massage therapy and touch science - ally 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

The molecular basis of force selectivity by PIEZO2 - Nature PIEZO2 is intrinsically more rigid than PIEZO1, and disparate mechanical stimuli paradoxically evoke opposite conformational and gating responses in each channel.

Very excited to share our new manuscript – published today!

Why are PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are tuned to transduce different types of mechanical force? I was lucky to work with some extraordinary colleagues to begin to figure out why.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An overview of the results below ⬇️ ⬇️

Broad claims about gender and behavior fall apart when studies include ethnically diverse samples Behavioral economics relies heavily on studies of Western, educated people. A recent analysis provides evidence that ignoring racial diversity within the United States has led to flawed generalization...

"The research suggests that generalizations about human behavior are often flawed because they rely on samples composed largely of White individuals."

Theory: What to read The role of theory in cognitive science Or: my guide to what to read if you really want to understand how to do good, robust , theory-driven cognitive science. (disclaimer: this is an aspirational gu...

The early bird gets the worm, or in my case, finds a minute to update my reading guide on the role of theory in cognitive science: All the amazing suggestions that the Bluesky community have given me are now incorporated. Enjoy🪱🐤 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

But I also have distinct disagreements with the author.

Generating original data has always been the hardest part of being a scientist and I don't see how that changes with genAI. He puts a lot of weight on "ideas" - I think ideas are a dime a dozen. It's data that matters.

A 2009 cross-sectional study from Curtin University examined relationship btwn sitting posture & physical, psychosocial factors in 1,500+ teens. They found association of back pain & posture was complex & heavily influenced by negative thoughts & self image.

massagefitnessmag.com/massage/uppe...

Stretching theories have been leaning away from a mechanical perspective to a mix of neural, psychosocial, behavioral & structural factors in past 30+ yrs.

In 2010, Weppler & Magnusson proposed a "sensory theory" in addition to existing mechanical theories.

massagefitnessmag.com/fitness/why-...

Scientific Paper Planner - AI-Powered Research Planning Structure your scientific research with AI-powered guidance. From hypothesis to methodology, plan your research paper with intelligent mentoring.

You heard me talk about the app that helps scientists plan research (planyourscience.com) that I have been building. Join our webinar to talk with us about it. Signup here forms.monday.com/forms/5f4755...

Erasing critical scholarship: How attacks on academic freedom undermine democracy - Susanne Täuber, 2026 Building on a number of case studies, this essay examines the role of university management for ensuring academic freedom in the European context. The emerging ...

"academic freedom is granted to those who do not need its protection. At the same time, academics who challenge, criticize and debate power differentials and inequality practices are increasingly being silenced, deprived of their livelihoods and intellectually erased from public discourse"

I’m building a foundational reading list for our lab (systems & circuit neuroscience, compneuro, modeling, neuromodulators, population coding etc.).

I’d like to crowdsource recommendations.

Which review(s) would you consider mandatory reading for the next generation of researchers?

Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias Krakauer et al take the view that current neuroscience places too much emphasis on techniques and causal accounts of explanation. They argue that detailed study of behavior and its algorithmic composi...

I'd throw this into the list

Experimenting with an AI-curated neuroscience feed. It scans the entire firehose in real time, prefilters for neuro/cogsci keywords, then a local LLM scores each post for scientific substance. A ranking algorithm blends that quality score with engagement to surface the best discussion. Try it out!

How ‘skull drains’ keep the #brain safe from damage and pathogens Nature, Published online: 18 February 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00518-8Veins in the skull can rearrange their borders to accommodate patrolling immune cells, a strange behaviour called ruffling.

How ‘skull drains’ keep the #brain safe from damage and pathogens @Nature.com

Bots have made their way to Prolific experiments. Our lab has stopped online testing of adults entirely now for this reason - we want to know if what we study is real. Probably data collected 2-3 years ago are ok, but moving forward we just can't know. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Menopause, Female Sex Hormones, Skeletal Muscle Mass and Muscle Protein Turnover in Humans Sarcopenia describes the loss of muscle mass and function with age. The increase in prevalence of sarcopenia in women appears to coincide with the onset of menopause, which is characterized by large ...

Menopause, Female Sex Hormones, Skeletal Muscle Mass and Muscle Protein Turnover in Humans
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Keeping an open mind about factors contributing to chronic pain can help patients to explore what approaches might work for them, writes patient author Barbara Holtzman
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁
Circuits and networks can shift "computations" quite dramatically.
Check this computational model of the role of neuromodulators.
#neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1162/Neco...

The Role of the Information Source in Debunking Health Myths Using the Truth Sandwich Format Health-related myths spread rapidly and can have a negative impact not only on individuals, but also on public health. In the present research, we aim to investigate the extent to which the effecti...

Truth sandwich! 🥪

The Role of the Information Source in Debunking Health Myths Using the Truth Sandwich Format www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"...findings contribute to the research on debunking health misinformation by demonstrating that the effectiveness of the truth sandwich format..."

If you put an older patient in an MRI, you'll find about 80% of them have a rotator cuff tear. Most asymptomatic people have abnormalities on imaging. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Health care access from the rural perspective: A narrative review Purpose Health care access has been described using several definitions and frameworks, but none are specific to rural populations. We describe ways access to care is measured using the model of acc...

"Health care systems should incorporate access metrics into routine data collection to drive improvement and ensure equitable access to quality health care." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#MedSky #PCSky #PublicHealth #HealthEquity #RuralHealth #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PatientExperience

This is happening "because the currency of scholarship—publication—is becoming increasingly detached from the notion that publication is meant to add to the sum of human knowledge. In other words, publication has increasingly become an end in itself."

How plant “touch” boosts resilience: new research reveals surprising stress response | The Optimist Daily When plant leaves touch, they become more resilient to light stress. A new study shows how physical contact may form a natural stress warning system.

#TOUCH ~plants understand the need 💚

www.optimistdaily.com/2026/02/how-...

The NSAID (non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs such as Ibuprofen, naproxen and diclofenac etc) debate seems to have reared its head again recently in many ultra running online groups and forums.

Here’s an old post sharing the position stand of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

1/3

a fucking pedophile sexually abused nearly every prospective and actual Olympian gymnast for over two decades, and the political discourse is hyper-fixated on the hypothetical unfairness of trans girls competing with cis girls

“I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.” - Rubén Blades #Truth

Show this to the next Democrat that says trans issues aren't critically important "right now"

New Research Perch! Listen in as host Annie LaCroix, Dr. Niki Munk, & special guest Rachel Romanelli discuss data collection methods within massage therapy practice & their utilization in the upcoming MassageNet Case Series Study. bit.ly/4tftYSs

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

Top: Experimental set up. Single pulses of TMS were applied to the hand area of the right primary motor cortex with an inter-pulse interval randomized between 6 and 10 s. Simultaneously, the neuronavigated coil position (yellow), electrocardiogram (red), respiratory signal (blue), electrogastrogram (green), and electromyography from the left hand (gray) were recorded. The figure shows traces of a 20-s time segment from one participant of the cardiac (raw), respiratory (filtered), gastric (filtered), and EMG (raw) signals. The experimental measure was the Motor Evoked Potential amplitude measured on a hand muscle (first dorsal interosseous), analyzed against the phase of the cardiac, respiratory, and gastric rhythms. Note that the three rhythms have very different periods (~1 s for the heart, ~ 5 s for respiration, and ~20 s for the gastric rhythm). Bottom: Artwork illustrating how rhythms of the internal organs interact with the moment-to-moment fluctuations observed in corticospinal motor excitability. Image depicts an outline of a brain with representations of the three rhythmic organs influencing the motor system: the heart, lungs, and stomach. Image credit: Tahnée Engelen.

How do internal bodily rhythms influence #brain activity & motor function? @tahnee-engelen.bsky.social &co show that #cardiac, #respiratory & #gastric rhythms independently modulate motor excitability, revealing distinct #interoceptive profiles across individuals @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4nMtpLT

Beautiful work by @marieloescher.bsky.social and a must for the #interoception crowd to read!

#neuroskyence

Scientific publishing norms were built for a world that no longer exists.

In this commentary, I argue that the future of scientific exchange may benefit from new channels of interaction and dissemination.