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Robert Howard

@profrobhoward.bsky.social
5.8K followers 2.4K following 643 posts

UCL Old Age Psychiatrist. Evidence-based treatments for dementia, psychosis, depression and anxiety in older people. Running for RCPsych President, see details here profrobhoward.com Still enjoying Twitter but here we all are.

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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
ECT really does save lives. Our new SR/MA shows reduced mortality in people receiving ECT versus a comparator treatment. We didn't show a reduction in suicides but you probably wouldn't expect to be able to.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Almost Japan in Norfolk this mornin.
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Harry Costello @drharrycostello.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
New paper out in @journal_ad (led by Guy Gitlin-Leigh). @profrobhoward.bsky.social We conducted the first systematic review + meta-analysis on whether monoclonal antibody therapies for #Alzheimer’s (AD) & #Parkinson’s (PD) affect risk of depression. Link: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
BlueSky friends, forgive me for not posting much on here. I'm standing for President of the RCPsych in the elections next March. I'm still speaking and listening to friends and colleagues about what is important, but you can learn about what I would do if successful here: www.profrobhoward.com
profrobhoward.com
ProfRobHoward
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Grey old view from the train this morning.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
“Starmer’s one historic role is to stave off the far right”. Absobloodylutely.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Beautiful autumn light on our morning walk with watchful roe deer.
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Pet parrots which typically live alone (whilst those in the wild live in large flocks) were given the technology to call each other. They would use it for up to three hours a day, and developed favourite friends 💔 on.ft.com/3K05vhS
When a parrot wanted to connect with a distant friend, a touchscreen showed a selection of other birds available online. The parrots learned to activate the screen, designed specially for them, by touching it gently with their tongues rather than pecking aggressively with their beaks.
"We had 26 birds involved," said Hirskyj-Douglas. "They would use the system up to three hours a day, with each call lasting up to five minutes." The interactions ranged from preening and playing with toys to loud vocal exchanges.
"When we went through the data, we found that most of these parrots had favourite friends," said Hirskyj-Douglas.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
What a beautiful tribute to love and the power of AIDS research from Faye Landsman. Come join us next week to hear about the miracles HIV research has given the world. #saveaidsresearch @saveaidsresearch.bsky.social
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
This is how you protect your democracy. The US is a demonstration of what happens when you don't. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
theguardian.com
Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years for plotting military coup in Brazil
Former president sought to ‘annihilate’ country’s democracy after losing 2022 election
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Layla. Not really happy on trains, even when she can travel First Class.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
The fall of Mandelson is first cross-party celebration since the vaccine. Remain, Leave, right, left: united at last.
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Ian Denton @iand777.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
A very unenlightened attitude from a company marketing garden lighting.... #urbanfoxes @chrisgpackham.bsky.social
mylondon.news
Everyone with a garden urged to make change to keep foxes out
Autumn is peak time for fox activity and if they establish territory now it can be hard to evict them
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Twitter still has impressive potential for interaction.
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Meghan Bartels @meghanbartels.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Here's what you need to know about the new MAHA report: 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-ma...
scientificamerican.com
A ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Report Goes Easy on the Food Industry
A childhood health report led by RFK, Jr., links poor diet, chemicals, inactivity and “overmedicalization” to worsening U.S. pediatric health
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
BBC using the phrase 'approved asylum seekers' today. It's technically correct I suppose, but emotionally barren - taking a word that inspires sympathy and turning it into a dead administrative phrase. They are refugees.
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Jenny (Kowalczuk) Sanders @jennysanders.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Aldwych is ALWAYS exactly like this, rain and waiting forever for the right bus...
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Atul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
At Lord Leicester’s secret beach hut in Holkham Woods. Lots of squirrels and rabbits this afternoon.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Happy post-lunch nap.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
FDA ask for additional safety monitoring MRI between second and third infusions of lecanemab. www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/al...
medpagetoday.com
Alzheimer's Deaths Prompt FDA to Tighten Lecanemab Rules
Agency will require the drug's label to include earlier MRI to detect brain swelling
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Hedgerows already filled with autumn berries. Densest crop of sloes that I can remember.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Time to bring back abreaction as a treatment for functional neurological disorders? Great piece by Norman Poole in Brain. x.com/brain1878/st...
x.com
Brain on X: "Abreaction was once a common treatment for functional neurological disorder (FND) but has since fallen out of use. Norman Poole argues that abreaction is compatible with many findings from modern neuroscience, and should be tested as a treatment for FND. https://t.co/ziqNSx5WqL https://t.co/XehHuUA2YL" / X
Abreaction was once a common treatment for functional neurological disorder (FND) but has since fallen out of use. Norman Poole argues that abreaction is compatible with many findings from modern neuroscience, and should be tested as a treatment for FND. https://t.co/ziqNSx5WqL https://t.co/XehHuUA2YL
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Rian Nejar 🦋 @riannejar.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Spiders make #webs with their silk, and use trapped #fireflies as glowing #bait [via Brit Eco Soc] 🧪👩‍🔬🕷️🕸️🪰💡 " findings confirm that captured fireflies left as bait increase the hunting success rate of the #spiders." www.britishecologicalsociety.org/spider-uses-... #tools #hunting #intelligence
britishecologicalsociety.org
Spider uses trapped fireflies as glowing bait - BES
Spider uses trapped fireflies as glowing bait - BES is the largest scientific society for ecologists in Europe. We're working towards a world in which nature and people thrive.
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Mike Greicius @mikegreicius.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
🧪 #publichealth With all the stops/restarts, firings/rehirings, grant terminations/non-terminations, and funding delays--even ignoring its anti-science stance--this is not a Department of Health and Human Services that is going to make America the least bit healthy. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/h...
nytimes.com
White House Says New C.D.C. Director Is Fired, but She Refuses to Leave
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Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist @princess-vimentin.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
A key sentence summarizes a very real outcome. 🧪“Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults. Their base should be the people they serve not a political voting bloc."
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Nature Metabolism @natmetabolism.nature.com · 27/08/2025
REVIEW | FREE TO READ THIS WEEK! 🧪 @clemmensenc.bsky.social‬ et al Incretin-based therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases
bit.ly
Incretin-based therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases - Nature Metabolism
This Review summarizes preclinical and clinical evidence highlighting the potential of incretin-based drugs as treatments of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.
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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Bonobos keep track of groupmates even when they can’t see them Mental representation of the locations and identities of multiple hidden agents or objects by a bonobo 🏺🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... Uncovers the rich representations of the social world shared by humans and other apes.
Participant’s view of the set-up across experiments
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William C Phelps, PhD @wcphelps.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
I applaud the Amer Acad of Pediatrics for clear guidelines on COVID vaccines for infants, in contrast to the current CDC leadership. This is an interview with Paul Offit, a courageous expert in pediatrics. 150 children died in the past year of COVID! Read that again. 🧪 www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
pbs.org
Why the American Academy of Pediatrics is diverging from CDC vaccine guidelines
The American Academy of Pediatrics released new COVID vaccination guidelines, and for the first time, they diverge significantly from the recommendations from the CDC. The changes leave parents with c...
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Kathryn Hulick @kathrynhulick.substack.com · 26/08/2025
When tech reads your thoughts, hopefully it won't read out ALL of them! Researchers had subjects imagine the password "Chitty chitty bang bang” to activate a mental speech decoder. 🧪https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/an-inner-speech-decoder-reveals-some-mental-privacy-issues/
arstechnica.com
An inner-speech decoder reveals some mental privacy issues
Words you’ll never speak still cause activity in the brain’s speech centers.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
It’s a Van Gogh kind of morning in Peckham.
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EMBO @embo.org · 25/08/2025
Tom Kern had doubts: Would he like journalism, or be any good? Did he even know how to become a journalist? After nine months as a #ScienceJournalism fellow with leading German news outlets those doubts are largely gone: www.embo.org/people/trans... #ScienceCommunication #funding #LifeSciences 🧪
embo.org
Transitioning from academia to journalism – People – EMBO
Tom Kern had doubts: would he like journalism, or be any good? Did he even know how to become a journalist? After nine months as a science journalism fellow
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Yuto Satake returns to Japan today after a productive year at UCL. My son commissioned his artist friend to produce this to commemorate his visit and secret support for Layla to sit on forbidden sofas.
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
My vague, unprepared #InverteFest idea was 2 never-posted crabs of the day so here is #1! Platychirograpsus spectabilis males grow huge "saber" claws on one (either left or right) hand. TONS more info here 🦀🦑🧪 invasions.si.edu/nemesis/species_summary/99076 share.google/Eu4ZhMo6baJo...
inaturalist.org
Saber crab (Platychirograpsus spectabilis)
Saber crab from Pánuco, Ver., México on July 21, 2019 at 06:32 AM by Guillermo H. Sosa-Tovar. Cangrejo martillo
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Rian Nejar 🦋 @riannejar.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
All my relatives: Neanderthals, Denisovians, and the #Indigenous [via Brown Uni and Science.org] 🧪🧬🔬🚶‍♂️ "haplotype features multiple Denisovan variants, although it likely entered human populations through a Neanderthal intermediate" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #genetics #human #evolution #tree
science.org
The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection
We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...
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Craig @drcjm.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
🧪 My favourites are the singing dogs (very close relatives of dingoes) in Papua New Guinea. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Gui...
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Bryan White, MS Bio, MPH 🧬 @crvscience.com · 25/08/2025
Early primates (50-60 mya) radiated into cold regions (northern latitudes) rather than the classical assumption of tropical/arid climates. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧪🌎🌍🌏 #AnthroSky #BioSky #EvoSky
pnas.org
The radiation and geographic expansion of primates through diverse climates | PNAS
One of the most influential hypotheses about primate evolution postulates that their origin, radiation, and major dispersals were associated with e...
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
This is outstanding. God knows what Labour is doing: legitimising the racism that'll be its undoing, losing the coalition which put it in office, trying to secure voters who will never support it, digging its own moral grave. observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
observer.co.uk
Politically acceptable UK racism is rising, even under La...
As I wrote these words last autumn: “We have made progress... even though that progress remains fragile and insufficient”, little did I realise just how ...
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Don’t recommend having one of these under an open bedroom window. Mrs H and myself exhausted after a night of vivid and weird dreams.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
The feeling that the cavalry we have been waiting for in the NHS for 15 years just isn’t coming, is somehow worse than having the Conservatives. At least we had hope for change.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
They could, of course, simply make better drugs and price them attractively, so that it would make sense for the NHS to use them.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
The @NYTimes has done a fantastic job on explaining what the Trump administration’s savage cuts to biomedical research mean: cures that won’t happen. Please share this widely. This is a catastrophe. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America First? Not When It Comes to Your Health.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
Seen in our hall this afternoon.
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Nature Metabolism @natmetabolism.nature.com · 23/08/2025
REVIEW | FREE TO READ THIS MONTH! 🧪 @clemmensenc.bsky.social‬ et al Incretin-based therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases
bit.ly
Incretin-based therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases - Nature Metabolism
This Review summarizes preclinical and clinical evidence highlighting the potential of incretin-based drugs as treatments of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.
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Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 24/08/2025
🧠 LLMs in medicine: promise and pitfalls A new review of 761 studies shows explosive growth in LLM use for clinical tasks but finds uneven evaluations & underuse of domain-specific models. 🔗 bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... #SciComm #LLMs #HealthTech #AI 🧪
bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com
A systematic review of large language model (LLM) evaluations in clinical medicine - BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Background Large Language Models (LLMs), advanced AI tools based on transformer architectures, demonstrate significant potential in clinical medicine by enhancing decision support, diagnostics, and me...
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Patrick Lynch @patrlynch1.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
And butterflies are just the bugs we notice. This is likely true for ALL kinds of insects and other invertebrates. The #InsectApocalyse marches on... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... 🧪🌿🌎🐡 #garden #bugsky #biodiversity #pollinators #insect #butterflies #macro #insects #flowers #InsectApocalyse
theguardian.com
Monarch butterflies’ mass die-off in 2024 caused by pesticide exposure – study
New peer-reviewed research found an average of seven pesticides in each of 10 butterflies tested
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Her pint.
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Robert Howard @profrobhoward.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Wonderful Wells beach.
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