain responses in mice, people Post-puff brain state might not be an emotion, some researchers caution, but the protocol provides a cross-species approach to study emotions.

A cross-species study captured an emotional brain state characterized by lingering brain activity in higher-order areas. “It’s one of those moments where you’re getting a first glimpse at a vast and complex landscape,” says @deisseroth.bsky.social.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

bit.ly/3U33raF

Work by Tara Arbab, Ingo Willuhn et al. on neural biomarkers in OCD was published in Nature Mental Health.🗨️Arbab about the study: "It's unique that we were able to measure deep brain activity with very high spatial and temporal precision.” @willuhnlab.bsky.social www.amsterdamumc.org/en/research/...

SARS-CoV-2 rebound and post-acute mortality and hospitalization among patients admitted with COVID-19: cohort study - Nature Communications SARS-CoV-2 rebound is a recurrence of symptoms or return to test positivity after initial recovery. Here, the authors demonstrate an association between SARS-CoV-2 rebound and post-acute COVID conditi...

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

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Brain–computer interface restores naturalistic speech to a man with ALS Nature Reviews Neurology, Published online: 08 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s41582-025-01122-6A voice-synthesis neuroprosthesis based on a brain–computer interface has restored instantaneous, natural-sounding speech to a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

ICYMI: New online! Brain–computer interface restores naturalistic speech to a man with ALS

Self-supervised predictive learning accounts for cortical layer-specificity - Nature Communications How the cortex learns an internal representation of the world and why the cortex relies on a layered structure remain poorly understood. Here, the authors propose a computational theory in which the n...

Pleased to say that our story of how a theory of self-supervised learning in cortical layers accounts for several experimental observations is now out 🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rethinking excitation/inhibition balance in the human brain - Nature Reviews Neuroscience The balance between neural excitation (E) and inhibition (I) shapes cognition, development and brain-based disorders. Electroencephalography and magnetic resonance spectroscopy allow non-invasive quan...

Rethinking excitation/inhibition balance in the human brain — a Comment article by Roi Cohen Kadosh

#neuroscience #neuroskyence

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

I defended my PhD! You can watch it on YouTube here: youtu.be/OCfqTtPy1KM?...

David Leeftink's first PhD thesis work is now available on arXiv! Probabilistic Pontryagin's Maximum Principle for Continuous-Time Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, check it out!

Cerebellar circuit computations for predictive motor control - Nature Reviews Neuroscience The cerebellum helps ensure the speed and accuracy of movements, but its precise contributions to movement control are unclear. Nguyen and Person here evaluate evidence for and against feedforward mot...

Cerebellar circuit computations for predictive motor control — a Review by Katrina P. Nguyen & Abigail L. Person

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

#neuroscience #neuroskyence

New online! Influence of sleep and chronotypes: are we adapted to today’s society?

Congratulations @Saige to a wonderful PhD Defense!

Noninvasive reduction of neural rigidity alters autistic behaviors in humans - Nature Neuroscience Autism is associated with inflexibility of brain dynamics. Watanabe and Yamasue show that TMS over the right superior parietal lobule while the brain is ‘stuck’ in a certain state reduces this rigidit...

Autism is associated with inflexibility of brain dynamics. Watanabe and Yamasue show that TMS over the right superior parietal lobule while the brain is ‘stuck’ in a certain state reduces this rigidity and relieves various autistic traits.

@takamitsuw.bsky.social

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

🧠💊New preprint differentiating antipsychotic medication vs. illness effects on cortical thickness in people w/ psychosis.

Finding: People receiving placebo show prominent cortical thinning over 1st year of illness, whereas those receiving antipsychotics do not. 1/3

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out our latest open data release. n=240, most with a dsm-5 dx with extensive phenotying (~100 scales/subscale), rest and task functional imaging. See @carrisacocuzza.bsky.social's thread below for deets and links 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Predicting Mental and Neurological Illnesses Based on Cerebellar Normative Features Cerebellar normative features as predictor of disorders Mental and neurological conditions have been linked to structural brain variations. However, aside from dementia, the value of brain structural charac…

Congratulations to Milin Kim for the acceptance of her paper.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Autonomic physiological coupling of the global fMRI signal - Nature Neuroscience The brain and body are necessarily connected. Here the authors show that brain blood flow and electrical activity are coupled with systemic physiological changes in the body.

Widespread cofluctuations in the low-frequency range between resting-state global fMRI signals, EEG activity, and a host of peripheral autonomic signals spanning cardiovascular, pulmonary, exocrine and smooth muscle systems 🧪🧠

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

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance - Nature Neuroscience How sensory signals from both sides of the body are integrated into a single percept is not well understood. Park et al. show that callosal signaling supports the integration of bilateral tactile stim...

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance 🧠🧪

@scottrpluta.bsky.social

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

Data Sharing - ABCD Study

FYI, if you want to be prepared to apply for the next ABCD Study data release, prepare for these new NIST security requirements 🧠: @ohbmofficial.bsky.social abcdstudy.org/scientists/d...