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Patrick Piantadosi @ppiantad.bsky.social · 1d

thanks so much Jonas - including for all of your advice while I set this experiment up. PdCO is truly one of the only opsins I trust right now!

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Patrick Piantadosi @ppiantad.bsky.social · 1d

for anyone interested in the amygdala and risky decision-making, check out our new preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

amygdala neurons track reward-seeking actions, and punishment risk dramatically alters this function. lots of other (BLA-accumbens!) data included.

Risk reshapes amygdala representation of choice

Modifying behavior in response to changing environmental conditions is a crucial adaptive function. This capacity is exemplified when animals curtail pursuit of a valued outcome that risks being punis...

biorxiv.org

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Patrick Piantadosi @ppiantad.bsky.social · 28d

I promise I was not fishing for this with my re-tweet 😂 really happy to hear about the work though, looks very cool!

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Beck Todd @beckety.bsky.social · 28d

1. Media coverage of a new paper by @ryantomm.bsky.social w @brandonforys.com, @dr-stan.bsky.social et al. Building on Stan’s rodent work, Ryan found that > depression levels were associated w reduced capacity to learn to actively button-press to avoid a nasty sound www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

Depression Curbs Ability to Actively Avoid Unpleasant Events

Depression in young patients is linked to difficulty in taking action to avoid something unpleasant, while the ability to withdraw and not act remains intact.

www.medscape.com

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Mark Baxter 🏳️‍🌈🧂 @markgbaxter.bsky.social · Jun 2

This is absolutely revolutionary.

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Jun 2

Synthetic Serum Markers Enable Noninvasive Monitoring of Gene Expression in Primate Brains https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.01.657212v1

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · May 23

Please comment. The Administration is trying to turn the NIH IC Directors and program staff roles into political appointees that serve at the whim of the President. Imagine if each change in administration brought sweeping changes in professional NIH staff across your favorite ICs.

@KayTrue (Sarah L. Keller) @kaytrue.bsky.social · May 21

Here are details about OPM-2025-0004. This would replace NIH Directors (non-partisan civil servants) with political appointees. Jeremy Berg has quick text to use: bsky.app/profile/jere.... A direct link for your comments is at: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20.... Cite Docket ID OPM-2025-0004

Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduc...

www.federalregister.gov

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · Apr 14

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is demanding a meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele over the detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and says he’ll go to El Salvador himself if the Marylander isn’t returned.

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Mar 25

At least four neuroscientists received termination letters this week dismissing them from NIH advisory boards. “This is unusual and unprecedented,” says @thebalelab.bsky.social, one of the terminated board members.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

bit.ly/4hM0Xa3

Acting NIH director dismisses four neuroscientists from advisory boards

The letters they received this week did not include a reason for their termination.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Katie Sandlin @kmsandlin.bsky.social · Feb 14

I maxed out my credit card, emptied my savings account, and took out a loan to move from Alabama to Bethesda, MD. I don’t even qualify for unemployment since I’ve only worked at NIH for a month. I will be financially and medically devastated.

Seeking suggestions for anywhere that’s hiring!!

Katie Sandlin @kmsandlin.bsky.social · Feb 14

Today, along with 2,000 other NIH employees, I had to clear out my office 😭

It was truly the honor of my life to work with such incredibly passionate people focused on improving human health. I’ve never experienced a more positive culture where *everyone* cared about their job and serving others.

Office desk without any personal items or decor

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · Feb 8

To all those saying "shouldn't we root out government inefficiency? What's wrong with DOGE?" a quick background on Constitutional law and why the WAY it is being violated exposes the true motives of the criminals:

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Miriam Goldstein @miriamgoldstein.bsky.social · Feb 6

Just in case you thought that removing DEI criteria would mean that everyone is competing equally: NIH is removing grad students from underrepresented backgrounds from the applicant pool altogether. Their applications will not be considered. Other students, not from these backgrounds, will be.

Update: They were removed from our reviewer assignments completely. I'm so sorry to all those graduate students.

Anonymous to protect the identity of the NIH employee I spoke to...I am on study section next month to discuss F awards. We were just instructed to put the F31-Diversity applications on the bottom of our priority list for review because there is a chance we may not be able to review them. My heart is breaking for the grad students and their mentors that put so much work into these just for them to be disqualified and thrown out.

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Reposted by Patrick Piantadosi

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · Jan 26

Colombian President Gustavo Petro's full post ordering an increase of import tariffs on U.S. goods, says he doesn't really like traveling to the U.S. because it's “a bit boring” and invokes the ancestors

Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighbourhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.

I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller

I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country

I don't like your oil, Trump, you're going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.

So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next to Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't accompany me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.

You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.

You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with white slavers. I shake hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.

They are the United States and before them I kneel, before no one else.

Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.

Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take refuge in its African songs.

My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.

You will never rule us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, who is called Bolívar, opposes us.

Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, today's Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.

I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA,

Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will give it your sweetness.

FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.

I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.

Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world

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Daniel Cardozo Pinto @dcardozopinto.bsky.social · Nov 25

My paper is out!! 🎉

"Opponent control of reinforcement by striatal dopamine and serotonin", @Nature

Here, we show that dopamine and serotonin signals form a gas-brake system for reward in the mammalian brain

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