Matt Wall
@mattwall
Psychologist & fMRI-nerd. 🧠 + psychedelics, cannabis, sex hormones. Instrument botherer. The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. My stuff: My vids:
Today's crop from our garden. Very nice, but - it's May. Doesn't feel right...
- A negative relationship between the change in [11C]UCB-J binding and a measure of resting brain activity called 'ALFF' (Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuations) in default-mode-network-like regions.
- Changes in glutamate levels, measured with MRS - Changes in functional connectivity of some brain networks.
We saw: - Consistent (though non-significant 😢) increases in [11C]UCB-J binding in all regions - a PET ligand sensitive to synaptic density.
Well, I finally did it. Found an analysis that has crushed my Mac Studio (M2 Max, 64GB RAM). Been running about 10 hours like this so far...
Honestly, feeling privileged to see this tonight. David Byrne made me feel things I didn't think I was still capable of feeling. What a show. My God. 🤩
We showed that reward system function (measured by the MID) decreased over 12 months in PWUC (people who use cannabis) relative to controls (non-cannabis users). We saw similar effects in ROIs and whole-brain (voxelwise) analyses.
I know we're not supposed to care about such things, but... This feels like a bit of a milestone. 😁
Addendum: In case anyone is wondering, the reference to 'Knole Road' being the nearest Freemason's lodge seems to narrow this fruit-cake down to living in Bournemouth. Beyond that, I have no idea...
Some flat-earther conspiracy-theory loony has very carefully stuck in little hand-written notes, seemingly at random throughout the book. Mostly about freemasonry? But also about physicists, the moon landings, Mars, and Elon Musk. WEIRD.
I recently bought some graphic novels on eBay to read with my kid. Among them was this - the first two of Pratchett's discworld books. That'll be fun, I thought. However, I was not prepared for the frothing madness and batshit lunacy I found inside... 🧵⬇️
Key takeaway - those who stopped using cannabis showed improvements in depression and psychotic-like outcomes. Those who continued or started using cannabis showed worsened scores on those measures.
How much trouble would I get in if I set this as my actual auto-reply? Would it be worth it for the lolz? 🤔