Jibran Khokhar
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drjkhokhar.bsky.social
Jibran Khokhar
@drjkhokhar.bsky.social
Associate Professor, CRC in Translational Neuropsychopharmacology Western University Open-Source Behavioural Tools
Committed to knowing better and doing better!
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Happy to share my talk for the @hbhlmcgill.bsky.social Brain Canada The Amazing Brain 2024 event titled: Cannabis and the Developing Brain: Vaping, Edibles and Genetics www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgxb...
Cannabis and the Developing Brain: Vaping, Edibles and Genetics | Jibran Khokhar
YouTube video by Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Unbelievable. OCUFA didn't even mention the deeply regressive raid on student financial aid in their announcement response (it did, however, critique the tiny tuition fee increase, which should have been much larger).
Ontario professors say new funding for universities a step towards stability, more work needed - OCUFA
TORONTO, February 12, 2026 –The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) today responded to today’s funding announcement by Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excelle...
ocufa.on.ca
February 16, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
I suspect the answer to this question for the Liberals and New Democrats is probably

c) institutions can suck it, because we don't want to make hard decisions.

Which, IMHO, is not obviously better than b).
You want to increase funding to PSE and want to make students pay for it.

Do you:

a) raise fees by $1300, and ⬆️student aid so poorer student are not impacted?

b) keep fees roughly even and yank $3500/year in grants from the poorest students.

PCPO has chosen b. What would other parties would do?
February 16, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
You want to increase funding to PSE and want to make students pay for it.

Do you:

a) raise fees by $1300, and ⬆️student aid so poorer student are not impacted?

b) keep fees roughly even and yank $3500/year in grants from the poorest students.

PCPO has chosen b. What would other parties would do?
February 16, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
The ballsiest thing Ontario student unions could do right now is ask the province to cancel the OSAP cuts and raise tuition instead.

They won't, of course, because their politics are as regressive as those of the Conservatives. But it would be great if they did.
February 16, 2026 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
One day I shall learn to put thoughts to paper better... but for now. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-nih-s...
What NIH Staff Can’t Tell You—And Why That Matters
The people who understand most clearly what is being lost at the NIH are also the people least able to say so.
elizabethginexi.substack.com
February 16, 2026 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Thrilled to finally share this work! 🧠🔊

Using a new reinforcement-free task we show mice (like humans) extract abstract structure from sound (unsupervised) & dCA1 is causally required by building factorised, orthogonal subspaces of abstract rules.

Led by Dammy Onih!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 16, 2026 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
If you had the choice of studying cocaine addiction in rats alone in a cage with only cocaine or at least one other substance, what would you do?

In this new interesting study, Nowak and her co-authors chose the second option.

link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
February 16, 2026 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
5/ Here I layer in the hit from the loss of international student income. Doesn't look quite so good anymore. This money (again in millions of $2025) still isn't coming close to replacing lost income from other sources.
February 13, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
1/ If I understand yesterday's Ontario budget announcement correctly, here's what provincial transfers to institutions will look like for the coming few years. Scale is millions of $2025.
February 13, 2026 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Of the $6.4B announced for Ontario PSE yesterday, 45% or so was just taking $ out of SFA and handing it to institutions.

Another chunk of $, maybe as high as $3B (unclear) involved taking $ announced in '24 and '25 & putting it into the base out to 2029-30

Actual new $ over 2025-26 base? $0-2B.
February 13, 2026 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
I apologize for the error here. It's going to be closer to $4500.

They will still get the aid, but it will be loan instead of grant.
Between the announced provincial cuts to student aid and the apparent reduction in federal aid back to pre-covid levels (which the feds claim they are still undecided on but come on), low-income Ontarians are looking at an aid cut (or net tuition increase if you prefer) of about $2500 next year.
February 13, 2026 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Between the feds cutting student grants in half and Ontario - which makes up something like 60% of the non-Quebec Canada Student Financial Assistance Plan "zone" cutting them by 60-70%, I am pretty sure we will be talking a lot more about student debt in 2030 than we have at any time since 1998.
February 13, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
In order to pay for new $ to unis & colleges, the Ford government is hitting OSAP for nearly $3B over four years. Students on aid will see a $3500 increase in net costs as a result.

Restoring tuition to 2018 levels would have raised about the same amount of money and been distrbutionally fairer.
February 15, 2026 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Faculty should not get drunk with graduate students. Drinking in general around graduate students is a bad idea. Grad students already have issues with stress, anxiety, and mental health. They see faculty drinking as an example.
This was also fueled by a culture where excessive drinking by students and faculty at the Curriculum retreat was not only tolerated but tacitly supported 7/n
February 16, 2026 at 3:20 AM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
👉 Get to know the RSA AREC Committee 💬 This RSA committee advocates for sound ethical practices in the conduct of research
🔗https://bit.ly/4ku7XLB
February 16, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
* TODAY! Don't miss our Neuroscience Seminar, at 11am with Pouya Bashivan*

douglas.research.mcgill.ca/calendar/ent...

* AUJOURD'HUI! Ne manquez pas notre Séminaire en neuroscience, à 11h avec Pouya Bashivan*

douglas.research.mcgill.ca/fr/calendrie...
February 16, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
New, online course @mcgillspgh.bsky.social

Fundamentals of Implementation Science: Core Concepts, Practical Tools, and Methods

May 25-29, 2026

www.mcgill.ca/summerinstit...
February 15, 2026 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
We're working on a novel python package for end-end processing and analysis of electrogastrography and stomach-brain coupling. Debating submission to JOSS vs Behavioral Research Methods - or somewhere else?

prerelease... soon
February 16, 2026 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
#eNeuro | Bidirectional Cerebellar Control of Suprasecond Timing in Rats
https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0198-25.2025
February 15, 2026 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
This is very disturbing. It certainly feels like the rumors that the Trump Administration is trying to destroy the NIH from within—partly by having all funding decisions made by Trump appointees—are true. This is a 5-alarm fire for biomedical science in this country.
The chief of NIAMS, Lindsey Criswell, has told her staff that her 5-year leadership appointment had not been renewed, meaning 16 out of 27 NIH institutes and centers will be operating without a permanent director. https://scim.ag/4cr5wHI
Another NIH institute loses its director
Health department declines to renew Lindsey Criswell, head of arthritis institute, to another 5-year term
scim.ag
February 15, 2026 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
NBC story on NIH Institute Director vacancies...

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

It is bad enough that national news networks (well, not CBS) are covering this story,,,
National Institutes of Health faces leadership vacuum as director positions sit open
More than half of the NIH's institutes and centers don’t have permanent directors, giving the Trump administration an unusual opportunity to reshape the agency. The latest departure came on Friday.
www.nbcnews.com
February 15, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Now this is a movie plot!!! Someone understands grad school.
February 14, 2026 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
Renew Your Membership and SAVE on RSA Annual Meeting Registration
🔗Join: https://bit.ly/4a93JWj
🔗Renew: https://bit.ly/4trC5v9
February 15, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
New neuromapr #rstats package is available from GitHub! Highly experimental, early adopters and bug identifiers are super welcome to report issues!

github.com/lcbc-uio/neu...

#neuroscience #rstats #neuroimaging
February 15, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Jibran Khokhar
thinking out loud… as an unemployed early career scientist I get a lot of review requests, all of which I turn down & let the editor know I need to dedicate my full energy to finding academic employment (beyond true!) BUT I keep thinking I would accept a fair number if it were an income stream… 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🧠
a man sitting on a couch with #schitts creek written on the bottom right
Alt: David Rose from Schitts Creek sitting on a couch saying “I’M JUST THROWING IT OUT THERE” in an expressive way.
media.tenor.com
February 15, 2026 at 9:36 AM