tor (@torwager.bsky.social)

A new paper just out on negative affect and emotion regulation in the amygdala (Bo et al., 2026, eLife). FMRI in two large community samples (N = 358), based on Pete Gianaros' P01 data...a wonderful collaboration! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pr... Thread below 👇

We are still revising the paper -- thanks to helpful feedback from reviewers -- so there will be updates.

kebo2018.github.ioHomeAffective NeuroImaging and Modeling for Mental Health

Ke just started his own lab, the Affective NeuroImaging and Modeling for Mental Health (AIMM Lab) at UT Dallas in the Center for Vital Longevity. He is looking for new students! Check out his site here: kebo2018.github.io/

No subregions were affected by cognitive reappraisal. Amygdala responses are quite “bottom up” in this community sample of >350 participants.

A new data-driven clustering subdivides the amygdala based on the time-course of evoked responses. The Amunts BLA divides into two clusters with different temporal profiles and evoked response magnitudes. Subregion masks available on Github here: github.com/canlab/Neur...

cell.comHighly replicable multisite patterns of adolescent white matter maturationMeisler et al. present a large public resource of fully processed diffusion MRI from the ABCD study and show that advanced diffusion measures and longitudinal harmonization improve the replicability a...

Different amygdala subregions have different evoked responses to aversive images. Lateral basal and superficial regions peak earlier, whereas centromedial amygdala showed later, more sustained responses, perhaps reflecting greater integration of affect-related brain processes.

tor reposted

Steven Meisler

@stevenmeisler.com

Excited that this paper, "Highly replicable multisite patterns of adolescent white matter maturation", has now been published in Neuron! It may be found at cell.com/neuron/fullt.... To freely access the paper for the next 50 days, please use this link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1nxdd3BtfH...

Steven Meisler@stevenmeisler.com

Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a powerful tool to study white matter maturation. In our new preprint, we process and distribute a new resource of >24,000 ABCD dMRI scans using open source tools! We then evaluate how methods shape inferences about development. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I've been exploring the landscape of mind–body programs for chronic pain, fatigue and related conditions. The result: a Mind–Body Program Atlas, an interactive, AI-assisted survey of 74 programs. A few things it makes visible… Thread below 👇

This is an exploratory, AI-assisted survey, with separate research and fact-checking passes. It favors English-language, online-visible programs. Reach estimates are especially uncertain. I hope it helps make this growing landscape easier to examine.

Explore the timeline, roots, conditions and mechanisms, then click a program for its profile and sources. The Methods tab explains how the survey was built and where the uncertainty lies. torwager.github.io/mind-body-a...

Scale changes the picture. The log-compressed timeline makes smaller programs visible; the relative-share view highlights the estimated reach of meditation apps. These are rough reconstructions of engagement, not measured prevalence or treatment success.

Evidence needs a separate look. The atlas includes trial summaries, costs and clinical adoption. Its evidence labels describe how much research exists, not whether results show benefit. Multiple trials can still have mixed or null primary outcomes.

Many newer programs draw on older traditions: meditation, hypnosis, stress physiology, conditioning and pain science. The Roots view maps these proposed connections. Different names and histories can lead to overlapping ideas and practices.

The Mechanisms view groups programs by their explanations of illness: threat and learning, attention, emotion, autonomic regulation and more. These are the programs' stated theories. Shared language does not establish a shared cause—or validate a mechanism.

A new fMRI study just out on precision functional mapping of imagined and experienced pain, led by Michael Sun (Sun et al., 2026, Nature Communications). How strongly does imagining pain activate nociceptive representations in the brain? doi.org/10.1038/s41... Thread below 👇

A useful distinction for thinking about empathy, planning, and chronic pain...with more to test. This was a small, intensively studied sample of healthy adults, without trial-by-trial imagery ratings. Generalization to chronic pain remains an open question.

github.comGitHub - canlab/2026_Sun_et_al_Pain_Imagination: Analysis code for Sun et al., 2026Analysis code for Sun et al., 2026. Contribute to canlab/2026_Sun_et_al_Pain_Imagination development by creating an account on GitHub.

Paper and more from the lab: canlab.science Analysis code is available here: github.com/canlab/2026...

Individualized pain representations responded to pain > warm, pain > rest, and were body-site specific on independent test days. We id'd pain reps in posterior insula, S1, S2, & more. Imagining pain did not reliably reactivate any of these these body-site-selective nociceptive patterns.

But nociceptive representations are not the end of the story. RSA analyses showed that imagination did produce distributed pain-like patterns, esp. in transmodal association regions. These may help anticipate & prepare for pain, while preserving a distinction between imagination and experience.

We scanned 9 participants on 10 separate days, with stimulation on 8 body sites. We compared painful heat, non-painful warmth, and imagined pain, identifying individualized patterns and testing them on independent scan days.

nytimes.comOpinion | Wildfires Are Unfightable NowThis year’s fast moving, virtually irrepressible wildfire events are not the seasonal burns of decades past.

Imagined and experienced pain activated some common regions, including insula & premotor cortex. Both also activated an inferior inter-effector M1 region. Looking back, we found the same inter-effector region in previous pain signatures! But overlapping activation need not mean the same neural code.

tor reposted

Colin Camerer

@cfcamerer.bsky.social

“I see a superheated Earth. Add the Asian heat waves that broke 122 in Xinjiang, China, and “boiled” potatoes in the ground in S Korea, and there’s no getting around the fact that we are now living in the future that climate scientists have been warning us about.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/o...

tor reposted

Princeton Neuroscience Institute

@princetonneuro.bsky.social

Last week to apply!!

Princeton Neuroscience Institute@princetonneuro.bsky.social

We're hiring! PNI is recruiting an assistant professor of neuroscience working with non-human primates in any area. Review begins Oct 19: apply.interfolio.com/192521 #NeuroJobs #Neuroskyence

tor reposted

International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)

@iasp.bsky.social

Help shape NeuPSIG 2027 in Helsinki. Workshop proposals are open across neuropathic pain and itch. The submitting speaker must be an IASP and NeuPSIG member. Deadline: 16 Nov 2026, 16:59 GMT: bit.ly/3TwqqhQ #NeuPSIG2027

tor reposted

Explore probability distributions and their relationships with interactive graphs! torwager.github.io/probability... Thread 👇

Explore probability distributions and their relationships with interactive graphs! torwager.github.io/probability... Thread 👇

And no I didn't code this all myself...#Claude code with #Opus 5.5 did it. I designed.

We all need a little more Probability...so I hope you enjoy!

Explore probability distributions and their relationships with interactive graphs! torwager.github.io/probability... Thread 👇

Casella and Berger's book, Statistical Inference, has an awesome flowchart that inspired me. I thought it would be neat if they were interactive -- you could change the parameters of a gamma distribution and see what happens...

There are 15 core distributions, and an extended map of 32 distributions. Clicking the distribution gives you an interactive graph, and clicking a link between two of them explains the relationship.

Explore probability distributions and their relationships with interactive graphs! torwager.github.io/probability... Thread 👇

doi.orgAwake sharp-wave ripples coincide with rhythmic cortical synchronizationAnalysis of the Allen Institute Visual Coding Neuropixels dataset revealed a ~5 Hz synchronization of visual cortical activity in awake, immobile mice. During bouts of this rhythm, synchronized cortical bursts coincided with changes in the occurrence of sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) and dentate spikes and in SWR properties. Cortical synchronization, SWRs, and dentate spikes were also coordinated with slower pupil-size fluctuation, revealing that awake SWRs are embedded within nested brainwide rhythms. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Swiss National Science Foundation, https://ror.org/00yjd3n13, PR00P3_208598, PR00P3_208598/2, TMPFP3_210606 Synapsis Foundation, 2022-CDA02 University Research Priority Program (URPP) Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning (AdaBD).

I've always wanted a compact description of probability distributions, what they are used for, and how they are inter-related. Where does the chi-squared distribution come from? I learned about some in graduate school, but most I had never worked with.

tor reposted

Earl K. Miller

@earlkmiller.bsky.social

Sharp-wave ripples are not isolated hippocampal events. They are embedded in nested, brain-wide rhythms and coincide with visual-cortical synchronization at about 5 Hz. doi.org/10.64898/202... #neuroscience

tor reposted

Dr. Cate Peña

@cate-cholamine.bsky.social

This is the best Substack I’ve ever read open.substack.com/pub/inprepar...

open.substack.comOpinion: I Miss When The NIH Payline Was 40% And We All Mouth-Pipetted PhenolBy Dr. Douglas R. Waverly, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Yale University

painresearchers.comHow to leverage the largest comprehensive dataset on pain to date: Exploring the A2CPS Multimodal DataThe Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) project is a bold research initiative - the largest and most comprehensive of its kind - being carried out by a nation-wide consortium of researchers. Join PIs and consortium members as they share information about the data collected, how you can access and leverage that data, and potentials for future data analysis. Including data on: Patient-reported outcomes Omics Brain imaging Agenda Introduction to the workshop Introduction to the Acute 2 Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) Program How to navigate the data How to utilize the A2CPS LLM Featuring Martin Lindquist PhD, MSc Kathleen A. Sluka PT, PhD Tor D. Wager PhD and more Learning Objectives As a result of participating in this event, attendess will be able/better-able to: Access the A2CPS data Validate existing models against the new A2CPS date Start new studies utilizing the A2CPS data

17 Sept

The #A2CPS study is one of the world's largest imaging+multi-omics datasets (N>2,000), with open data for research use. We are hosting a free online workshop Tuesday Sep 29 at 1 pm ET on the data and how to access it. a2cps.github.io/a2cps_data_... Register at painresearchers.com/events/287146

17 Sept

Here is the run of show: a2cps.github.io/a2cps_data_...

prod.a2cps.tacc.utexas.eduAcute to Chronic Pain Signatures Home

17 Sept

More info at a2cps.org! Thanks to the Purpose Network, @fmristats, and the whole A2CPS team!

tor reposted

A2CPS - Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures

@a2cps-pain.bsky.social

10 Sept

TUES SEP 29 10 PT/1 ET Join us! Learn to mine the world's largest, most comprehensive dataset on pain in human patients to date. This longitudinal study includes multimodal data (omics, brain imaging, patient reports) that will be available for further analysis. painresearchers.com/networks/eve...

tor reposted

Scientific American

@sciam.bsky.social

scientificamerican.comWhy doing nothing is good for your brainThe case for not filling up every minute of your day

Quiet rest helps with memory consolidation, the process through which newly formed memories become more stable.

tor reposted

canlab.github.ioNeuromarkers · CANlabPopulation-level brain patterns for new studies. Browse, explore, and download published neuromarkers.

neuromarkers.io : Browse, view, and download fMRI neuromarkers, population-level predictive brain models that can be applied to new studies and populations

tor reposted

Madeline V. Stein

@madelinestein.bsky.social

5 Sept

Really great resource if you’re interested in placebo and nocebo research!

tor@torwager.bsky.social

Launching scienceofplacebo.org: a living bibliography of placebo and nocebo research. New papers screened & tagged daily by design, population, outcome and findings, with a searchable database (currently about 5,000 papers), an interactive researcher map, events, news and discussion.

scienceofplacebo.orgScience of PlaceboA research hub for the science of placebo and nocebo effects: a daily-updated feed of new papers, a searchable tagged database, bibliometrics, events, resources and discussion.

tor reposted

The Power of Expectations

@sfb-trr-289.bsky.social

Shout-out to @torwager.bsky.social and the CAN Lab, who created this amazing resource for all #placebo researchers! 💊 Check it out: scienceofplacebo.org

tor@torwager.bsky.social

claudjak.github.ioJakubzick Lab · Immunology at DartmouthMacrophages, monocytes, dendritic cells and natural antibodies in immunity. Research, people, publications and news from Claudia Jakubzick's lab at Dartmouth.

Prof. Jakubzick's new site, I love the cute macrophages that chase your cursor. claudjak.github.io/Jakubzick_lab/. @claudjak

torwager.github.ioJournal club | CANlabPapers shared and discussed in the CANlab journal club, searchable and tagged, with a timeline per topic.

Our lab uses Slack to share articles we're reading. It's a kind of virtual forum. Now it's available as a searchable tagged list, with abstracts and discussion. Check it out here: torwager.github.io/canlab/jour...

Our new Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience lab website is just up: torwager.github.io

canlab.github.ioNeuromarkers · CANlabPopulation-level brain patterns for new studies. Browse, explore, and download published neuromarkers.

neuromarkers.io : Browse, view, and download fMRI neuromarkers, population-level predictive brain models that can be applied to new studies and populations

github.comGitHub - canlab/Neuroimaging_Pattern_Masks: Brain signature patterns, atlases of regions, and meta-analysis masks for neuroimaging data analysis.Brain signature patterns, atlases of regions, and meta-analysis masks for neuroimaging data analysis. - canlab/Neuroimaging_Pattern_Masks

Made possible with niivue! More documentation and information on Github: github.com/canlab/Neur.... If you have a neuromarker you'd like to share here, please get in touch!

scienceofplacebo.orgNew placebo and nocebo papers | Science of PlaceboThis week's peer-reviewed studies of placebo and nocebo effects, found by a daily literature search and tagged by design, population, outcome and findings.

24 new scientific papers this month on placebo and nocebo effects scienceofplacebo.org/feed.html, including this randomized controlled trial, which found effects of an open-label placebo on cortisol over 4 weeks! iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111...

12 Sept

I am updating a talk. Every time i do this, i spend hours searching for that one slide I made two years ago that illustrates a specific point... I have a lot of slide decks (398 decks since 2024 - gulp!) and it's getting harder. With #astra I built a searchable index.