Michael Fox

Excited to join Bluesky! I’m an engineer, neurologist, and neuroscientist interested in causal mapping of neurological and psychiatric symptoms to human brain circuits to identify therapeutic targets for neuromodulation. #DBS, #TMS

🧠📈Great to see the BD² community at the 2026 NYC Neuromodulation Conference—sharing ideas, connecting across the field, and bringing our neuromodulation teams together. @foxmdphd.bsky.social @umnbme.bsky.social @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social @weillcornell.bsky.social @sinaibrain.bsky.social

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Joline M. Fan, Keith R. Murphy, et al: Toward a transcriptomic framework for ultrasound neuromodulation: A perspective on gene expression and regional brain sensitivity doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

New publication using Lead-DBS: In this article by Barlatey et al., the authors tested the robustness of DBS lead reconstruction using two distinct postoperative CT scans per patient and found mean lead tip translation of 0.79 mm, ind... Check out the paper here 👇👇 https://doi.org/10.1159/000552349

Is brain circuit targeted TMS better than standard clinical TMS for treating depression? New study led by Joe Taylor @braincircuits.bsky.social out today in @jamapsychiatry.com says yes! Connectivity- vs Scalp-Based Targeting of Accelerated TMS for Depression jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

New UCL research has identified a brain network linked to diffuse midline glioma (DMG), one of the deadliest childhood brain cancers. Published in Nature, the study suggests a tumour's location within this network may help predict outcomes and guide future treatments. https://bit.ly/3S8109e

Can lesion network mapping predict survival in children with brain tumors? Collaboration with UCL and @braincircuits.bsky.social in @nature.com suggests the answer is yes. Cutting the tumor off from this network may provide survival benefit. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How do you build a brain circuit treatment for patients with the most severe form of epilepsy? Start by finding the brain circuit target. Great talk by @rolstonjohn.bsky.social @braincircuits.bsky.social

Where, exactly, does learning happen in the brain? Out today in @nature.com, we identify a synaptic locus of birdsong learning and show that the circuit can be tuned to make birds learn faster - but at a cost. Read on👇 #neuroskyence 🧪 #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics Shareable link: rdcu.be/fiyrS

The rarely told story of DBS before DBS from an industry perspective. Thank you very much, Keith Mullett, for taking part in this interview! Tune in below:

Moreover, did you know that Stimulating Brains Episodes are now searchable – and citeable? Check the website for a transcript player with search functionality – great to check back to "something you've heard" on the show in some of the episodes. All transcripts also available on figshare etc.

🧠 @foxmdphd.bsky.social and his BD² Discovery Research team at @mgbresearch.bsky.social are mapping brain circuits tied to specific bipolar symptoms—unlocking targeted neuromodulation treatments rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.

Thank you @avaskham.bsky.social @thetransmitter.bsky.social for covering the ongoing discussion re lesion network mapping. It is commendable when a news publication covers both sides of an issue, and a great example of unbiased and responsible reporting.

A wave of new papers discuss the merits and limitations of lesion network mapping. #neuroskyence By @avaskham.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...

When clinicians and researchers work together toward the goal of improving lives for those with #bipolardisorder, collaboration shifts how research progresses. Hear from Tracy Young-Pearse, PhD, on BD²'s integrated approach in the latest #InvestigatorInsights. 🧠

Congratulations @shansiddiqi.bsky.social and Joe Taylor @braincircuits.bsky.social on their paper In Mol Psych demonstrating the translational power of LNM and brain circuit therapeutics. It has already changed clinical TMS practice @massgeneralbrigham.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social.

New paper in Molecular Psychiatry: In patients with anxiety + depression, targeting a novel “anxiosomatic” circuit (dmPFC) outperforms standard dlPFC for anxiety—and is equally effective for depression. Free link: rdcu.be/faL22 Full link: lnkd.in/e4WZTncu But the bigger story is the pipeline 1/n

Should doctors be certified to deliver brain stimulation? @shansiddiqi.bsky.social @braincircuits.bsky.social says yes - kicking off the brain stimulation subspecialty summit (BraSS).

Many good points, one more: We empirically demonstrate that spatial bias does not contribute to real-world LNM findings when using appropriate specificity-testing: doi.org/10.64898/202...

🧠 Resting-state fMRI is often treated as the gold standard for studying the brain’s intrinsic organization. But is it actually the best way to estimate functional architecture? We tested this directly. 🧵1/8

What’s the difference between a neurological vs psychiatric disorder? @braincircuits.bsky.social , it’s only the circuit impacted. Honored to become one of the first full Professors of both Psychiatry and Neurology @harvardmed.bsky.social Excited to help bridge this divide.

We don't think it invalidates the approach. We looked into this in our data and replicated the key result showing convergence to non-specific connectome structure. However, our results also suggest there is a practical fix that is already implemented in some LNM studies. bsky.app/profile/pete...

This is a robust response. I particularly liked this figure - clarifying why the original critique showed what it did, and what was missing @foxmdphd.bsky.social

A recent @natneuro.nature.com paper analyzed lesion network mapping and raised concerns about the validity of the method. See below 👇 for our response. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New @netstim.org publication alert: @bahnebahners.bsky.social in BRAIN out now: academic.oup.com/brain/advanc... A 🧵:

Can a brain injury make someone lose their imagination? We describe rare cases of acquired aphantasia, people who lost the ability to visually imagine after a stroke or other brain injury. Now published in Cortex 🧠 @braincircuits.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

One week away from launching our 2nd annual @harvardmed.bsky.social course Brain Medicine: Integrating the Clinical Neurosciences. On demand viewing for 30 days. Nearly 150 people registered. Join us! @jrbneuropsiq.bsky.social @foxmdphd.bsky.social learn.hms.harvard.edu/programs/bra...

The Shingles vaccine and reduction of dementia: a new natural experiment from Canada replicated 3 others and adds to this week's link to slowing of biological aging. erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-...

The Shingles vaccine has outperformed all expectations. Why? erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-...

Thanks to The Transmitter for reaching out to me for comments on this methodological challenge to lesion network mapping. Scientific debate is critical to methodological advancement - so let the debate begin! www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...

Are connectome-based network mapping methods and the >200 papers that have used it invalid? New paper out in @NatureNeuro says YES. nature.com/articles/s41... I have concerns about this new paper's methods and conclusions, but am biased. What do others think?

New pre-print out now from Dr Daniel Corp, @jjoutsa.bsky.social and @foxmdphd.bsky.social ‘Mapping the neuroanatomy of dystonia using causal brain lesions’ !! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... We map networks for the different dystonias, showing significant differences, somatotopy...and much more!!

Very interesting findings! Gliomas selectively locate within in the Action-mode Network, using glioma network mapping derived from lesion network mapping @foxmdphd.bsky.social

Check out our new work on the relationship between glioma and system-level functional networks! We identify that nearly all gliomas localize within a common brain functional network, Action-Mode Network (AMN) . biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.05.697608v1

Excited to share that our new review, "Depression as a disease of white matter network disruption: Learning from Multiple Sclerosis," is out now in Biological Psychiatry! We propose MS as a powerful model for studying how white matter network changes contribute to depression.

What is the burden in the US of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other diseases? Spoiler alert: there are surges beyond the pure numbers and we need to raise awareness for the increases in both disability and burden. Parkinson disease has shown the largest growth in burden on society. cutt.ly/xtyUtS0D

Mongay-Ochoa et al. review advanced methods for mapping brain connections and identify common topographical patterns of pathology spread across different neurological disorders, including MS, AD and PD. tinyurl.com/3sz8ayup

Pruckner et al. show that the structural effects of neurosurgery extend beyond the resected tissue into connected networks through transneuronal degeneration. They were able to reliably predict these changes from preoperative MRI. tinyurl.com/a6rxvbey

🧪 Research Spotlight: Ziad Nahas, MD, MSCR, is studying how brain networks regulate mood in #BipolarDisorder & how instability drives shifts between depression & mania with PACE 👉 Goal: Test if targeting networks can improve mood & reveal mechanisms behind switches. 🔗 bit.ly/4gTbBwU

🧪 Research Spotlight: Michael Fox, MD, PhD (@foxmdphd.bsky.social) of Mass General Brigham (@mgbresearch.bsky.social) will map brain circuits driving symptoms in #BipolarDisorder 👉 Goal: Go beyond imaging correlations to identify the circuits causing symptoms. 🔗 bit.ly/4gTbBwU

This is 🤯 All publicly available. Looks like an amazing new histology-based human probabilistic atlas and parcellation tool. #neuroskyence #mri #brainmapping A probabilistic histological atlas of the human brain for MRI segmentation | Nature share.google/5AD0iW7pxgb4...

Nice case report led by Ben Shofty's team adding prospective evidence for tract based reprogramming in deep brain stimulation for obsessive compulsive disorder out in @biologicalpsych.bsky.social: www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000... 🧵

Can we identify brain circuit targets to treat symptoms of bipolar disorder? Thanks to funding from @bipolardiscoveries.org our team @braincircuits.bsky.social will be working hard to find out! Honored to be one of these excellent teams. www.news-medical.net/news/2025102...

From a new @thelancet.com article today entitled "Health care in the USA: money has become the mission" www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...