Niamh MacSweeney

‼️Call for Papers for a Special Issue in Brain and Environment‼️

🧠 Temporal Dynamics Linking Adversity, Adaptation, and Neurodevelopment

🗓️Abstract deadline: 15 April 2026
🗓️Submission deadline: 16 October 2026

Guest Editors @abrieant.bsky.social & Myself!

www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Symptom-specific links between internalizing problems and functional connectivity in adolescents: a network analysis - European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Previous fMRI studies have documented links between internalizing problems in youth and brain functional connectivity of the default (DN), frontoparietal (FP), and salience (SA) networks. Characterize...

Very excited to share that our paper “Symptom-specific links between internalizing problems and functional connectivity in adolescents: a network analysis” has been published in European Child & Adolescence Psychiatry doi.org/10.1007/s007...

Synchrony between brain age maturation and internalising and externalising symptoms across adolescence Abstract Background: Adolescence is a period of rapid neurobiological and behavioural change, yet it remains unclear how deviations from normative brain maturation relate to the development of interna...

New year🎊, new preprint📰

Using multimodal brain-age prediction models trained and tested on 4-wave MRI data from #ABCD, we examined how deviations in brain age align with changes in internalising and externalising symptoms across 10 waves.

1/4🧵

My feedback to flux.

I'm not interested in anonymity. And this is my feedback to all institutions, all international conferences, and universities.

Announcing the 2025 Recipients of the Small Grants for Early Career Scholars | Society for Research in Child Development SRCD

Thrilled to receive a @srcdorg.bsky.social Small Grant for Early Career Scholars! This funding will support my research on how hormonal contraceptive use may affect brain development and mood during adolescence.
www.srcd.org/news/announc...

Neuroimaging insights into adolescent depression risk and development Nature Mental Health - Adolescence marks a critical period for the onset of depression, yet the neurobiological mechanisms remain unclear. Here the authors review literature linking adolescent...

Our paper - Neuroimaging Insights into Adolescent Depression and Development - is now out in Nature Mental Health! 🧠 Huge thanks to my wonderful co-authors @yaratoenders.bsky.social and @cktamnes.bsky.social. I loved bringing these ideas together with you! rdcu.be/eugUM

Linking pregnancy- and birth-related risk factors to a multivariate fusion of child cortical structure | PNAS Pregnancy- and birth-related factors affect offspring brain development, emphasizing the importance of early life exposures. While most previous st...

Happy to announce that our article (my master’s thesis) is now published in PNAS. Here we investigated the link between pregnancy and birth and child brain structure 🧠🤰🏼👶🏻

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Awh, I’m so sorry to hear this Theresa!

Childhood Stress and Early Onset of Female Puberty May Raise Risk of Depression and Anxiety in Adolescence, Study Finds | Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Being exposed to trauma during childhood has been associated with significantly increased risk for developing depression and anxiety later in life. Precisely how trauma translates into greater risk re...

An article on our recent work led by @niamhmacsweeney.bsky.social

bbrfoundation.org/content/chil...

New preprint out on the link between gratitude and wellbeing: who benefits most and under what circumstances?

Across four studies with 220,314 individuals from 67 countries, we investigated whether individual, contextual, or cultural differences moderated this relationship.
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at King's College London Recruiting now: Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

🚨 HIRING 🚨 a Postdoctoral Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience @kingsioppn.bsky.social

My group's research aims to understand how social and physical environments impact brain and behaviour development.

Application window closes in three days!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLX655/p...

Check out the paper for additional findings, including results in males! This was such a fun collaborative project with @divyangana.bsky.social @phoebethomson.bsky.social @cktamnes.bsky.social and Tilmann von Soest 🌟

We found that youth with greater exposure to trauma were
at an increased risk for internalising symptoms at ages 12–14 years, and this association was mediated by a higher
pubertal status at ages 9–10 years, but not by a faster pubertal tempo.

Using latent profile analysis, we found that pubertal development could be grouped into three different classes from ages 9 to 14: Early starters (9% of sample), typical developers (76%) and slow developers (15%)

<em>Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</em> | ACAMH Pediatric Journal | Wiley Online Library Background Exposure to trauma in childhood is associated with an increased risk for internalising symptoms. Alterations in pubertal development has been proposed as a potential mechanism underpinnin...

🚨New paper out in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 🚨 In this pre-registered study, we examined the role of pubertal development in the association between trauma exposure and internalising symptoms in female youth using ABCD data:
acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Offering a #postdoc role and a competitive #PhD scholarship at Deakin University in Australia. Join our new @enigmabrains initiative bringing together #neuroimaging (#MRI) data on #adolescent #brain develop and the influence of #puberty

Thanks to all my wonderful co-authors: @danibeck.bsky.social, @lucywhitmore.bsky.social , Kate Mills, Lars Westlye, Tilmann von Soest, Lia Ferschmann & @cktamnes.bsky.social 🌟

Multimodal Brain Age Indicators of Internalizing Problems in Early Adolescence: A Longitudinal Investigation Adolescence is a time of increased risk for the onset of internalizing problems, particularly in females. However, how individual differences in brain…

Hi Bluesky👋 Excited to use my first post to share our new paper: "Multimodal brain age indicators of internalizing problems in early adolescence: A longitudinal investigation" Now out in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging 👀 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...