Mervyn Singh

Adaptive habits: understanding executive function and its development Executive functions (EFs) develop dramatically across childhood and predict important outcomes, including academic achievement. These links are often attributed to individual differences in EF capacities. However, individual difference accounts underemphasize contextual influences on EF. We propose a complementary perspective, the adaptive habits framework, which emphasizes how contextual factors support or hinder EF engagement in children. Contexts that support repeated EF engagement establish habits for engaging EF in similar contexts and in similar ways. Such habits, in turn, reduce the effort associated with engaging EF and thus increase the likelihood of deciding to engage EF in the future. We interpret empirical findings through the lens of adaptive habits, discuss the implications of this framework, and propose novel research approaches and interventions to support EF in children.

Online Now: Adaptive habits: understanding executive function and its development

Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders - Nature Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders...

1/4 Thrilled to be sharing new work published today in Nature describing the third wave of results from the PGC Cross-Disorder Group. This reflects a massive group effort to examine shared and unique genetic signal across >1 million cases for 14 psychiatric disorders. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@thetransmitter.bsky.social presents a portrait of the state of neuroscience in 2025 through four lenses: its focus, its output, its people and its funding. Each view features analyses of major trends and more. Explore the end of year report: bit.ly/4oNeTVC

#neuroskyence #StateofNeuro

Diffusion MRI Processing in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study: Innovations and Applications The landmark ongoing HEALthy Brain and Cognitive Development (HBCD) study will longitudinally chart brain development in a large sample (projected n=7,200) of infants through age 10 years with multimo...

After years of development and testing, we are happy to present our work in "Diffusion MRI Processing in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study: Innovations and Applications"! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... A thread:

Just a regular day in the @catherinealebel.bsky.social lab… postdoc edition 🎃🕸️

@mervsingh.bsky.social @qililan.bsky.social

Congrats Dr. Luo!!! 🎉🥳

Calling all FASD caregivers and families! We're hosting live FASD Success Show events in Calgary and Edmonton, Oct 4 & 5 - register here: www.fasdsuccess.com/thefasdsucce... #FASD

Oh wow 26! Perfect weather for tropical fruit! :)

Omg longans! Eating these while sweltering under the tropical Singaporean sun is one of my most cherished childhood memories

This is truly impressive and important work!

‼️NEW PREPRINT‼️

What if you could take a normal 3T T1w MRI and make it look like it was acquired from a 7T scanner?

That's exactly what we do using AI in our new preprint!

Link: arxiv.org/abs/2507.13782

#neuroskyence #neurosky #compneuro #AI #datascience #neurology #mrisky #neuroimaging

A Transdiagnostic fMRI Dataset With 300+ Deeply Phenotyped Subjects Across Resting and Task States | medRxiv www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

This cures my FOMO about missing #OHBM2025 ... somewhat 🧠

Imaging cortical layers to understand brain as network organ This spatial scale, bridging cells and brain areas, has been overlooked in human brain research. But advances in fMRI technology are changing that.

ICYMI: In this essay for our Future of fMRI series, Laurentius Huber @layerfmri.bsky.social explains how new advances in functional MRI could help to connect cells and brain areas at the mesoscopic scale.

#neuroskyence #OHBM2025

www.thetransmitter.org/future-of-fm...

Research assistant job posting is live! Come join us in Calgary and be part of a supportive, interdisciplinary team.

careers.ucalgary.ca/jobs/1631661...

We will soon be hiring a research assistant in Calgary to work on projects related to brain imaging, prenatal alcohol exposure, and mental health. Please reach out if you're interested, and I will share the posting once it's live. @ucalgary.bsky.social @mathisoncentre.bsky.social

New website up & running! (with an up-to-date team section) www.developmentalneuroimaginglab.ca
@courtneygilchrist.bsky.social @bryce-g.bsky.social @kathrynmanning.bsky.social @xiangyuloong.bsky.social @mervsingh.bsky.social

It’s been a busy spring, so excited to speak tomorrow @ PMH at 1pm room 7-605 - see you there!
@uoft.bsky.social @uoftmedicine.bsky.social @uoftmedicalimaging.bsky.social @sickkidsto.bsky.social

I couldn't agree more!! Love doing science and conferencing with the Lebel Lab! 🧠 😃

We have the best lab in the world. So grateful to work with these amazing people!
@catherinealebel.bsky.social @mervsingh.bsky.social @canacn.bsky.social

fMRI can do more than you think Advances in brain imaging technology provide new and different information about the brain.

Taking full advantage of new advances in brain imaging technology will require more collaboration between engineers and neuroscientists, writes @lauradata.bsky.social in the latest for our human neurotechnology series.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/human-neurot...

Huge congratulations Audrey!! This is very important work. It's nice to see how robust these developmental gradients are across datasets - underscoring the need to look beyond tract-averaged measures 😊

Head Motion in Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Quantification, Mitigation, and Structural Associations in Large, Cross‐Sectional Datasets Across the Lifespan We characterized motion during diffusion MRI scans across 16,995 image sessions and find that (1) modern preprocessing pipelines effectively mitigate motion to the point where biases are not detectab....

It's hard to overstate what a big deal this paper is: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/.... Head motion in dMRI is NOT like head motion in BOLD.

This is figure 1, which shows the relationship between sleep and circadian dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders.

A Review in Nature Reviews Neurology provides an overview of the prevalence and impact of various sleep disturbances in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. https://go.nature.com/4aV4mBu 🔒

Considering the interconnected nature of social identities in neuroimaging research - Nature Neuroscience Individual variability in behavior is influenced by social identities. Here, Dhamala et al. discuss the need to incorporate social identities in neuroimaging studies of behavior and explore how to fos...

Recent executive orders targeting marginalized communities underscore the urgent need for inclusive biomedical research.

Our latest work, now out in print, explores how interconnected social identities impact brain biology and mental health, providing a roadmap for more equitable research.

Transdiagnostic thinking could accelerate autism science Our tendency to focus on one condition at a time likely silos expertise and services—and obscures critical connections across diagnostic categories.

Transdiagnostic thinking could accelerate autism science | The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/to-...

“The Brain is…”: A Survey of the Brain’s Many Definitions - Neuroinformatics A reader of the peer-reviewed neuroscience literature will often encounter expressions like the following: ‘the brain is a dynamic system’, ‘the brain is a complex network’, or ‘the brain is a highly ...

What is the brain? 🧠 New from Taylor Bolt: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Great work by @halleeshearer.bsky.social in her first first-author paper. With 🎀 shiny app 🎀 to explore how FC reliability fares ACROSS DIFFERENT movies versus rest, region-by-region. Thanks @sneuroble.bsky.social @tingsterx.bsky.social @ninetlab.bsky.social for 👍 collab.

doi.org/10.1162/imag...

Congratulations again Kathryn!! So happy for you! :) Can't wait to hear about all of the exciting work you'll be doing at SickKids!