Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 05/05/2026The VA does excellent research and clinical work on PTSD in the US. This is where I would start (national center for PTSD: www.ptsd.va.gov/about/divisi...) 000
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Jeremiah Cohen @jeremiahycohen.bsky.social · 13/04/2026Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1biorxiv.org 7254120
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Debbie Yee @debyee.bsky.social · 07/04/2026Relatedly, I will be hiring a post-bacc / lab manager starting this Fall 2026. This is a great chance to get hands-on didactic training in computational psychiatry, clinical science, computational cognitive neuroscience, fMRI, & psychopharmacology. Job ad below, Please share with your networks!yeelabneuro.com 258
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Debbie Yee @debyee.bsky.social · 07/04/2026I will also be recruiting grad students this cycle - prospective candidates can apply through Psych & Brain Sciences or the Neuroscience grad programs. Interested postdocs who are aligned with the lab's interdisciplinary interests are welcome to reach out. ...& much more to come down the road! 111
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 05/04/2026This is cool! A couple things: could grad student costs and non-personnel research costs be adjustable? Both are pretty optimistic from my experiences. 100
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 18/03/2026At least one institute (NIMH) is to my knowledge only awarding MYF to established investigators so I call BS 020
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 17/03/2026Anyway, I think we've mostly figured out exposure through trial and error and the idea that it's very theory driven is us deluding ourselves, but maybe I've gotten too cynical. 110
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 17/03/2026And the empirical differences in learning in anxiety are mostly with uncertainty learning, safety learning, etc. that don't map onto extinction as the fix... 221
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 17/03/2026And we have gotten very good at knowing what modulates fear learning and extinction in basic science but very little of that does anything clinically (e.g., d-cycloserine)... 110
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 17/03/2026I think we need to step back further. I dunno if extinction is what's happening. If you look back at the literature over the history of exposure (watson/cover jones, wolpe, foa, now craske) we've had totally different theories of what is going on that often contradict each other... 110
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 16/03/2026Yeah there were clear shortcomings in the old Foa-esque model of fear learning such that inhibitory learning was a clear improvement over it. But I don't think any of those theories actually explain what's happening in exposure well at all. 112
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 22/01/2026Backlash against the state government in IA that is much more Republican and pro-Trump, and has over-played their hand. 100
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 16/01/2026I've written almost the same thing in a paper... not easy to figure out how to make a paper using Bayesian stats meet the statistical reporting requirements for a medical journal + satisfy non-stats-savvy reviewers used to checklists 110
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Dan Levenstein @dlevenstein.bsky.social · 15/01/202612 out of 10 stars. would recommend 2124
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Pete Hitchcock @pf-hitchcock.bsky.social · 13/09/2025Now out in JEP: General, "How working memory and reinforcement learning interact when avoiding punishment and pursuing reward concurrently" psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... Preprint with final version: osf.io/preprints/ps... 1/n 25020
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 16/12/2025Yup, clin psych PhDs could apply if the project was within NSF's scope. Now they are specifically excluded. NRSA is a good fit but not for early grad school or post-bac applicants like the GRFP. Not a whole lot of foundation fellowships for that period of training either 😕 010
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Michelle Marneweck @mmarneweck.bsky.social · 12/12/2025I am looking to hire a great postdoc to join our lab in sunny Eugene at the University of Oregon for fun behavioral/fMRI experiments on sensorimotor control in young and older adults. Please share/get in touch if interested! pages.uoregon.edu/mmar/ 02320
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 26/11/2025I got diagnosed with POTS a few years ago after 20 years of weird symptoms, and this really resonates. Thanks for writing this. 140
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Alex Dombrovski @alexdombrovski.bsky.social · 17/11/2025@andrewpapale.bsky.social 's new explore/exploit paper in JNeurosci with @vanessabrown.bsky.social @drangelaianni.bsky.social Michael Hallquist & Bea Luna: www.jneurosci.org/content/earl... PFC-DMN and hippocampus encode value maxima in exploitation, but their synchronization peaks in exploration.jneurosci.orgPrefrontal default-mode network interactions with posterior hippocampus during explorationHippocampal maps and ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) value and goal representations support foraging in continuous spaces. How might hippocampal-vPFC interactions control the balance between behavior... 094
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/11/2025Lol that's the work of our old provost (aihumanity.emory.edu) whose departure to OSU wasn't exactly mournedaihumanity.emory.eduHome | Emory University | Atlanta GA 020
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 31/10/2025Wow: @ajc.com's Lautaro Grinspan reports that in just one week in October, ICE spent nearly $950,000 on ads in Atlanta — more spending than in any other U.S. city. That amount would've been enough to provide SNAP benefits for over 20,000 Atlantans every month. 14630
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 30/10/2025I am recruiting a postdoc for a new NIMH-funded R01 using neural and behavioral models to understand anxious avoidance. Please share with anyone who may be interested! Link: faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/155929/... 13828
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Lorenzo Lorenzo-Luaces, PhD @lluaces.bsky.social · 27/10/20251: In 2023, I wrote this paper arguing that research on active ingredients of CBT, and by extension on their mechanisms, is not close to improving therapy outcomes. I just read a paper on inhibitory learning improving outcomes of exposure. Egg on my face? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.comIdentifying active ingredients in cognitive-behavioral therapies: What if we didn't?Identifying active ingredients of psychological interventions is a major goal of psychotherapy researchers that is often justified by the promise that… 1205
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 02/10/2025I agree, but at the same time I see people get hopeful about all these small-N studies coming across my feed, many of which are, at worst, clearly noise, or at best, unlikely to be replicable (e.g., see here for why the LC vs control prediction is flawed given the N: www.nature.com/articles/s41...)nature.comSystematic misestimation of machine learning performance in neuroimaging studies of depression - NeuropsychopharmacologyNeuropsychopharmacology - Systematic misestimation of machine learning performance in neuroimaging studies of depression 010
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 02/10/2025I dunno if it's worth getting hopes up for. 100
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 02/10/2025It's an interesting finding but the sample size is small, it uses a relatively unproven PET tracer, and the statistics are a bit fishy (though I know more about MRI than PET so not sure how fishy). I wouldn't say they've found a definitive biomarker as much as established that it's worth studying. 130
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Erin @ghosttrainphoto.bsky.social · 25/07/2025Hey, Neuroimaging friends: I am getting laid off soon due to the cuts to NIH. I have filled out applications far and wide to no avail. Does anyone have any leads on a lab that might be able to use someone with a strong background in neuroimaging data analytics? 21211
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 04/08/2025I use it with canvas and there are about 1-2 students each time (out of 30-50) who have glitches. I print off a few paper copies for this. Best approach I have found, esp. since some students need to use computers for disability reasons 030
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 30/07/2025I've been trying to switch to an actual stimulant for a couple years now but I guess drs are not too excited about switching to a scheduled drug. If it's an NDRI is it sunosi? Not sure I want to try another NDRI but I'm glad it's working for you! 230
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 30/07/2025Interesting, thanks! I was curious because I started on bupropion for fatigue before being diagnosed with POTS, and it helps the fatigue but makes the core POTS symptoms worse (was a blessing in disguise because it made me actually notice those symptoms and figure out my diagnosis). 140
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Chris Rozell @crozell.bsky.social · 17/07/2025Please repost! We're hiring a postdoc to work with me and @salagapan.bsky.social on an exciting interdisciplinary project in human neuroscience and brain-body interactions underlying effortful behavior in health and mood disorders. siplab.gatech.edu/postdoc_ad_2...siplab.gatech.eduSIPLab 12730
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 10/07/2025I'm sorry to be missing it (not at CPC this year) but excited to check out the preprint! 110
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Larisa Heiphetz Solomon @drlarisa.bsky.social · 25/06/20251. I have spent a lot of time recently sending invitations for people to review papers, and this process works extremely differently from what I imagined when I was a student. Wanted to write out how I do it in case that's helpful for you all as you submit papers. #AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky 1226
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 23/06/2025My trainee self ventured into methods my advisors weren't experts in, and some of the best help I got was through some form of peer review (mostly people stopping at my conf posters to tell me I'd done things wrong). Done constructively and thoughtfully, critical peer review isn't a bad thing. 120
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/06/2025I have... thoughts... about this paper. It is easy to get poor reliability. Lots of papers already out on what methods etc. help to get good reliability. Sam Zorowitz & Yael Niv have a good review paper on this. 020
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Lorenzo Lorenzo-Luaces, PhD @lluaces.bsky.social · 30/05/2025About my social media grant... mind you the "activities" being referenced are simply that we measure these variables and they'll be features in some machine learning model. The two sociodemographics that most often come up in the moral panic about social media are gender and LGBTQ+ status. 1265
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 29/05/2025Hmm looked it up and it's six years and only at some institutes (NIMH is one). So not as bad as I thought 000
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 29/05/2025Not to disagree that this is something - but may not help many people affected 040
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 29/05/2025Isn't there a five year time limit post-PhD for Ks though? And less for K99 IIRC. If that still applies then not many people will still be eligible. And this is just to apply, not to get a new award. Even if new app is funded it will be a year+ delay between the cancelled grant and a new one. 270
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)Janel Le Belle @janellebelle.bsky.social · 13/05/2025Gift link to article here: 021
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/05/2025As a disabled professor... the amount of ableism baked into academia continues to astound me 1271
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/05/2025www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g... techhq.com/2023/04/ai-w...npr.orgAI brings soaring emissions for Google and Microsoft, a major contributor to climate changeThe tech giants both report surges in greenhouse gas emissions as they double-down on adding artificial intelligence to all of their products. 010
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/05/2025These are the articles, tho I may swap some out: ig.ft.com/generative-ai/ ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/llmtoolsfors... ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/llmtoolsfors... ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/llmtoolsfors... ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/llmtoolsfors... www.theguardian.com/technology/2...ig.ft.comGenerative AI exists because of the transformerThe technology has resulted in a host of cutting-edge AI applications — but its real power lies beyond text generation 120
Vanessa Brown (she/her) @vanessabrown.bsky.social · 07/05/2025I spent a half day in class at the beginning of the semester where I had students read popular press articles about how LLMs work and some drawbacks of using them. Students said they weren't aware of a lot of the issues and the amount of obvious ai-generated work seemed lower. 210
Reposted by Vanessa Brown (she/her)DisabledInSTEM @disabledinstem.bsky.social · 29/04/2025Here's a database from UCLA on Non-NIH funding opportunities ranging from grad students to faculty from a wide range of biological and medical disciplines: biofund.healthsciences.ucla.edu/crt-funding/...biofund.healthsciences.ucla.eduBioFund - a Non-NIH Funding Database | crt-funding 23427
