David V. Smith

📣 New publication 📣

Very excited to share our new paper "A neural signature of adaptive mentalization" out now in Nature Neuroscience (the project started all the way back in 2018!); with
@niklasbuergi.bsky.social
@drgokhanaydogan.bsky.social
@christianruff.bsky.social

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GitHub - micahgallen/bsky_neurobrain: AI-curated Bluesky feed for neuroscience and cognitive science. Real-time firehose filtering with keyword prefilter + local LLM classifier + engagement ranking. AI-curated Bluesky feed for neuroscience and cognitive science. Real-time firehose filtering with keyword prefilter + local LLM classifier + engagement ranking. - micahgallen/bsky_neurobrain

NeuroBrain is now open source! Real-time AI pipeline that filters Bluesky's firehose into a curated neuroscience feed using a local LLM. Includes a step-by-step guide for building your own AI-curated feed on any topic. github.com/micahgallen/bsky_neurobrain

Excited to share our new preprint on how feedback improves pain assessment accuracy when people learn from nonverbal reactions! See @yilizhao.bsky.social thread below.

A recent paper in @natureportfolio.nature.com raised concerns about the lesion network mapping method. Our team of 16 coauthors analyzed >1000 lesions and 34 symptoms and found that "The methodological foundations of lesion network mapping remain sound" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The Journal of Neuroscience: 46 (8)

Very excited to share a Special Collection at the Journal of Neuroscience (@sfnjournals.bsky.social) - Central Questions for Social Neuroscience Research. This issue includes some of the latest perspectives on social neuroscience research. Please check it out!👇

www.jneurosci.org/content/46/8

We have a new paper out on how the AI boom is creating a scientific monoculture! Everything AI.

"The task for social science is to ensure that, in navigating this moment, we do not become artificial ourselves."

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Led by the brilliant @cecilietraberg.bsky.social

Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology.

We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

Opinion | The Human Cost of Trump’s War on Science

NIH is “…the largest government-funded biomedical research agency in the world, and until recently was the envy of scientists across the globe.

The president’s attacks on this legacy have been relentless and all-encompassing…”

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

The role of comorbidities in the associations between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease: A national cohort study in the American Medicare population In a national cohort study of US Medicare beneficiaries, Deng and colleagues investigate the association between air pollution and Alzheimer's Disease.

Air pollution may directly contribute to Alzheimer’s disease

"Exposure to air pollution, particularly PM2.5, has been linked to an increased risk of AD, likely through pathways such as neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and vascular injury."

journals.plos.org/plosmedicine...

New paper in Current Directions in Psych Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

After countless arguments about what tasks ppl should/should not offload to AI, we instead argue that genAI can be used *augment* research protocols in novel ways. I.e. use AI to make better psych experiments!

"Dow 50,000" Sound Nice. Until Justin Wolfers Shows You That U.S. Markets Are Coming 21st Out of 23. What does “Dow 50,000” actually tell you—anything about the economy, or just that a number got bigger? Dow 50,000 is a milestone, not a measurement. The level of the Dow is basically arbitrary: it’s…

The Dow was at 43,488 when Trump took office. It just hit 50,000.

So if you had invested $43,488 in the US, you would now have $50,000. But if you had invested the same amount in the rest of the world, you would now be worth $60,000.

Lemme do a expla-youtube-nation
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYL5...

we shall see

Something big is happening in AI — and most people will be blindsided | Fortune It’s not like a light switch... more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

“Dario Amodei, who is probably the most safety-focused CEO in the AI industry, has publicly predicted that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. And many people in the industry think he’s being conservative.”

fortune.com/2026/02/11/s...

Attention Dynamics: Antecedents to Consumer Choice This chapter reviews four decades of research on consumer attention and decision-making, focusing on how visual information influences preferences, attitudes, and choice. It traces methodological adva...

The new book, "Neuroeconomics: Core Topics and Current Directions" is out! Here is my chapter on consumer attention. 👀Thanks to @dvsmith.bsky.social @thepsychologist.bsky.social @dfareri.bsky.social for their excellent leadership as editors.
#science #attention #eyetracking #marketing

The Role of Memory in Temporal Discounting A widely observed phenomenon in intertemporal choice is temporal discounting; people prefer to have rewards sooner rather than later, even if the delayed rewards are larger. Despite the universality o...

So excited that this textbook, edited by @dfareri.bsky.social @dvsmith.bsky.social & @thepsychologist.bsky.social is out now! And so happy to have been invited to contribute. Here’s my chapter on the role of memory, esp. semantic memory, in temporal discounting: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

New work from the lab! With @jameswyngaarden.bsky.social

Ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate restores neuronal Tau proteostasis via ketolysis-independent mechanism https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.30.702936v1

Emotion and Choice: The Integral Role of Emotion in Constructing Value In the centuries-long history of decision-making research, emotion’s role in choice has only been investigated relatively recently. Early theories of decision-making, which conceived of emotions...

Check out @orielf.bsky.social & I's chapter "Emotion and Choice: The Integral Role of Emotion in Constructing Value" in the new volume, Neuroeconomics: Core Topics and Current Directions, edited by @dvsmith.bsky.social @thepsychologist.bsky.social & @dfareri.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1007/978-...

Decomposing Economic Choices with Drift-Diffusion Models Many decisions arise from a dynamic process of information accumulation and comparison. Thus, to fully understand decision-making, we must decompose the choice process into its parts. Here, we review ...

Chapter 📖 "Decomposing Economic Choices with Drift-Diffusion Models" with @krajbichlab.bsky.social and Xiaozhi (Taro) Yang is out in, "Neuroeconomics: Core Topics and Current Directions" edited by @dvsmith.bsky.social, @thepsychologist.bsky.social, @dfareri.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/yey56tup

New discovery! Value-based decisions reorganize neural state space. Options are first encoded in orthogonal subspaces Then the selected option rotates into a "readout subspace".
Neural subspace reorganization reflects value-based decision making.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#neuroscience

📣 New book chapter

Excited to see my chapter "The Neural Mechanisms of Strategic Decision-Making" finally out in a new book, "Neuroeconomics: Core Topics and Current Directions", edited by @dvsmith.bsky.social, @thepsychologist.bsky.social, and Dominic Fareri.

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya talks 'replication crisis' at Duke panel, omits funding cuts Throughout the second Trump administration, the NIH has frozen billions of dollars in research funding to universities. Those cuts were not the topic of discussion at a Duke Clinical Research Institut...

~1 yr into the NIH Director’s term, he mentioned the same talking points from his ongoing media tour. Disappointed that these talking points were not supported with programs or operational updates from the past year in this role.

Moreso claims about ideology.

www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...

This is an important paper on social class barriers among faculty in academia.

First-generation college grads earn less and are placed at lower prestige institutions despite being just as productive as other faculty.

Faculty from upper class backgrounds are overplaced for their research records.

Feedback-induced attitudinal changes in risk preferences Nature Communications - Normative theory predicts that feedback should not affect decisions under risk, but past findings disagree. Here, the authors show that feedback shifts risk-taking by...

🧵 New paper in @NatureComms
Feedback-induced attitudinal changes in risk preferences
Nasioulas, Potier, Cerrotti, Lebreton & me (2026)
Does feedback really improve risky decision-making? Short answer: no! it changes attitudes, not learning. 👇
rdcu.be/e0VcO

Dissociable neuronal substrates for positive and negative valence stimuli in the nucleus accumbens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.24.701496v1

Opinion | What Are We Thinking?

Neuroscience is moving away from a modular view of the brain because the brain is not modular. It is network of murmuring neurons. Great metaphor by @pessoabrain.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/o...
#neuroscience

Department Chair, Duke Neurobiology - Duke University, Durham job with Duke University - School of Medicine | 12852576 The Duke University School of Medicine (SOM) seeks a distinguished neuroscientist to serve as the next Chair of the Department of Neurobiology.

My department, Duke Neurobiology, is searching for a new chair. Ad below. Come work with me, @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social @ennatsew.bsky.social @jorggrandl.bsky.social @jnklab.bsky.social @sbilbo.bsky.social @neurocircuits.bsky.social and many other amazing folks! @dukemedschool.bsky.social

SANS 2026 deadline has been extended by a week to **next Monday Jan 19th 23:59 PT**!

We encourage all current and prospective members of the SANS community to take advantage of the extended deadline and submit their work for consideration as either an individual poster or oral presentation!

Want to get into one of the fastest growing tech fields today? The CMU Neuroscience Institute and Department of Biomedical Engineering have teamed up to offer a suite of masters programs in Neural Technologies, tailored to your long term career goals.

Spread the word!

Congress Is Reversing Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science

This is a HUGE win…and one that happened because we ~collectively~ said “NO!”

But AAAS coming in and saying on record to the NYT “Science is doing ok. Things are not bad at all…” is baffling.

If things are hard for you as a scientist, please share in the comments.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...