Mark James Adams
@markjamesadams.bsky.social
Minds, moods, and molecules ␥ Psychological and psychiatric complex trait genetics ␥ Researcher in Edinburgh, Scotland
https://differentialist.info/about/
https://differentialist.info/about/
"Too many significant results" is also a symptom of null hypotheses that aren't specific or stringent enough.
Overall, I think our results are:
1. Believable. I think deep down we all know we publish "too many" significant results.
2. Disastrous. Selecting on significance in this way biases results across our whole literature away from zero & it stops us from learning what doesn't work.
1. Believable. I think deep down we all know we publish "too many" significant results.
2. Disastrous. Selecting on significance in this way biases results across our whole literature away from zero & it stops us from learning what doesn't work.
February 13, 2026 at 6:46 AM
"Too many significant results" is also a symptom of null hypotheses that aren't specific or stringent enough.
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Our multi-ancestry GWAS of EXTernalizing conditions (ADHD, substance use...) in ~4M people reveals neurodevelopmental risk, drug-repurposing targets, and yields one of the strongest psychiatric polygenic indices yet! 🧬🎉 doi.org/10.64898/202...
Genomic insights into substance use and disinhibitory disorders
Externalizing spectrum disorders- spanning attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, substance use disorders, and other disorders characterized by disinhibition - frequently co-occur...
doi.org
February 11, 2026 at 10:33 AM
Our multi-ancestry GWAS of EXTernalizing conditions (ADHD, substance use...) in ~4M people reveals neurodevelopmental risk, drug-repurposing targets, and yields one of the strongest psychiatric polygenic indices yet! 🧬🎉 doi.org/10.64898/202...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.
February 12, 2026 at 7:18 PM
I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.
Our MDD GWAS sumstats have had a biomedical AI agent pointed at them, tasked with downloading the datasets, assembling a list of analyses to run, and annotating the results.
Equal parts savvy and misknowing.
github.com/Huang-lab/Ag...
Equal parts savvy and misknowing.
github.com/Huang-lab/Ag...
AgentDiscovery/generated_notebooks/Trans-ancestry_genome-wide_study_of_depression_identifies_69_0/biomni_analysis.ipynb at main · Huang-lab/AgentDiscovery
Contribute to Huang-lab/AgentDiscovery development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
February 7, 2026 at 7:00 AM
Our MDD GWAS sumstats have had a biomedical AI agent pointed at them, tasked with downloading the datasets, assembling a list of analyses to run, and annotating the results.
Equal parts savvy and misknowing.
github.com/Huang-lab/Ag...
Equal parts savvy and misknowing.
github.com/Huang-lab/Ag...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Out earlier this week in @natgenet.nature.com: GWAS of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifying 58 loci (www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
Awesome work, and great news for the anx genetics community — each @pgcgenetics.bsky.social paper seeds 100s more papers!
Awesome work, and great news for the anx genetics community — each @pgcgenetics.bsky.social paper seeds 100s more papers!
Genome-wide association study of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifies 58 loci and highlights GABAergic signaling - Nature Genetics
Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 58 independent risk loci for major anxiety disorders among individuals of European ancestry and implicates GABAergic signaling as a potential mechanism...
www.nature.com
February 6, 2026 at 5:15 PM
Out earlier this week in @natgenet.nature.com: GWAS of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifying 58 loci (www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
Awesome work, and great news for the anx genetics community — each @pgcgenetics.bsky.social paper seeds 100s more papers!
Awesome work, and great news for the anx genetics community — each @pgcgenetics.bsky.social paper seeds 100s more papers!
Reposted by Mark James Adams
📝 The PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health is hosting a two-day, in-person workshop for early-career researchers on family-based genomic analyses. The workshop takes place in Oslo, Norway, on 9-10 April 2026 and registration is now open:
shorturl.at/etXCN
shorturl.at/etXCN
Workshop for Early-Career Researchers on Family-Based Genomic Analyses
Join us for a two-day workshop for Early-Career Researchers on Family-Based Genomic Analyses. The workshop is hosted by the PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health, Oslo – 09.04.202...
shorturl.at
February 3, 2026 at 10:03 AM
📝 The PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health is hosting a two-day, in-person workshop for early-career researchers on family-based genomic analyses. The workshop takes place in Oslo, Norway, on 9-10 April 2026 and registration is now open:
shorturl.at/etXCN
shorturl.at/etXCN
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Slim 5 can now simulate genomes with multiple chromosomes like autosomes, sex chromosomes, mitochondria and chloroplast dna academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary Simulations Across Multiple Chromosomes and Full Genomes
Abstract. Evolutionary simulations of multiple chromosomes, even up to the scale of full-genome simulations, are becoming increasingly important in populat
academic.oup.com
February 3, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Slim 5 can now simulate genomes with multiple chromosomes like autosomes, sex chromosomes, mitochondria and chloroplast dna academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
TIL. There's research that attempts to piece together personality constructs from disparate variables in UK Biobank.
Pre-print showing that the discriminant validity of these proxy variables is poor.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Pre-print showing that the discriminant validity of these proxy variables is poor.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
February 2, 2026 at 9:55 AM
TIL. There's research that attempts to piece together personality constructs from disparate variables in UK Biobank.
Pre-print showing that the discriminant validity of these proxy variables is poor.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Pre-print showing that the discriminant validity of these proxy variables is poor.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New initiative to develop a trial-ready, deeply profiled (digital, health, 'omics) cohort for severe depression, lead by @psychgenomics.bsky.social. I'll be working on infrastructure and reproducible science for the project.
www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-c...
www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-c...
King's College London plays major role in £50 million government funded programme into mental health research | King's College London
King’s researchers will help transform mental health data, clinical trials and industry partnerships as part of the UK Government’s Mental Health Goals programme.
www.kcl.ac.uk
January 29, 2026 at 10:31 AM
New initiative to develop a trial-ready, deeply profiled (digital, health, 'omics) cohort for severe depression, lead by @psychgenomics.bsky.social. I'll be working on infrastructure and reproducible science for the project.
www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-c...
www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-c...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
📣 Exciting PhD opportunities in our new programme in 🧬Genome Data Science at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social!
Come and work with me and @oliverpain.bsky.social on APOE penetrance and modifiers in #Alzheimer's.
Get in touch to discuss and apply by 28 February.
www.kcl.ac.uk/research/tar...
Come and work with me and @oliverpain.bsky.social on APOE penetrance and modifiers in #Alzheimer's.
Get in touch to discuss and apply by 28 February.
www.kcl.ac.uk/research/tar...
Genome Data Science and AI for Therapeutic Target Discovery - King’s Prize Doctoral Programme | King's College London
PhD programme in human genetics, AI and multi-omics to uncover causal biology and accelerate therapeutic target discovery with academic and industry partners.
www.kcl.ac.uk
January 21, 2026 at 1:37 PM
📣 Exciting PhD opportunities in our new programme in 🧬Genome Data Science at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social!
Come and work with me and @oliverpain.bsky.social on APOE penetrance and modifiers in #Alzheimer's.
Get in touch to discuss and apply by 28 February.
www.kcl.ac.uk/research/tar...
Come and work with me and @oliverpain.bsky.social on APOE penetrance and modifiers in #Alzheimer's.
Get in touch to discuss and apply by 28 February.
www.kcl.ac.uk/research/tar...
Powering up a 5-year-old Snakemake workflow.
What are the chances it will run unmodified?
What are the chances it will run unmodified?
January 8, 2026 at 11:31 AM
Powering up a 5-year-old Snakemake workflow.
What are the chances it will run unmodified?
What are the chances it will run unmodified?
Reposted by Mark James Adams
The Canada Government will offer 400 postdoctoral fellowships to international researchers in early 2026. If you have a background in wildlife microbiome or quantitative genetics and are interested to apply to work on microbiome variation in Sable Island horses or caribou, feel free to get in touch
January 2, 2026 at 3:58 PM
The Canada Government will offer 400 postdoctoral fellowships to international researchers in early 2026. If you have a background in wildlife microbiome or quantitative genetics and are interested to apply to work on microbiome variation in Sable Island horses or caribou, feel free to get in touch
Reposted by Mark James Adams
🧠 Parents and siblings shape children’s environments— but families also share genes
🧬 Because genes influence behaviour, environments are partly shaped by genetics too
To separate genetic from environmental influences, we need genetic data from both parents and siblings 🧪
🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
🧬 Because genes influence behaviour, environments are partly shaped by genetics too
To separate genetic from environmental influences, we need genetic data from both parents and siblings 🧪
🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
The Power to Resolve Cultural Transmission and Sibling Interaction Using Polygenic Scores - Behavior Genetics
In the classical twin design, the assumption that the additive genetic (A) and shared environment (C) variance components are uncorrelated may not hold. If there is positive AC covariance, the C compo...
doi.org
December 20, 2025 at 9:46 PM
🧠 Parents and siblings shape children’s environments— but families also share genes
🧬 Because genes influence behaviour, environments are partly shaped by genetics too
To separate genetic from environmental influences, we need genetic data from both parents and siblings 🧪
🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
🧬 Because genes influence behaviour, environments are partly shaped by genetics too
To separate genetic from environmental influences, we need genetic data from both parents and siblings 🧪
🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Really to happy to hear from the publisher today that our book on inclusive, neurodiversity-affirmative education is a "hot new release" in education, according to Amazon:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/new-relea...
Flyer attached for a discount if you buy direct from the publisher - valid through January.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/new-relea...
Flyer attached for a discount if you buy direct from the publisher - valid through January.
December 12, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Really to happy to hear from the publisher today that our book on inclusive, neurodiversity-affirmative education is a "hot new release" in education, according to Amazon:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/new-relea...
Flyer attached for a discount if you buy direct from the publisher - valid through January.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/new-relea...
Flyer attached for a discount if you buy direct from the publisher - valid through January.
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Our new paper "Inconsistent outcome measurement in depression psychotherapy trials: A systematic historical and meta-analytic review over the past 50 years" led by @antoniasprenger.bsky.social is out now in JAD.
🧪 #PsychSciSky
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧪 #PsychSciSky
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 11, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Our new paper "Inconsistent outcome measurement in depression psychotherapy trials: A systematic historical and meta-analytic review over the past 50 years" led by @antoniasprenger.bsky.social is out now in JAD.
🧪 #PsychSciSky
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧪 #PsychSciSky
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
How did DNA changes that alter protein structures impact evolution on the branch that led to modern humans? As we demonstrate today in Science Advances, biobanking initiatives offer ways to directly assess biological effects of rare archaic variants in living people, & (re)evaluate their roles. 🧬🧪
Evaluating the effects of archaic protein-altering variants in living human adults
Promise and pitfalls of using large biobanks to study impacts of archaic protein-coding variants in living humans.
www.science.org
December 10, 2025 at 7:09 PM
How did DNA changes that alter protein structures impact evolution on the branch that led to modern humans? As we demonstrate today in Science Advances, biobanking initiatives offer ways to directly assess biological effects of rare archaic variants in living people, & (re)evaluate their roles. 🧬🧪
“When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, ‘I submitted to the font of least resistance.’ Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice.” — Matthew Butterick
practicaltypography.com/times-new-ro...
practicaltypography.com/times-new-ro...
Times New Roman alternatives | Butterick’s Practical Typography
Butterick’s Practical Typography
practicaltypography.com
December 10, 2025 at 5:18 PM
“When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, ‘I submitted to the font of least resistance.’ Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice.” — Matthew Butterick
practicaltypography.com/times-new-ro...
practicaltypography.com/times-new-ro...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
1/4 Thrilled to be sharing new work published today in Nature describing the third wave of results from the PGC Cross-Disorder Group. This reflects a massive group effort to examine shared and unique genetic signal across >1 million cases for 14 psychiatric disorders. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders - Nature
Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders...
www.nature.com
December 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM
1/4 Thrilled to be sharing new work published today in Nature describing the third wave of results from the PGC Cross-Disorder Group. This reflects a massive group effort to examine shared and unique genetic signal across >1 million cases for 14 psychiatric disorders. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
I wrote about missing heritability, "missing environmentality," and why I still think twin studies are interesting and valuable: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/twins-are-...
Twins Are So Much More Interesting Than Heritability Estimates
On starting places, "missing environmentality," and the Waddington landscape of life
kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:08 PM
I wrote about missing heritability, "missing environmentality," and why I still think twin studies are interesting and valuable: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/twins-are-...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
Reposted by Mark James Adams
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We finally submitted the earlier preprint to a journal after massive restructuring.
We've expanded the REML section for those interested in the method. We clarify that ARG-LMM estimates mutational variance and not additive variance.
We finally submitted the earlier preprint to a journal after massive restructuring.
We've expanded the REML section for those interested in the method. We clarify that ARG-LMM estimates mutational variance and not additive variance.
Genetic prediction with ARG-powered linear algebra
Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) are an attractive means for quantitative genetic analysis of complex traits because they encode the realized genetic relatedness between a sample of individuals i...
www.biorxiv.org
November 30, 2025 at 5:08 PM
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We finally submitted the earlier preprint to a journal after massive restructuring.
We've expanded the REML section for those interested in the method. We clarify that ARG-LMM estimates mutational variance and not additive variance.
We finally submitted the earlier preprint to a journal after massive restructuring.
We've expanded the REML section for those interested in the method. We clarify that ARG-LMM estimates mutational variance and not additive variance.
One for the heredity scolds: construct a multi-tissue GRM where people
are differentially related to themselves.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
are differentially related to themselves.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
We are all mosaics: vast genetic diversity found between cells in a single person
Technical advances allow researchers to trace the genetic changes that occur over time.
www.nature.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:16 AM
One for the heredity scolds: construct a multi-tissue GRM where people
are differentially related to themselves.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
are differentially related to themselves.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by Mark James Adams
I taught (and co-taught) a course on human population genetics from 2000-2024. Having retired, I'm now making all the course materials public: github.com/alanrogers/p... #popgen #evbio
GitHub - alanrogers/popgen: A course on population genetics
A course on population genetics. Contribute to alanrogers/popgen development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I taught (and co-taught) a course on human population genetics from 2000-2024. Having retired, I'm now making all the course materials public: github.com/alanrogers/p... #popgen #evbio
Reposted by Mark James Adams
🚨 SynthNet is out 🚨
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
November 26, 2025 at 11:42 AM
🚨 SynthNet is out 🚨
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
Reposted by Mark James Adams
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago
The domestic cat (Felis catus) descends from the African wildcat Felis lybica lybica. Its global distribution alongside humans testifies to its successful adaptation to anthropogenic environments. Unc...
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 8:46 AM
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...