Alex Shackman
@ajshackman.bsky.social
Laboratory for Affective & Translational Neuroscience, University of Maryland | shackmanlab.org | affective neuroscience | "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Thank you to everyone who came out and helped spread the word. Thousands of Minnesotans gathered tonight for a vigil honoring Renee Good, who was murdered by ICE agents. Let’s get ICE out of MN!
January 8, 2026 at 12:59 AM
Thank you to everyone who came out and helped spread the word. Thousands of Minnesotans gathered tonight for a vigil honoring Renee Good, who was murdered by ICE agents. Let’s get ICE out of MN!
Calling bullshit on this. As scientists we have a moral obligation to not do this.
Ben Kay's paper continues to make headlines.
ADHD drugs work, but not the way experts thought
wapo.st/3Z5qjZq
ADHD drugs work, but not the way experts thought
wapo.st/3Z5qjZq
ADHD drugs work, but not the way experts thought
New brain research could reshape our understanding of ADHD and the most common drugs that treat it.
wapo.st
January 8, 2026 at 1:41 AM
Calling bullshit on this. As scientists we have a moral obligation to not do this.
Was just telling my daughter this
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures...
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
January 8, 2026 at 1:37 AM
Was just telling my daughter this
Reposted by Alex Shackman
After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data.
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
WARN-D machine learning competition is live » Eiko Fried
If you share one single thing of our team in 2026—on social media or per email with your colleagues—please let it be this machine learning competition. It was half a decade of work to get here, especi...
eiko-fried.com
January 7, 2026 at 7:39 PM
After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data.
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.
eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...
Reposted by Alex Shackman
We’d like to dedicate our final post for the day to the brave law enforcement officials who fought an angry mob on this day, five years ago. May their unwavering dedication to the service of our nation give us the strength we need to carry on in this fight against fascism.
Good night, friends.
Good night, friends.
January 7, 2026 at 1:24 AM
We’d like to dedicate our final post for the day to the brave law enforcement officials who fought an angry mob on this day, five years ago. May their unwavering dedication to the service of our nation give us the strength we need to carry on in this fight against fascism.
Good night, friends.
Good night, friends.
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Trump: I have violated and betrayed the US Constitution, you gotta win or the Democrats will hold me accountable.
Trump tells Republicans: 'You gotta win the midterms' or 'I'll get impeached'
President Donald Trump issued a warning to House Republicans Tuesday: "Win the midterms" or "I'll get impeached."
apnews.com
January 7, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Trump: I have violated and betrayed the US Constitution, you gotta win or the Democrats will hold me accountable.
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Want to learn about FMRI visualization, processing and group analysis? Join us for the next AFNI Bootcamp (Jan. 27-29, 2026) for a fun few days of theory and interactive practicals.
Details+registration for this virtual course:
afni.nimh.nih.gov/bootcamp
Details+registration for this virtual course:
afni.nimh.nih.gov/bootcamp
January 7, 2026 at 1:21 AM
Want to learn about FMRI visualization, processing and group analysis? Join us for the next AFNI Bootcamp (Jan. 27-29, 2026) for a fun few days of theory and interactive practicals.
Details+registration for this virtual course:
afni.nimh.nih.gov/bootcamp
Details+registration for this virtual course:
afni.nimh.nih.gov/bootcamp
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Reposted by Alex Shackman
1/ Trump's War Powers Report to Congress on the #Venezuela strikes and seizure of #Maduro is in.
I've read/coded every WPR report and used to work on them in the White House. (See this searchable database & graphics warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/%F0%9F%91%87)
Here's what stands out about this one🧵:
I've read/coded every WPR report and used to work on them in the White House. (See this searchable database & graphics warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/%F0%9F%91%87)
Here's what stands out about this one🧵:
January 6, 2026 at 5:52 AM
1/ Trump's War Powers Report to Congress on the #Venezuela strikes and seizure of #Maduro is in.
I've read/coded every WPR report and used to work on them in the White House. (See this searchable database & graphics warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/%F0%9F%91%87)
Here's what stands out about this one🧵:
I've read/coded every WPR report and used to work on them in the White House. (See this searchable database & graphics warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/%F0%9F%91%87)
Here's what stands out about this one🧵:
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Interesting take (including shared simulations) on the study.
This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!
Would love to hear expert views on this paper. It appears to show that the operationalization of brain activity the field has relied on for 3 decades—the BOLD response—is not actually a sensible measure of brain activity.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 6, 2026 at 10:40 AM
Interesting take (including shared simulations) on the study.
Reposted by Alex Shackman
The key result is Figure 3b, which shows ΔCMRO2 vs ΔCBF vs ΔBOLD for a bunch of voxels. Voxels that fall (1) to the right of ΔCMRO2=0 and below the diagonal or (2) to the left of 0 and above the diagonal are called “discordant” because their ΔBOLD and ΔCMRO2 have different signs
January 5, 2026 at 5:22 PM
The key result is Figure 3b, which shows ΔCMRO2 vs ΔCBF vs ΔBOLD for a bunch of voxels. Voxels that fall (1) to the right of ΔCMRO2=0 and below the diagonal or (2) to the left of 0 and above the diagonal are called “discordant” because their ΔBOLD and ΔCMRO2 have different signs
A prospective biomarker-guided precision medicine
trial of bupropion and sertraline for major
depressive disorder: Sequential Multiple
Assignment Randomized Trial in Depression
(SMART-D)
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...
trial of bupropion and sertraline for major
depressive disorder: Sequential Multiple
Assignment Randomized Trial in Depression
(SMART-D)
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...
A prospective biomarker-guided precision medicine trial of bupropion and sertraline for major depressive disorder: Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial in Depression (SMART-D)
Treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD) remains challenging as only 30% of patients respond to antidepressants in primary care. Here, we developed algorithms using predictors of response to sert...
www.researchsquare.com
January 2, 2026 at 4:22 PM
A prospective biomarker-guided precision medicine
trial of bupropion and sertraline for major
depressive disorder: Sequential Multiple
Assignment Randomized Trial in Depression
(SMART-D)
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...
trial of bupropion and sertraline for major
depressive disorder: Sequential Multiple
Assignment Randomized Trial in Depression
(SMART-D)
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Happy New Year everyone!
January 1, 2026 at 9:09 AM
Happy New Year everyone!
Agreed.
For 2026, I dare the human & rodent behavioral & cognitive neuroscience communities to find one NHP paper relevant to your research & cite it regularly next year when writing up your manuscripts. If you already cite one, find another one and double up. #Neuroskyence bsky.app/profile/vinc...
I definitely didn’t just scrape the web to get the h-index and total citation count as of 12/30/2025 for 319 living and dead nonhuman primate researchers to get a sense of publication metrics by rank on tenure-track.
December 31, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Agreed.
Reposted by Alex Shackman
Example 2: Hegseth did not want detailed updates of the conditions of the war - nothing more than 4-5 sentences
December 31, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Example 2: Hegseth did not want detailed updates of the conditions of the war - nothing more than 4-5 sentences
3,100 miles on the bike this year!
December 31, 2025 at 5:34 PM
3,100 miles on the bike this year!
Shingles vax FTW. Getting mine Sunday... substack.com/@erictopol/n...
Eric Topol (@erictopol)
Multiple large natural experiments have documented Shingles vaccine is linked with ~20-25% reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. A new report today adds to that and extends the to slowing...
substack.com
December 31, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Shingles vax FTW. Getting mine Sunday... substack.com/@erictopol/n...
Based on a quick skim, this is great... www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Implementing lifestyle interventions in mental health care: third report of the Lancet Psychiatry Physical Health Commission
The physical health disparities experienced by people who live with mental illness
are well documented. This population group has cardiometabolic risks and diseases
at rates 1·4–2·0 times higher than ...
www.thelancet.com
December 30, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Based on a quick skim, this is great... www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
