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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Varun Warrier @vw1234.bsky.social · 7d

And a very helpful and informative commentary on the paper by @tuckerdrob.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Early- and late-diagnosed autism are genetically distinct

Analyses of symptoms and genomic data indicate that autism that manifests in early childhood is distinct from autism that is diagnosed later in development.

www.nature.com

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · 18d

I was one of those academics who benefited from an H1B visa, and I like to think the US benefited from this also. I can't imagine many US universities can afford to cough up 100k extra for recruitment, so sad to see this....

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Cambridge Psychology Department @campsydept.bsky.social · 22d

👀

University of Cambridge @cam.ac.uk · 26d

A short, relatable message about a migrant worker boosted positivity toward EU #immigration by 20 points among UK voters.

The latest @campsydept.bsky.social #research suggests that pro-immigration arguments can be effective for the UK electorate 👇
https://bit.ly/3HYkEQi

British attitudes to immigrants from Europe can be shifted by relatable messaging, study finds

A short profile of a migrant NHS worker that taps into values of duty and hard work produces a 20-point swing in positivity towards EU immigration among British voters, according to a Cambridge psycho...

bit.ly

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Aug 19

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 “Steven Rose obituary: Vituperative neuroscientist,” in 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠

www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...

Steven Rose obituary: Vituperative neuroscientist

Academic who showed little tolerance for IQ testing, but made steps towards a treatment for Alzheimer’s, dies aged 87

www.thetimes.com

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Cambridge Psychology Department @campsydept.bsky.social · Aug 12

Join our #NewBONDS study at #Cambridge #Babylab ✨
Expectant and young parents are invited take part investigating what effect early interactions have on developing brain🔎🧠🐣
📨Get in touch to learn more!
#developmental #psychology #neuroscience #research #family #interaction

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Cambridge Neuroscience @camneuro.bsky.social · Aug 7

Join us for a 2-day international conference "Interventions & Recovery"🧠 bit.ly/46QQ1WG
We'll cover cell & gene therapies, pharmaceutical innovations, and cutting-edge neurotechnology

Check out our Programme!👇https://neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/camneuro-events/8th-cambridge-neuroscience-symposium/?tab=2

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Aug 1

Finally got around to this interesting exchange. Much to like! However, in my view neonate cortex is building a foundation model while sub-cortical sensorimotor routes support newborn behaviours and, importantly, bias the inputs to the foundation model (e.g. orienting toward faces).

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Laurel Joy Gabard-Durnam @laurelgd.bsky.social · Jul 29

thrilled to share this project over a decade in the making out now in @pnas.org! We show that precocious GABA boosting in neonates by early sevoflurane/propofol anesthetic exposure accelerates visual cortical maturation in human infants
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Jul 13

Excellent work from my colleague Daniel Wechsler showing that "Mother–child autism trait similarity positively predicted both social functioning and psychological well-being in children..". Trait similarity may act as a protective or promotive factor.
acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

<em>Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</em> | ACAMH Pediatric Journal | Wiley Online Library

Background There is a pressing need for research on neurodevelopmental conditions to focus on predictors of resilient or positive outcomes, rather than core symptoms and impairment. One promising av.....

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Lukas Vogelsang @lukasvogelsang.bsky.social · Jul 10

1/ New paper out in @commsbio.nature.com, led by @marinv.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1038/s420...! Across several past studies, we showed how newborns' degraded vision may benefit human development and inspire more robust deep networks. We have referred to this as Adaptive Initial Degradations (AID).

Potential role of developmental experience in the emergence of the parvo-magno distinction - Communications Biology

Developmentally-driven computational modeling study suggests that early sensory experience shapes distinct neuronal response properties in the visual system, providing a potential account of the emerg...

doi.org

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · Jun 14

DNA is often called a “blueprint for life”. In common parlance a blueprint refers to (e.g.) an architect plan, technical drawing or engineering design. DNA does indeed contain information to guide construction, in this case of a living organism. But beyond that, similarities rapidly break down. 2/n

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Emily Singer @emilysingerneuro.bsky.social · May 19

The latest essay in our #NeuroAI series explores how inspiration from how babies learn language might improve language models.

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · May 19

Alona Fyshe @alonaf.bsky.social on the BabyLM Challenge, a competition that trains language models (LMs) on smaller datasets, more akin to how a baby learns, in search of solutions to some of the major challenges of today’s LLMs.

#NeuroAI #neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/neuroai/the-...

Can babies inspire more efficient learning algorithms?

A competition that trains language models on smaller datasets, more akin to how a baby learns, seeks solutions to some of LLM’s major challenges.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · May 7

Delighted to be part of the team on this breakthrough infant behaviour genetics study led by @angelicaronald.bsky.social and Anna Gui:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of age at onset of walking in over 70,000 infants of European ancestry - Nature Human Behaviour

A genome-wide association study of age at onset of walking in over 70,000 infants found 11 significant loci. Age at onset of walking showed SNP heritability of 24%, a reliable polygenic score and gene...

www.nature.com

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Apr 25

From our 'infant sibs' cohorts we are finding increasing evidence for Chronogeneity as a way to view heterogeneity in autism. In other words, different ages of onset may reflect different types of neurodiversity.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.medrxiv.org

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Apr 11

Congratulations Karla! Great to see how much your research has grown from those PhD days...😀

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Apr 10

Along with the new statue, proud that my College (Kings) has now acquired some of Turing's notebooks (thanks to a generous donation). Kings was also an early career haven for David Marr and Geoff Hinton, so there must be something in the water?
www.kings.cam.ac.uk/news/2025/al...

Alan Turing's 'Delilah' papers saved for the nation

Following his ground-breaking work on the Enigma machines at Bletchley Park, in 1943 Turing (KC 1931) turned to building a portable voice encoder for short-distance transmission to be used in military...

www.kings.cam.ac.uk

Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Gregory Kohn @kohngregory.bsky.social · Apr 8

The media circus on the slightly modified wolf mixed with the nonsensical hype of de-extinction only highlights the need to greatly shift how we talk about genes and genetic "information" in popular discourse. Oyama's groundbreaking book and Lewontin's prescient forward should be a starting point.

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Mar 31

Great paper adding to the recent evidence for pulvinar as an organiser of human cortical development, and potentially "training" cortical specialisation.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

An intrinsic hierarchical, retinotopic organization of visual pulvinar connectivity in the human neonate

Despite the immaturity of the visual cortex, infants exhibit remarkable perceptual abilities. The pulvinar is hypothesized to support perceptual abilities in infancy and even scaffold the initial deve...

www.cell.com

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Mar 13

Shocked at the cuts to University staff and research funding across UK, Netherlands and, of course, the situation in US. I'm old enough to remember the massive cuts to science in the early Thatcher years, but at least we young scientists could join the 'brain drain' to the US at the time.

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Mar 9

But what is the solution? We certainly don't want to increase further the admin load on academics. A proportion of this is driven by new government and funder requirements. Some also responds to perceived threat of legal action. And some is self-generated as you say.

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Mar 9

I agree with sentiments of the editorial, but also agree that there are some amazing and very hard working people in these roles. The question is what is driving this ever increasing administrative loads and how to curtail it.

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Feb 24

There is still a week left to apply! www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49974/

The Dawson Professorship of Young People's Mental Health - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge

The Dawson Professorship of Young People's Mental Health in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge.

www.jobs.cam.ac.uk

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Maya Opendak @maya-opendak.bsky.social · Feb 23

So excited to share our Perspective out this week in Translational Psychiatry! We provide a conceptual framework for studying brain function in infancy. A true labor of love and hopefully useful for many related questions! @drbcallaghan.bsky.social
Open access link:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Understanding the development of a functional brain circuit: reward processing as an illustration - Translational Psychiatry

Translational Psychiatry - Understanding the development of a functional brain circuit: reward processing as an illustration

www.nature.com

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Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Feb 22

Hi Przemek, I hope all is going well. By networks do you mean brain systems or computational neural models? I've just had a paper accepted in Nature Human Behaviour on the genetics of onset of walking that identifies some brain regions. I'll post it as soon as I am allowed...

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Reposted by Mark H Johnson

Dirk Gütlin @gutlin.bsky.social · Feb 20

The developmental emergence of reliable cortical representations

🧠🤖

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The developmental emergence of reliable cortical representations - Nature Neuroscience

Sensory experience transforms endogenously structured cortical networks with diverse and unreliable visual responses into reliable representations. This process is proposed to involve the alignment of feedforward and recurrent networks.

www.nature.com

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