Massively excited to finally be able to share this amazing news!
@wellcometrust
have awarded UCL a 4-year PhD programme in Mental Health Science. Looking forward to working with
@DrAPitman
,
@annaremington
,
@PascoFearon
, Claudia Cooper and Marcus Richards
A deeply irresponsible headline which
@guardian
need to correct before harm is done. No one should stop taking antidepressant medication on the basis of this (selective) review. Treatments can obviously be helpful even if they don't tackle the root cause
Genuine question: at UCL we had three foundational statistical thinkers of the 20thC, Spearman, Pearson (elder), Fisher. We teach tests that carry their names to 1st years. But they were also awful racial supremacists & eugenicists. Do we have a responsibility to teach that too?
I just learned of a new approach (in
@Nature
) to correcting for multiple comparisons:
"Rather than adjusting our P values for 53 paired comparisons, we report unadjusted standard errors, two-sided P values and confidence intervals so readers may choose a preferred correction"
You forgot universities - all research assistants, post-doctoral fellows, teaching assistants and many members of faculty are paid <£50k. UCL alone has thousands of EU staff
🚨🚨🚨Applications for the UCL Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science are now open!
If you want to join an exciting, interdisciplinary, supportive and inclusive PhD programme featuring world leading supervisors in mental health science, then APPLY!
US scientists believe an electrical implant that sits in the skull and is wired to the brain can treat severe depression.
Jonathan Roiser, professor of neuroscience and mental health at UCL, explains more.
Update: we are now accepting applications for the new UCL Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science! Details in the thread below and on our website:
Massively excited to finally be able to share this amazing news!
@wellcometrust
have awarded UCL a 4-year PhD programme in Mental Health Science. Looking forward to working with
@DrAPitman
,
@annaremington
,
@PascoFearon
, Claudia Cooper and Marcus Richards
This a serious issue that will be incredibly damaging long term. A talented RA recently explained to me that she would not consider doing a UKRI-funded PhD as it isn't enough to live on. She's right - £18000 per year is £350 per week, substantially less than London Living Wage
The level of PhD stipends really needs serious attention from
@STFC_Matters
, UKRI, and universities to account for the high inflation. Good to see PhD students speaking up.
It's gratifying to see everyone's success on here - grants, papers, jobs, PhDs etc.
But let me tell you, NONE of that compares to the satisfaction I felt winning at the parking ticket adjudicator today, definitely going to be my
#1
achievement of 2022. Never stop dreaming.
Important post - everyone in academia feels pressure to overwork. Crucial to resist! Avoid comparing yourself with others - it's is not a competition. I never had a Nature/Science paper (or anything close). I never work Saturdays. I take all my holidays. Alternative is burnout
latest ONS data suggests >90% of 25-34yrs had first vax by 12 July, with ~95% having antibodies.
>50% of 16-24 had first dose with ~80% having antibodies (<18s not even being offered yet!)
Time to stop moaning about "vaccine hesitancy" in young people?
SMOKIN' HOT of the press (literally accepted 4 days ago)
@caro_charp
undertook a MASSIVE data pooling effort (N>3000 subject-level data) to show definitively that fMRI samples score low on anxiety, conflicting a large % of the field in the process 🧵👇
Really glad that this collaborative effort is now up as a preprint! We show that trait anxiety is lower in participants recruited into MRI studies, compared to behavioural-only studies, consistent with a sampling bias. Read more here: and on this thread 1/
UCL formally apologises for its legacy of eugenics: . A long time coming, no other UK institution even comes close in terms of promoting eugenics "scientifically". Galton, Fisher, Spearman, Pearson, we had them all.
I always like an opportunity to promote my favourite tweet, so here it is: APPLICATIONS FOR THE UCL WELLCOME 4-YEAR PhD IN MENTAL HEALTH SCIENCE ARE OPEN FOR 2021 ENTRY!
Massively excited to finally be able to share this amazing news!
@wellcometrust
have awarded UCL a 4-year PhD programme in Mental Health Science. Looking forward to working with
@DrAPitman
,
@annaremington
,
@PascoFearon
, Claudia Cooper and Marcus Richards
Could not disagree more, it's actually pretty insulting. MH researchers I know are HUGELY ambitious. The issue is funding, not ambition!
In the UK MH research gets just £8 per affected person, compared to £128 for cancer, as per
@MQmentalhealth
report
'There is a lack of ambition in mental health research, and we need to change that. We can challenge the system with new ambitious objectives.'
@CMO_England
UK-based academics/researchers/students: please consider signing this open letter calling on UKRI to extend funding for PhD students following the COVID-19 shutdown:
enjoyable (if tiring) day interviewing students for the Wellcome Mental Health Science PhD & *WOW* were they good! No way I could have provided such coherent/thoughtful answers at that stage. Getting into a PhD programme nowadays is premier league level compared to Div2 20yrs ago
Lord give me the confidence of the organisers of a 2000 person scientific conference at the end of April that I am scheduled to speak at in NYC, who just emailed saying everything's going ahead as planned, don't worry we'll have plenty of hand sanitiser
if anyone needs to learn fMRI, this is an absolutely incredible course which is a module on our MRes at
@UCL_ICN
- and now free to anyone who wants it!
This thread explains perfectly how seriously Ofqual have failed - in Bayesian terms, the prior overwhelms the data. Imagine losing your place at Cambridge because the prior says it's *simply not possible* for you to do that well, because no-one from your school ever did before
Have received scores of messages from downgraded students. Here are a few. Firstly, David. He goes to an FE college in Gateshead. He's the first in his family to go to uni.
He got a place
@pembroke1347
(Cambridge) to read engineering. Assessed AA*A- got A*AB. Place is on hold.
🚨This year will be the FINAL CHANCE to apply for the UCL-Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science🚨(details in below thread). On October 10th we're running an online Q&A session for applicants with committee members and current students, register here
Massively excited to finally be able to share this amazing news!
@wellcometrust
have awarded UCL a 4-year PhD programme in Mental Health Science. Looking forward to working with
@DrAPitman
,
@annaremington
,
@PascoFearon
, Claudia Cooper and Marcus Richards
We are now recruiting for the fifth (and sadly, final) cohort of the UCL-Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science, closing date 10th January. For more info, including videos of our online "Roadshows", see our "How to apply" page
Massively excited to finally be able to share this amazing news!
@wellcometrust
have awarded UCL a 4-year PhD programme in Mental Health Science. Looking forward to working with
@DrAPitman
,
@annaremington
,
@PascoFearon
, Claudia Cooper and Marcus Richards
very proud to have been given this award by
@TheAlliance05
for alumni of the Oxford-Cambridge-NIH PhD programme. Thank you to programme founder Michael Lenardo (not on Twitter) for kindly nominating me
Congratulations Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
@jonroiser
!
@NIHOxCam
co-founder Dr. Lenardo remarked “Jonathan’s leadership & recognition in the field of neuroscience & mental health research is truly remarkable, w/ impact scientifically & societally"
Nice accessible perspective on model-free and model-based learning by
@nathanieldaw
, harking back to the foundational paper by him, Yael Niv and Peter Dayan:
🚨🚨🚨 We are hiring! Post-doc opportunity at
@UCL_ICN
on exciting study into the brain mechanisms driving the antidepressant effects of exercise with me,
@GlynLewis9
&
@ma_hamer
, funded by
@RosetreesT
. Happy to chat pre-application. Closing date 20th Feb
🎉congratulations to
@AnahitMkr
on passing her PhD!!! 🎉 And many thanks to brilliant examiners
@sunjeevk
and
@OxfordPERL
for coming in person and doing the first IRL viva in the lab since pre-Covid times
I have been a journal editor for 7 years (Neuroimage: Clinical and eLife) and I strongly disagree - and I don't know a single editorial colleague who thinks like this either
Before you can do good science, it is necessary to understand that journal editors are—in the most fundamental way possible, and with only a few exceptions—not remotely interested in whether what they publish is true or not.
delighted to be awarded one of these grants to examine mechanisms driving the antidepressant effects of physical activity, w/
@GlynLewis9
@ma_hamer
,
@DrOliverHowes
, Julie Wright & Livia Carvalho. Truly interdisciplinary with big lived experience component. Excited to get started!
Millions of people around the world are affected by anxiety, depression and psychosis.
While we know some things help in
#MentalHealth
we often don’t know what drives the positive change.
That’s where our new funding comes in 👇 [1/4]
Total nonsense from someone who should know better. On our MSc students are receiving *more* than regular tuition. Of course uni experience won't be the same under Covid, but that's because students won't be able to socialise as usual, not because they won't be taught well
This nonsense makes my head hurt. The EU *helped* unleash the potential of our scientists, engineers and world-leading universities through freedom of movement, unfettered collaboration and generous funding. You are about to put us *back* on the leash by taking all that away.
“When I look at this country’s incredible assets, our scientists, our engineers, our world leading universities... when I look at the potential of this country waiting to be unleashed”
Spot on from PM- research, innovation and our universities are vital for our future success
🎉many congratulations 🎉to
@HugoFleming_
for passing his viva with flying colours on Friday afternoon, supervised jointly by
@olijrobinson
and me. Thanks so much to examiners
@brain_apps
and
@ProfData
. (please excuse unintended manel vibes)
let me tell all you ECRs (and senior PIs) out there that the fools who wrote this "time management chart" don't know a damn thing about work-life balance, and you shouldn't pay them any attention. They can't even multiply 24x7 and get the correct answer, that's how tired they are
Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun (
@ylecun
) is sketching an alternate vision for building human-level AI. LeCun proposes that the ability to learn “world models” — internal models of how the world works — may be the key. Learn more:
Going to try something different with my seminar group today over the next hour - they will take three different papers in small groups and try to construct tweet threads to summarise them. I'll post these under here (feedback welcome), so stay tuned!
In the UK the number of cases rose rapidly.
But the public – and authorities – are only learning this now because these cases were only published now as a backlog.
The reason was apparently that the database is managed in Excel and the number of columns had reached the maximum.
huge congratulations to newly minted Dr
@AniTalwar
on passing her PhD on computational models of learning and decision making (especially
@CANTABconnect
), what an achievement! Many thanks to brilliant examiners
@DrSFink
and Rudolf Cardinal and of course co-supervisor
@docqhuys
@AnnaLSchubert
When I was a PhD student I mixed up 2 columns in a spreadsheet and was convinced I'd found something amazing. Wrote a conference abstract, to my delight got accepted AND offered a talk, presented the "results" in the talk. Another student identified my error a few weeks later 😬
Many friends/colleagues have asked how I'm doing (thank you), but I struggle to respond coherently; my thoughts and emotions are not all easy to reconcile. This post is pretty close to how I feel.
Also, please reach out to your friends in Israel-Palestine, they'll appreciate it.
I am a life-long supporter of the Palestinian search for freedom and statehood , but this morning am feeling only utter revulsion, horror and depression at the press descriptions of yet more innocents massacred. No one, least of all children, should ever have to endure violence
really interesting case study out today showing potential utility of a new type of "closed-loop" deep brain stimulation (recording in amygdala, which triggers a burst of stimulation in striatum when a threshold is reached), I'm quoted in this BBC piece
Fascinating, Covid does not seem to have exacerbated existing MH problems: "people without...disorders showed a greater increase in symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas individuals with the greatest burden on their mental health tended to show a slight symptom decrease"
For me the most rewarding aspect being a scientist is to see the success of people I have had the privilege to train (in a variety of professions). Supervising Camilla's PhD was a wonderful experience and I could not be happier for her. An exceptional decision by
@mrccbu
On behalf of the Medical Research Council and the University of Cambridge, we are delighted to announce that Dr Camilla Nord (
@camillalnord
) has been appointed as a new Programme Leader Track Scientist at the
@mrccbu
from 15 October 2021.🎉1/5
thank you
@RosetreesT
! Can't wait to get started on this long-planned work with
@GlynLewis9
and Mark Hamer. Look out for post-doc advert early next year...
Congraulations to
@jonroiser
who has been awarded £199,690 grant by the Rosetrees Trust for the project "The impact of aerobic exercise on subjective, cognitive and neural measures of motivation"
I've also been thinking that the authors really did a dis-service/misunderstood the tryptophan depletion literature, which IMO is probably the best evidence that when antidepressants are effective (obv not always the case), that's driven by 5-HT. Should I do a thread?
Vital and measured corrective to the hype over the past week. Just because depression has multifactorial and as yet poorly understood causes, that doesn't mean antidepressants don't work or that prescribing them isn't worthwhile
It cannot be emphasised enough how time sapping and soul destroying NHS ethics applications have become. Every year the forms get longer and more ridiculously picky. They are now a serious impediment to clinical research in the UK.
Just submitting the IRAS forms for NHS ethics and governance approvals for a mixed methods study on a workforce topic, no conceivable risks of harm to pts or staff. 27 files/attachments, hundreds of pages. What happened to proportionate review??
Important new meta analysis confirming earlier findings (inc our own) that cognitive impairment is present in remitted depressed patients. New finding is strong relationship with N of prior episodes. V important that we find ways of treating this under recognised symptom
interesting insight also for those of us outside US academia. NB if you're going to ask for a 6 figure startup when negotiating your assistant prof (lecturer) position at a uni in the UK, be sure to schedule an extra 15 mins on the call to leave time for the HoD to stop laughing
I recently told lab members to ask me any question they wanted and many of their questions were about money. How much do assistant professors make? Difference between soft and hard money positions? etc. 1/5
Delighted that our UCL-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience () was renewed for another 5 years! Thanks to
@BlackWidow284
and team for the amazing support. Great opportunity for US students to come to UCL for their PhD
PHQ9 is also problematic for ethical reasons as it includes a suicide item. IMO no lab should be using it unless they have clear risk assessment procedures in place. This took us ~12 months to develop. Asking about suicide in online/anonymous studies is particularly problematic
I'm torn about this decision by
@wellcometrust
&
@NIMHgov
to standardize mental health measures; thread with my thoughts below 🧵
The biggest ✅ is that standardization enables comparison. With 280 scales to measure depression alone, this is overdue.
this is really quite extraordinary. In the middle of a weekday not a Saturday night, in out-of-the way Jerusalem not easy-to-reach Tel Aviv. Cannot imagine the security presence
More than 100K Israelis demonstrated today in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem against Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Supreme Court & other Democratic institutions. The government still refuses to accept President Herzog's proposal and suspend the legislation (Video: Yair Palti)
🙏
@camillalnord
. Want to to read more about why we need to put the brain in the middle of so-called "psychosocial" and "biological" explanations of MH problems? This is the article from the slide
A *very* timely reminder from
@jonroiser
that there is a false divide between “psychological” & “biological” models of depression- the brain mediates both. There is no reason to think that a biological trigger cannot be treated with psychological therapy.…or vice versa
#BAP2022
This simplistic one-sided narrative from
@BoardofDeputies
helps no one, so no thanks. I'd rather stand with
@NaamodUK
and say:
No to Rockets
No to Bombing Civilians
No to Dispossession
No to Police Violence
No to the Blockade
No to Lynch Mobs
No to Occupation
Yes to a Just Peace
top tips for journal editors:
- Don't send reviewer comments that are rude/disparaging. As editor you can edit or omit
- Don't send reviewer comments that are unprofessional. It reflects badly on you & journal
- don't send rejections on a Friday night and ruin an ECR's weekend
for anyone getting too excited about the recent paper in Molecular Psychiatry on evidence around the serotonin hypothesis of depression, I highly recommend reading the expert comments at the
@SMC_London
link below
new paper on "pruning" in depressed vs non-depressed participants with my former student Paul Faulkner (now
@RoehamptonUni
)
@docqhuys
,
@NeirEshel
, Peter Dayan and others
Contrary to hyperbolic and unhelpful claims in a recent
@guardian
article there is NO evidence that the pandemic increased antidepressant prescribing! Graph below is from
This article claims the pandemic has led to an increase in antidepressant prescribing in England. No strong evidence for this yet. You can see the prescribing data here
Highest ever 3 month total was pre-pandemic Jan - Mar.
late to this, but if you want to understand why academic pensions are in serious peril, making strikes extremely likely, read this from
@Sam_Marsh101
. tl;dr: USS projections have completely lost contact with reality, now assuming "capitalism is dead"
You would have called refugees from the Nazis illegal, done everything you could to stop them coming to the UK, and deported those who managed to escape here. Shame on you for cynically co-opting this solemn day.
On this
#HolocaustMemorialDay
I remember all those innocent people who were killed in the Holocaust. That stain on humanity must never be forgotten so that such evils are never repeated.
A much needed level of self-critique by Wellcome and pledge to tackle structural racism. What baffles me is that they don't recognise that their PhD schemes, which they are stopping funding in 2yrs, are key to embedding anti-racism for the next generation. Why miss that chance?
A new report indicates
@wellcometrust
is an institutionally racist organisation--in spite of recent efforts to become antiracist.
There has been limited progress in our efforts to become antiracist as both a funder and employer
1/8
@daverich1
With respect Dave this is a bad take. "Jewish supremacy" is a phrase that has been in common use on the Israel left for years, basically since the Nation State Law but also before. This is about Israel not the diaspora. Agree that outside the Israeli context it's clearly wrong.
I urge anyone who is reading about this to look at the very good expert comments that
@SMC_London
have put together, which explain why the entire framing of this review is so deeply problematic
I haven't been tweeting much about Israel-Palestine recently, but if you want to understand that the occupation is inherently violent, this video of police in East Jerusalem attacking pallbearers at the funeral procession of Shireen Abu Aqleh says it all. The occupation must end.
So far away from being even remotely good enough. UKRI PhD students already don't get living wage and will be hit with a huge fuel bill hike in a month causing massive stress. All very well for UKRI to say they care about student mental health, but actions speak louder than words
Thank you for sharing your concerns around stipends. We're reading all of your messages and we know it's frustrating that we cannot give you more of an update yet. Please be assured that we're working on this issue and we will communicate an update as soon as we can.
I think someone needs to set up one of those petitions to give the Zoom crew a medal or something - 8 hours of online PhD interviewing today and it was flawless
@wellcometrust
@DrAPitman
@annaremington
@PascoFearon
This is a big deal because (to our knowledge) it's the first time Wellcome have ever funded a PhD programme specifically in mental health. It's also an incredibly generous package for students, so this represents a massive investment in mental health research (>£5M!)
***neuroscience/mental health researchers** if you don't usually think of FENS as your go-to meeting, please reconsider!
@ProfAnneLaura
and I are both on the programme committee and want to ensure that FENS is a good place to present your work. I'm happy to chat if ppl are unsure
📢CALL NOW OPEN!
FENS and
@SocNeuro_Tweets
invite you to submit your symposium and technical workshop proposals for
#FENS2022
!
👉 Check the full list of themes at:
Submission deadline: 20 May 2021
See you in Paris on 9-13 July 2022!
Excited to share our new framework for the antidepressant effect of exercise! Amazing work by
@hird1806
drawing together evidence suggesting an effect on motivational symptoms, via inflammation, dopamine and effort. Basis of our ongoing work funded by
@RosetreesT
@wellcometrust
🛎️⏰New preprint! ⏰🛎️ with
@jonroiser
and
@GlynLewis9
“From movement to motivation: A proposed framework to understand the antidepressant effect of exercise”
Shame the government seems intent on destroying them by ending freedom of movement, removing us from EU funding mechanisms and introducing the hopelessly misguided and counter-productive TEF
UK has 4 of top 10 universities in the world, 8 of top 50, 18 of top 100 (almost 20%!) — QS rankings. Further proof of what a massive national asset our top universities are.
I have been on the UCL faculty for a little over 10 years, never Head of Dept or even close. My view from a lower rung of the ladder is that every word of this thread is true. And if you only pay attention to 1 tweet in the thread, it should be the one about life/work balance!
After 38 years in academia, 19 years as the Head of a unit (
@AnimEcol_UU
), I have seen a lot and learnt a few things. Here are some of my reflections and experiences. Agrre or disagree, it is up to you. 1/17
@dr_alexharris
it has been depressing witnessing people who should know better give this straw man argument any credence whatsoever. Phil Cowen's
@SMC_London
comment is my favourite and deserves to be read in full, but this is the crux of it
I read this thread with incredulity as a senior male (obv) scientist argued against a study with N>20,000 based on his "personal experience" (aka "opinion") without a shred of supporting data
This is big. "Gender gaps in grant funding are attributable to less favourable assessments of women as principal investigators, not of the quality of their proposed research." HT
@michaelhoffman
Conservatives in Camden have delivered a leaflet about anti-social behaviour in the local park featuring a picture of “some kind of picture of carnage - caption if necessary” 👀
Also delivered by volunteers not wearing masks 😬
breathtaking hypocrisy from
@LivUni
- advertising
@wellcometrust
funded position to promote responsible use of metrics, while simultaneously MAKING PEOPLE REDUNDANT ON THE BASIS OF CITATIONS 🤦♂️! Any comment
@JeremyFarrar
? Does this align with
#reimagineresearch
agenda?
@Lincoln81
@Nature
indeed, and we do. But it also means that the authors themselves are unable to draw any conclusions from their results, as they have not stated what their method of statistical inference is. Therefore, strictly, they cannot write anything in the Discussion about the results!