I tweet when I come across science that amazes or surprises me. In my non-tweeting hours I'm a USC professor researching affective neuroscience of aging.
Oct 15, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I can't believe it. Frontiers notified me that they had assigned me as editor for a manuscript and provided a link for me to select reviewers.
I replied to please remove me as editor and take me off whatever list they have so I'll never be automatically assigned to edit a manuscript again.
Sep 30, 2021 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
Here is a preprint reporting on what I believe is our lab’s most important project to date. We conducted a neuroimaging clinical trial to test how heart rate variability (HRV) influences brain networks involved in emotion regulation. medrxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…#medRxiv 1/n
Hundreds of studies show correlations between HRV and well-being. Thus, HRV seems to indicate the current state of regulatory systems in the brain. But we were interested in whether HRV might also play a causal role in influencing these brain networks. sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 2/n
Jun 29, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This paper troubled me when it came out because it did not line up with my experience on a grant review panel where most reviewers (entering scores before seeing other reviews) tend to have similar scores most but not all the time. pnas.org/content/115/12… 1/
Rereading it, I noticed their sample of 25 grants that they had reviewers review had all been funded by NIH. That means those grants were in the top 20% or so of the scored grants. There were no previously poorly evaluated grants in the pool. 2/
Jun 29, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This paper is misleading as they solicited grant applications from investigators and their entire set consisted of funded grants. So they did not have any poor quality grants (or even any that did not get funded) in their pool.
While the NIH process is not perfect, I am impressed by how carefully reviewers read proposals and know that my colleagues put a huge amount of effort into grant reviews.
Jun 29, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
We have a broken system in science. Currently, the main bulwark still protecting science from total collapse in the US is the NIH scientific review system.
I know this may sound extreme. But hear me out. 1/N
For-profit “open-science” publishers make exponentially more money each year as they exploit the incentives of our system, in which authors are willing to pay to publish their papers and need to publish as many as possible to increase their own research impact factors. 2/
Jun 28, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I co-reviewed for Cells with a lab member. I thought it was for the journal Cell until I submitted it at the reviewer online form. I felt duped. We gave extensive feedback and the authors responded in detail. The editor asked us to review the revision in just 3 days?!
I explained I'm working on a grant deadline and cannot do it that quickly. She was not willing to give me the extra time I needed. She told me to quickly review their response letter...
