Excited to share that I will be joining
@DukePsychiatry
this fall as an Assistant Professor and launching The Biological Embedding of the Environment and Stress (BEES) lab! 🐝 1/3
Our new paper is now available‼️ We hope this narrative review helps support future work on bio effects of racism and ultimately leads to more generalizable models of neuropsychiatric disorders + more effective, culturally competent treatments for Black individuals.
👀 1st NoA with my name on it! 🥹
I’m looking forward to doing a deeper dive into what “resilience” really means…
Grateful to
@NateurNeuro
(who listened to every iteration of this project 😂) and twitterless Kerry Ressler for guidance and helping a research dream come true!
Neuroscience has an important role in investigating how racism influences mental health. We reviewed recent work showing that structural inequities become biologically embedded and drive race-related differences in neurobiology. 1st paper w/
@NateurNeuro
and 1st in
@npp_journal
!
Y'all, I am so proud of this paper! ⬇️ Where we live can influence our likelihood of developing PTSD! But research on resilience after trauma has often focused on individual 🧍 factors and overlooked influential neighborhood 📷factors that may help mitigate the PTSD development
So happy to announce that our (
@kharloews
and
@RobynDD_
) perspective "Radically reframing studies on neurobiology and socioeconomic circumstances: A call for social justice-oriented neuroscience" is now out!
*link below*
1/7
As lifetime trauma increases, risk for future PTSD also increases. But is there a modifiable factor linking the two??
‼️ our new
@MilwaukeeTrauma
paper did a deeper dive into the relationship between trauma history and new onset PTSD.
Y’all before
#AcademicTwitter
evaporates… I’m on the 💫 TT
#academicjobmarket
💫. My work examines how interactions between structural inequities, individual characteristics, and neurobiology influence trauma outcomes like
#PTSD
.
🧠 1st empirical postdoc paper w/
@NateurNeuro
out now in
@JAMANetworkOpen
!
Since my dissertation, I've been thinking a lot about associations btwn neighborhood disadvantage + brain structure + function. But there was a critical question...
How widespread are the effects?!
My partner is moving tmrw so it’s time to share… WE’RE MOVING TO BOSTON! For postdoc, I’ll be joining the
#dreamteam
- mentored by BOTH Kerry Ressler and
@NateurNeuro
🎉 at
@harvardmed
. Pictured: my face when accepting.
Dissertation submitted ✅ out of all the 220 pages, my acknowledgment section is the part I hope everyone reads. So here it is ⬇️!! My scientific career exists because of the caring people who have supported me. ❤️
Really enjoyed working w/
@gracechevalier1
+
@NateurNeuro
on this review. We discussed how neighborhoods influence trauma exposure and
#PTSD
development. Also, how to measure neighborhood factors and how they can impact neurobiology and treatment!
1/6
#AnimBehav2021
APOPO trains
@HeroRats
(cricetomys ansorgei) to sniff out landmines and tuberculosis. But what makes a good Hero? Like humans, rats might exhibit unique personalities, which could contribute to their detection behavior and success.
Among Black trauma survivors, exposure to racial discrimination (RD) predicts future PTSD symptoms. In a new
@BrainBehavImm
paper, we investigated whether alterations to pro-inflammatory and antiviral transcription control pathways helped explain this association.
Eek, a travel award to ✨
@ACNPorg
✨ see you in December, science friends! Maybe I’ll meet the celebrities behind the fab
@npp_journal
Twitter polls in person?!?
(And always appreciative of the support from
@NateurNeuro
and twitterless Kerry Ressler)
full circle moment! 8 years ago I joined
@DukeChildPol
. I was broadly interested in how the environment and society influenced mental health. Next week I start my 1st faculty position at
@DukePsychiatry
! And my research interests haven’t strayed far… 😃
Our team (
@JasmineKwasa
and
@jetterhsd
) won overall best poster at the 2021
@neuroethicsinfo
meeting. What an honor! 🎉 Now feels like a great time to share our related article on racial and phenotypic bias in neuro methods will be published in
@NatureNeuro
! Link coming soon 👀
Beyond excited to attend my 1st meeting as a travel awardee 🤩 I’ll be presenting work with
#twitterless
Nate Harnett and Kerry Ressler on multi-ancestry PRS for PTSD and structural racism (
#T6
). Swing by and let’s talk about developing biomarkers that advance health equity!
It's me, hi 👋 Welcome to
#ACNP2023
If you'll be attending
@ACNPorg
, drop an introduction to help yourself & others connect 🔄
Share your name, your science, tell us if you're a first timer or regular, promote your poster/talk - whatever you'd like! 🧠
See you all soon! 😁
Congratulations, Kate Webb, ’16, one of the 2023 Young Alumni Award recipients!
The ceremony will take place at 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 14, 2023, at the Baldwin Hall Ballroom.
Learn more and register for the ceremony at
Defense scheduled! Nov. 19th 10am CST. If you'd like to attend, DM me. :)
Also, check out this
#dissertationart
by my sister. She was inspired by other research "movie posters" on
#academictwitter
.
Now, excuse me while I finish this document as fast as humanly possible.
There will be an official announcement soon but....
I am honored to receive a Young Alumni Award from Albion! The award recognizes alumni who have achieved great success in their field within 10 years of graduating.
We (
@JasmineKwasa
&
@jetterhsd
) are so excited to share this paper! A product of a great collaboration (met via
@neuroethicsinfo
).
We tackle racial and phenotypic biases in neuro methods like EEG, SCR, and fNIRS.
@JasmineKwasa
wrote a 🔥 thread ⬇️
So happy to announce that our (
@_brainstorm_12
&
@jetterhsd
) perspective article "Addressing racial and phenotypic bias in human neuroscience methods" is now out in Nature Neuroscience!
In it, we discuss biases embedded in popular neurotechnologies like EEG and fNIRS. (1/8)
Tomorrow I might (or might not, fingers crossed y’all) become a doctor.
And that is wild.
Crossing this finish line absolutely shattered (British definition) with a healthy dose of imposter syndrome, but a whole lot of pride.
6/6 Next steps: 1) Determine if personality influences accuracy for specific scent detection tasks, if so 2) adopt pre-screening assessment for training assignment. Thanks for attending
#AnimBehav2021
. Interested in supporting APOPO – adopt a
@HeroRat
!
First empirical paper from post-doc with
@NateurNeuro
submitted!
Will be celebrating all week at
#SOBP2023
- come check out our new work on greenspace, PTSD symptoms, and neural reactivity to reward during the Saturday poster session.
Congratulations to Elisabeth Webb for receiving an APF/COGDOP graduate research scholarship for the project, "The Impact of PTSD Symptoms on Fear, Safety, and Reward Stimulus Discrimination: A Translational Neuroscience Approach".
@_brainstorm_12
Lab website is coming soon… and we will be 🌟 HIRING 🌟. If you’re interested in trauma, biomarkers of PTSD, socioenvironmental stress, resilience, and global mental health then stay tuned! 3/3
Is this the busiest summer of my life? Finding a new place to live in
#DurhamNC
, moving, writing 2 career development awards, starting a new study, and finishing up postdoc papers... Excitement levels are still HIGH and new lab website is coming soon!
Come work with us in Boston!!
The NATE lab is hiring a clinical RA w/ interest in understanding the effects of trauma using
#fMRI
and
#psychophys
.
* can also confirm that
@NateurNeuro
is invested in training & setting trainees up for success
Remarkably, I had 3 papers accepted this week (originally submitted at *very* different times!)
But these 3 papers really exemplify what I think about and care about.
✨ Watch this space for links✨
^ academic version of sharing their new music on Spotify 😂
There is significant overlap in symptoms and neurobiology of PTSD and TBI. Also 2 Dx that are highly co-morbid. We wrote a review highlighting what we know and what we don’t (which is a lot).
@CarissaWeis
,
@CLarsonsBrain
, and
@MKETraumaDoc
(Terri).
New paper!! S/O to
@ClaireMariaBird
and
@MilwaukeeTrauma
Racial trauma and race-based traumatic stressors, including racial discrimination, are drivers of mental health disparities. But few studies have looked at associations between racism and the brain.
Early holiday present:
@SfNtweets
has selected me for one of their trainee professional development awards! 🎁Be sure to check out my poster (ft.
#twitterlessCarissa
and
@CLarsonsBrain
) on hippo subfields + fMRI reliability + PTSD.
4/6
#AnimBehav2021
We found: 1)
@HeroRats
have PERSONALITY! 2) Overall activity and anxiety behaviors reduced with repeated sessions (evidence of habituation effect). 3) Rat age and experience had no impact.
Looking forward to giving this talk at
#SOBP
. I'll highlight results from my **favorite dissertation chapter! (**Do most people have a favorite or am I just weird?)
@MilwaukeeTrauma
Just out - work from my MS thesis + some!!!
tl;dr: In trauma exposed adults, greater neighborhood disadvantage is associated with smaller vmPFC and hippocampus. Also greater connectivity between anterior insula - vlPFC and amygdala-IPL.
I was burnt out and exhausted towards the end of December. So I took two weeks off. Two full weeks.
It was glorious and I feel rested. Something I hadn’t felt for months. I just wish more of us could take time off, we would all be better for it.
5/6 We also found an interesting sex difference: Female rats preferred exploring/digging in the soil tray compared to the males. Observing natural behaviors within an arena revealed interesting behavioral traits, suggesting our
@HeroRats
have personalities.
#AnimBehav2021
3 years ago today, I lost my roommate, lab mate, and friend to suicide. I remember her as a researcher who was deeply in love with science, a daughter/sister who shared wonderful stories of home, and the person who shared my same dream of adventuring and learning.
#ADAA2024
Join us Sunday morning at 10:30am for a symposium on the effects of trauma on biological aging + the role of various moderating factors! This is def my
#dreamteam
⭐️ symposium - looking forward to hearing from
@MoreyLab
@NegarFani
and
@EvanJWhitePhD
🤩
This epigenetic + neuro study is so cohesive and really extends/ integrates the literature on bio consequences of racism. Definitely a must read in the field! Congrats
@ElbasheirAziz
,
@NegarFani
, and team 🎉
Data highlight how racial discrimination may increase involvement of networks involved with rumination & internalization of emotion, & suggest associations between racial discrimination–related neural connectivity alterations & accelerated cellular aging.
Another great talk by
@kaymtye
at
#SOBP2023
!
Every time I hear
@kaymtye
speak, it takes me back to 2016 SfN when I first learned of her work (the coolest work in behavioral neuro imo).
Real footage of me seeing the FOMOtask endo results ⬇️
It was an absolute honor to comment on recent work by Dr. Okeke,
@NegarFani
, and team in BP:CNNI
@BiologicalPsyc1
@SOBP
. Their work provides "the foundation for neuroscience work to be at the forefront of identifying biological consequences of racism-related stress."
Honored to have been an audience at DR. (!) Kate Webb's dissertation defense. Kate, you are an inspiration for change in the neuroscience world and beyond. Cheers to you Dr. Webb 🥂 Congratulations!!
@_brainstorm_12
Recording this was an absolute pleasure!
@keyofnight
thank you for hosting this conversation! We reflect on the
@neuroethicsinfo
meeting while remaining focused on the work that still needs to be done 💪
Anyway, this is one of my favorite weeks out of the year. Join me as I discuss the article in the last tweet this Wednesday as a part of
#BiNW22
!!
More info and registration here:
Thanks to the folks who stuck around for the last
#SOBP2022
oral session! If you missed it (or any of the sessions) recordings are available until July!
@SOBP
Had the BEST time back in person at
#SOBP2022
! Highlights include seeing the incredible
@_brainstorm_12
present exciting data on buffering effects of culturally-relevant resilience factors on the link between SES & ACC connectivity 🤩
I finished making all the figures + writing the results section for a chapter of my dissertation (arguably the most complicated one).
#dissertationwriting
2/6
#AnimBehav2021
@BroeckeBram
worked with the
@HeroRat
team to design a GIANT open-field arena. We tested 25 rats (M & F, varying ages & training experiences). Using films of the rats, we categorized their behavior into categories: anxiety, exploratory, or locomotor.
Over the initial shock but a reviewer said I shouldn’t bother asking a research question in a sample and instead use
#ABCDstudy
.
Apparently ABCD will save us all - it can answer all of our ?s, even ones without the measures of interest.
Is this now legit feedback to expect?!
3/6 Animal personality is reflected by repeatable individual behavior patterns across time and/or contexts. So to measure personality, we assessed each
@HeroRats
behavior at 3 different timepoints.
#AnimBehav2021
The schedule for
#Pavlovian2020
is now live. We've got a really amazing lineup with speakers spanning topics and career stage - don't forget to register!
Work wifey (
@CarissaWeis
) and I took a deep dive into the structural MRI methods world and the relationship between PTSD and hippocampus subfields.... and now our adventure ends with this cool pub! 🎉🍾 check it out in Neuroimage!
My
#SOBP2022
experience is just walking around saying 🤩 WOW 🤩 because the science here is exceptional.
That feeling of awe when you walk into a poster session is hard to capture in online formats.
In it, we discuss how neuro research on socioeconomic factors has lacked a critical lens.
Have you ever noticed these studies don't report race and ethnicity?? Or that structural racism isn't mentioned - let alone named as a driver of socioeconomic inequities??
2/7
Academics on social media demanding $15/hr but paying their RAs less than $10/hr…. And let’s not even talk about the $13,000 graduate stipends with no summer funding.
#livingwagesforall
🎉Congrats to the 20 early-career scientists who were recently chosen to join the 2021 SfN Early Career Policy Ambassadors (ECPA) program! Read more about the 2021 ambassadors:
S/o
@NatureNeuro
- the team we worked with was receptive and reviewers provided helpful feedback!
We’ve heard of (and experienced) journals rejecting and/or altering pieces on racism - we felt this piece was valued at NN.
So happy to announce that our (
@_brainstorm_12
&
@jetterhsd
) perspective article "Addressing racial and phenotypic bias in human neuroscience methods" is now out in Nature Neuroscience!
In it, we discuss biases embedded in popular neurotechnologies like EEG and fNIRS. (1/8)
Headed to
@sandiegozoo
to catch up with some
@HeroRATs
! Looking forward to meeting all the incredible SDZ staff who will share
#APOPO
’s work with visitors and show-off how 🌟 cool 🌟 and ⭐️ smart ⭐️ these rats are!
🚨
#SOBP2024
Early Career Panel happening now in JW grand ballroom 1!! Come join us and ask all your burning questions about grad school, mentorship, funding, and different career trajectories!
Tldr; negativity bias (assessed w/ a computerized game) and acute stress reactions mediated the link btwn lifetime trauma (measured with LEC or CTQ!) and 6-month PTSD.
We can’t change our history but perhaps interventions targeting negativity bias may help lower risk for PTSD!
..... if only I could have two jobs! A great opportunity to work with the
@NegarFani
Lab - learn multimodal neuro techniques and conduct meaningful work with a fabulous team!
The
@NegarFani
Lab at Emory is hiring! Our team is seeking a research assistant to work on studies of trauma/PTSD/dissociation, augmented mindfulness, brain stimulation, and EEG/MRI/physio. Perfect for someone hoping to apply for a PhD in psychology or neuroscience! Link below: