Sam Snider

Two new tools to map the human brainstem: nuclei: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.100… bundles: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… code: surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/AANSegm… github.com/markolchanyi/B… @olchanyi @JuanEugenioIgl1 @MGHMartinos @MGH_CNTR @MGBResearchNews @MIT

See our response to concerns raised about the validity of lesion network mapping here. IMO, initial critique published in @NatureNeuro does not hold up to scrutiny.

A recent paper in @NatureNeuro raised concerns about the lesion network mapping method. Our team of 16 coauthors analyzed >1000 lesions and 34 symptoms and found that "The methodological foundations of lesion network mapping remain sound" biorxiv.org/content/10.648…

A new study shows that signature patterns of brain activity may help predict recovery from #TBI. Read more from @SamBSnider and colleagues in @PNASNews: massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsr…

~10 years ago we published a paper on anticorrelated brain networks, but are they useful clinically? New work from @SamBSnider @Brain_Circuits @ComaRecoveryLab in @PNASNews suggests they predict recovery from severe brain injury. Thread below:

paper here: shorturl.at/Ow7wu Collaboration between @BWHNeurology, @MGHNeurology, @imperialcollege, and the EU. @foxmdphd @Brain_Circuits @ComaRecoveryLab @BWHNeurosurgery @Neurosharp @nsngraham 2/2

We report a new biomarker for recovery from moderate/severe TBI: The synchronized toggling of activity between "task-positive" and "task-negative" brain networks. Out today in @PNASNews 1/2

Last week I lost a friend. But the rest of the world lost a warrior. A visionary who dedicated his life to healing the sick and relentlessly bulldozing any barriers that got in his way. 1/n @NolanRyWilliams

New research from @harvardmed @brighamWomens @brain_circuits: We evaluated how DBS in Parkinson’s with Alzheimer’s influences cognition. Originally, it looked like DBS was deleterious for cognition in Parkinson’s, but could be beneficial in Alzheimer’s.

@neuromichael Amazing pictures

Family reunion time! I grew up Mormon and have a complicated relationship with the religion of my youth. But one of the things I strongly value from Mormonism is the ethos of family history and unity. (It is one of the reasons why there is so much pain in Mormonism when family disconnection and alienation happen.) Bracketing metaphysics and speaking phenomenologically, the blessings of the "Elijah spirit" in Mormonism are real, living and active (ref. Malachi 4:5-6).

@BWHNeuroICU @Brain_Circuits @_Anesthesiology

The BIS monitor is used in ORs around the world. In patients comatose after cardiac arrest, we virtually-emulated BIS monitor output from clinical EEG. A neural network trained on this data out performed clinical gold-standard at predicting recovery. ow.ly/Q3ju50VvUnW

In a new cover study, Snider et al. tested if internal EEG subparameters extracted by the BIS monitor—a device commonly used to estimate depth of #anesthesia intraoperatively—could be repurposed to predict recovery of consciousness after cardiac arrest: ow.ly/Q3ju50VvUnW

@AmarDhand @PNASNews Congrats. Can’t wait to read it

New in @PNASNews: Childhood social environments leave brain-wide white matter signatures. In 9,000+ youth, we link adversity to structural changes and later cognition—a step toward mapping social networks onto brain biology. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2…

Is generalized epilepsy a seizure of the whole brain or a specific brain network? In our new paper out now in @NatureComms we investigate this by combining brain abnormalities and DBS with the human connectome. Paper: nature.com/articles/s4146… A 🧵 below:

Visualizing Effective Connectivity in the Human Brain Preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Code: github.com/ComaRecoveryLa… YouTube video: youtu.be/V0hqs-noYNg Download video & figures: zenodo.org/records/149748… Led by #XanderAtalay & #TeoFecchio @MGH_CNTR @MGHMartinos @MGHNeuroICU

@peirong26 @JuanEugenioIgl1 @AnaLawryAguila Great work! Does it output a label map for anomalous areas?

Our latest work UNA has been accepted to #CVPR2025! UNA is the first modality-agnostic model to synthesize healthy brain anatomy from images with potential abnormal patterns --- Achieved by our novel fluid-driven anomaly generator on-the-fly. Project: github.com/peirong26/UNA

Spaulding awarded two #TBI researchers $400K each in support of their new studies to understand mechanisms underlying disorders of consciousness & identify effective treatments. Learn about the Innovative Treatments in Disorders of Consciousness program: spklr.io/6017NvnZ.

@dbfisch @GreenJournal Awesome- looking forward to reading this

Covert consciousness, where unresponsive patients willfully modulate brain activity to command, is gaining attention. But these assessments are fundamentally limited. What if we could just... read their minds instead? 🧵 about our paper in @GreenJournal neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WN…

@WillManidis Have never heard it articulated like this- totally agree. So very different from an exam question.

these studies are all incoherent nonsense doctors are not presented a neat case summary and asked to make a judgement. practicing medicine is the art of finding the signal in the noise to understand what is happening. not looking at full cases and making judgements