Blaise Frederick

Blaise Frederick

@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

A physicist who wandered into a psychiatry department and ended up obsessing about random fluctuations in cerebral circulation. Director, Optomagnetic Group, McLean Hospital Brain Imaging Center/Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

1.2K followers2.5K following83 posts

Blaise Frederick reposted

Communications Biology
@commsbio.nature.com

🧠 Individual differences in arousal, indexed by a non-neuronal fMRI signal, are strongly associated with variation in functional brain network connectivity. Effects replicate within and across samples and are altered by catecholaminergic manipulation. PDF available: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

nature.comPhysiological arousal as a predominant source of individual differences in functional brain networks - Communications BiologyIndividual differences in arousal, indexed by a non-neuronal fMRI signal, are strongly associated with variation in functional brain network connectivity. Effects replicate within and across samples a...

Blaise Frederick reposted

Neuropsychopharmacology
@npp-journal.bsky.social

Replying to @npp-journal.bsky.social

#TWiNPP Janes et al. discuss evidence that the systemic low-frequency oscillation, a major component of the global signal,can distort connectivity estimates and also index arousal, craving, behavior & brain network function / @blaisefrederick.bsky.social @amy.janeslab.org @ckorponay.bsky.social

nature.comA non-neuronal fMRI signal: both a confound and an opportunity for insight - NeuropsychopharmacologyNeuropsychopharmacology - A non-neuronal fMRI signal: both a confound and an opportunity for insight
Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

Dr. Tianye Zhai’s careful and exhaustive new paper evaluating the effects of numerous fMRI denoising pipeline components, alone and in combination, just came out in HBM - check it out! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.comBenchmarking fMRI Denoising PipelinesThis paper benchmarked fMRI denoising pipelines on task- and resting-state, single- and multi-echo fMRI datasets, in a modern 1-step regression framework, with pre-whitening and time-shifted physiolo...
Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

Check out this tour de force paper by @tsbolt.bsky.social showing the relationship between the autonomic nervous system and the global signal in fMRI!

Taylor Bolt@tsbolt.bsky.social

First post on an exciting new manuscript online today @natneuro.nature.com - in collab with @lucinauddin.bsky.social and Catie Chang. We take a fresh look at the physiological dynamics associated with the global signal 🧠 ... www.nature.com/articles/s41... Read here: rdcu.be/ek01F

rdcu.beAutonomic physiological coupling of the global fMRI signalNature Neuroscience - The brain and body are necessarily connected. Here the authors show that brain blood flow and electrical activity are coupled with systemic physiological changes in the body.
Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

If anybody hasn't seen this - this is a really cool method for looking at dopamine physiology using fMRI!

Ian Ballard@iancballard.bsky.social

Interested in dopamine? Have fMRI data? We’ve identified a temporal BOLD feature that carries rich information about dopamine physiology. This measure, obtainable from resting-state and task fMRI, opens new ways to indirectly probe dopamine’s role in cognition and disease. 1/n tinyurl.com/bddyz67b

biorxiv.orgTemporal fMRI Dynamics Map Dopamine PhysiologySpatial variations in dopamine function are linked to cognition and substance use disorders but are challenging to characterize with current methods. Because dopamine influences blood vessel dilation,...

Blaise Frederick reposted

Laura Murray
@lauramurrayphd.bsky.social

I'm happy to share our paper in @npp-journal.bsky.social on rsFC, cue-reactivity, and craving in nicotine smoking AND vaping! Thanks to coauthors, @amy.janeslab.org @blaisefrederick.bsky.social @ckorponay.bsky.social @mariascavnicky.bsky.social Here's what we found 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comBrain reactivity to nicotine cues mediates the link between resting-state connectivity and cue-induced craving in individuals who smoke or vape nicotine - NeuropsychopharmacologyNeuropsychopharmacology - Brain reactivity to nicotine cues mediates the link between resting-state connectivity and cue-induced craving in individuals who smoke or vape nicotine
Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

This needs more visibility! While the general public is belatedly getting some sense of the catastrophe caused by not reviewing or funding external grants, DOGE is also completely wiping out the NIH intramural programs, which is just as bad, but is flying under the radar because NIH is gagged.

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social

Compelling pushback from @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social and the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) regarding termination of tenure-track investigators driven by DOGE. 1/2

Blaise Frederick reposted

Paul Rohr
@pevohr.bsky.social

Kinda baffled too. Given the apparent zeal for whacking science, why hasn't Big Pharma been putting the squeeze on Senators to protect their turf (RFK, NIH, NSF, etc.)? Are execs in denial? Too focused on short-term results? Or do they not understand their own scientific pipelines?

Gaius (from Tribunate)@gaius.bsky.social

Did big pharma just forget that it has lobbyists? If a similar figure existed on the left that threatened pharma profits at even half the amount RFK will cause, then there would be a full court press against them

Blaise Frederick reposted

Paul Rohr
@pevohr.bsky.social

Replying to @pevohr.bsky.social

Corporate America just had to sit at the end of the scientific pipeline, plucking off the most promising results via the magic of "technology transfer", + then develop more advanced products to sell All the risks of basic research were socialized, + the gains privatized Capitalist utopia!

Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

Does anybody know if any if the professional organizations in neuroscience/imaging like #ISMRM, #OHBM, #ACNP, or #SfN, etc. have any sort of organized effort to raise awareness of this? I’m not sure the general public has any idea this is going on.

Dave Levitan@davelevitan.bsky.social

Per an NIH source: “Discussions with colleagues have suggested that if the universities all come together and raise hell about the delays to funding caused by not holding meetings, that might move the needle. From every state. There are well-funded universities in red states that will be impacted.”

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Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

Rapidtide models and removes the sLFO signal that gives rise to this connectivity inflation (and creates the global mean signal). In addition to removing the inflation effect, rapidtide gets you all the advantages of global signal regression WITHOUT causing spurious negative correlations. /7

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Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

This signal, carried by moving blood and pervasive in the brain, has different time delays at different locations, and causes spurious correlations between various regions that are indistinguishable from those resulting from neuronal activity. /4

Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

As a result, there is an apparent inflation of functional connectivity over time. This is true of both resting state and task acquisitions (it seems that most tasks that we’ve examined aren’t engaging enough to eliminate this effect). /5

Blaise Frederick
@blaisefrederick.bsky.social

In short, we found that the systemic low frequency physiological oscillation (sLFO) noise seen in fMRI is non-stationary. The amplitude grows over time, both within and between scans, apparently as arousal decreases the longer you stay in the scanner. /3

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