1/ Why do late-stage cancer patients lose motivation & sink into apathy?.🔥Our new Science paper shows cancer activates a cytokine-sensing brain circuit to lower motivation.Great work by Aelita Zhu @sarahstarosta @Pignatelli_Lab @JanowitzTobias &team!🧵.🔗

Here is the paper:.

Tbh, i’ve been wary of scale-free avalanches etc bc 1/f noise often felt like self-organization trivia with no link to computation or behavior. This article starts to close the gap, casting criticality as a homeostatic target for dynamics. Convincing, must read & discuss!.

Is criticality the common set-point of brain function? Must read Viewpoint by @KeithHengen & Woodrow Shew in @NeuronCellPress marshals a meta-analysis &.evidence that our brains aim for the brink of phase transition “criticality” as a built-in set-point for flexible computation.

RT @kwanalexc: Can’t believe #GRCPsychedelics is happening in two weeks!. We reached capacity attendance – sorry we could not accommodate e….

RT @dr_alexharris: This chart made by Peter Gleick shows the proposed cuts to science graphically. This is bad for America. Please ask Co….

RT @jonykipnis: The most vocal ‘protector of minorities’, sitting on billions of private dollars, is the first to retreat because of the ri….

Why does CAR T-cell therapy cause "brain fog"? .In a landmark study @michelle_monje et al. show white-matter inflammation drives cognitive deficits. Blocking these, either resetting microglia or dialing back their chemokine response restored myelin & rescued attention+memory!.

Meet the Area Postrema!.

RT @BPoD_s: Cancer muscle wasting-associated apathy is result of tumour-induced inflammation & brain circuitry interaction. 📷 Xiaoyue Aelit….

Beautiful study by my colleagues showing the synaptic mechanisms for ketamine "anti-anhedonic" effects. @FedeLucantonio and @Pignatelli_Lab.

We need bodyoids with brainoids inside!.

RT @_cingraham: Most people don’t understand how *new* most cancer treatments are. The treatment that cured my lymphoma was developed when….

RT @SashaGusevPosts: Nobel laureate Bill Kaelin on Killing the Science Golden Goose. "This is especially worrisome because becoming a sci….

RT @WashUMedNeuro: Congrats to Hysell Oviedo, PhD, who has been installed as the Roger M. Perlmutter Career Development Assistant Professor….

RT @AToliasLab: After 7 years, thrilled to finally share our #MICrONS functional connectomics results!. We recorded activity from ~75K neur….

14/ Finally, this work wouldn’t have been possible without generous support from many funders. Special thanks to @washumedicine @NIH , especially @NIMHgov , @NIDAnews , and the NIH Pioneer Award—for making long-term, high-risk neuroscience like this possible. 🎬.

13/ This builds on decades of work linking inflammation to fatigue, depression, and motivation loss. We’re picking up that thread—now with a defined brain circuit in play. A step toward circuit neuro-immunology of behavior. #Inflammation #IL6 #Cancer #Cachexia #NeuroImmunology.

12/ This project took a huge team, spanning neuroscience, immunology, and cancer. Grateful to co–first authors Aelita Zhu & @sstarosta & my co–senior authors @JanowitzLab, @Pignatelli_Lab, and all our amazing collaborators. Special thanks to Pavel Osten for cFos mapping.

11/ We’re also excited about our effort-based tasks to measure motivation. Grounded in behavioral economics, they’re designed for cross-species computational psychiatry. We’re now adapting them for humans to bridge physical disease and psychiatric symptoms.

10/ This reframes cachexia: it’s not just physical wasting. Chronic inflammation can activate a specific brain circuit that suppresses motivation—likely evolved to conserve energy during illness, but maladaptive when persistent. A clear link between body and mind.