Alejandro de la Vega
neurozorro.bsky.social
Alejandro de la Vega
@neurozorro.bsky.social
Building tools for better neuroscience - Research Prof, UT Austin 🤘

I like cities and bikes 🚴 - Chair, Austin BAC
Pinned
Attention neuroscientsts!

We just launched Neurosynth Compose: A free and open platform for neuroimaging meta-analysis. NS-Compose makes it easy to perform custom neuroimaging meta-analyses without leaving the browser.

It's live, check it out! compose.neurosynth.org
neurosynth compose
Neurosynth-Compose App
compose.neurosynth.org
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
You want to be alive, but they want you dead. We’re a new, well, funded democratic group that thinks you can meet them halfway.
September 17, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Our latest paper outlining our ecosystem of tools for mining the neuroimaging literature, is finally officially published in eLife! doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Mining the neuroimaging literature
New tools for literature mining, such as automated analysis of the research literature, are accessible, scalable, and reliable.
doi.org
September 11, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Vinay Prasad, a former adult oncologist, has moved to disrupt the childhood vaccine schedule by asserting - against all evidence - that administering multiple vaccines at the same time “could blunt their efficacy.” The added burden/delay of separating shots would sharply reduce US vaccination rates.
FDA quietly positions itself to disrupt childhood vaccine schedule
While CDC turmoil grabbed the media spotlight, a quieter but potentially more consequential drama unfolded last week at FDA. The agency has positioned itse...
www.biocentury.com
September 3, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
KASIE HUNT: Over the summer you said, “There’s no vaccine that’s safe and effective”. Do you still believe that?

RFK JR: “I never said that.”

KASIE HUNT: “Play the clip.”

RFK JR (clip): “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” (March 2024)

ht: @cwebbonline.com
September 2, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
🚀 New in Neurosynth Compose: AI-Assisted Curation

Curating studies for a neuroimaging meta-analysis usually takes hundreds of hours. Our new feature uses LLMs + zero-shot learning to extract study details directly from full-text articles.

Try it now: 👉 compose.neurosynth.org
neurosynth compose
Neurosynth-Compose App
compose.neurosynth.org
August 26, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
1. We interrupt this programming for some LEGITIMATELY GOOD NEWS

Violent crime in Baltimore has PLUMMETED to historic lows

How did the city do it?

Baltimore adopted a comprehensive set of "woke" policies, treating violence as a public health issue
The secret to Baltimore's extraordinary year
This April, Baltimore saw five homicides.
popular.info
July 16, 2025 at 1:14 PM
I officially made my last student loan payment (of my life hopefully??).

I'm 38, and graduated from college 16 years ago...
July 14, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
The 14th Street Busway has been a smashing success: faster commutes, fewer crashes, calmer streets.

So why is Eric Adams blocking a similar plan for 34th Street?
July 11, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Texas can't adequately warn people about deadly floods, but it can immediately let me know that a cop got hurt 250 miles away from me.
July 10, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Excited to share our latest preprint: "Neurosynth Compose: A Web-Based Platform for Flexible and Reproducible Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis"

Here, we cover the why, what, and how of the next generation Neurosynth ecosystem for reproducible neuroimaging meta-analysis.

osf.io/preprints/os...
OSF
osf.io
July 9, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Happy to see Julio Peraza's lastest posted, "NiCLIP", using a CLIP model to improve 'reverse inference' prediction of task fMRI results based on peak coordinate data www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... w/ @angielaird.bsky.social @neurozorro.bsky.social James Kent & JB Poline
www.biorxiv.org
June 16, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
American scientists are **incredibly** expensive in the global context

American science has, historically, been **incredibly** well funded

American innovation has been the product of a level of financial investment that is unparalleled globally.
It is a little weird to me countries aren’t more aggressively, formally trying to take advantage of the U.S. science brain drain. Once in a lifetime opportunity to buy low on Non-Dumbass Americans with PhDs who just wanna look into microscopes and quietly cure ass cancer as our country eats shit.
May 4, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
The way most NIH funded scientists and federal staff are behaving right now is a real world prisioner's dillema.
April 30, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
In 100 days in office, US President Donald Trump has destabilized eight decades of government support for science.

This has included terminating more than 1,000 grants in areas such as climate change, cancer, and HIV prevention.

Will US science survive Trump 2.0?

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
April 29, 2025 at 11:42 AM
I hate to admit but I'm mostly on here to check politics but for that same reason I'm also not here as much as I'd like...
Most people do not want to marinate in politics 24/7. Nothing relevant to their day-to-day lives, especially what they do for leisure, their artistic interests, business/enterprise, or tech is a recipe for a grim silo
April 18, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Columbia's Alzheimers Disease Research Center has been crippled, as a result. No one voted to kill research to help stem the tide on rising dementia prevalence. arstechnica.com/science/2025...
Trump administration’s attack on university research accelerates
With billions in grants put on hold, targeted universities will see research crippled.
arstechnica.com
April 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Our office received a petition advocating to keep the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Councils separate.

I fully agree - bicyclists deserve a focused, citizen-led voice at City Hall.

We always appreciate hearing from constituents, and your input is always important to me.
March 20, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA
March 22, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
E-bikes are car-replacers.

Authors of a new paper that examined 10 e-bike studies across Northern Europe:

"E-bikes can substitute for all other modes of transport, but car use appears to be the most affected."

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
March 20, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024.

That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved.

Show me a better investment than that.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report
National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.
www.forbes.com
March 12, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
The thing about scientific research is that it’s one of the few national investments that’s a clear public good even if you entirely discount the actual ostensible point of it.
New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024.

That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved.

Show me a better investment than that.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report
National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.
www.forbes.com
March 13, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Signal rocks
Just updated our guide to using Signal. If you aren't already on Signal, this will get you up to speed. Also, you should be using Signal—there's no time like this very second! www.wired.com/story/signal...
How to Use Signal Encrypted Messaging
The best end-to-end encrypted messaging app has a host of security features. Here are the ones you should care about.
www.wired.com
March 12, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
Sci-friends. Should you accept an invitation to review NIH grants if you are very angry about what the Administration is doing to NIH? Can you fairly evaluate applications?
March 12, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Reposted by Alejandro de la Vega
I know this is going to sound naive or earnest, but I genuinely find myself shocked by how little people seem to be upset by the levels of corruption we're seeing. Is that the median voter assumes everyone is corrupt already? Or isn't actually getting stories about the corruption?
March 11, 2025 at 11:01 PM