Athena Akrami @AthenaAkrami Twitter profile

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Athena Akrami

21 days

Excited to see the final version out @eLife . A long journey since the 1st draft as we ran experiments to test new model's predictions. Thanks to reviewers whose comments made it a better paper! @vboboeva , A Pezzotta, @ClopathLab Image by @mulesome article:

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

New preprint (first from the lab)! 📢 "From recency to central tendency biases in working memory: a unifying attractor network model" by @vizhe4 (Vezha Boboeva), Alberto Pezzotta, co-supervised by me & @ClopathLab ! @SWC_Neuro , @imperialcollege (1/25)

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Omicron wave of mass infection showing its impact. Too many friends & colleagues reaching out for advice on #LongCovid . Heartbreaking. A 🧵on Rest & Pace. Biggest advice: don't repeat the mistake that most of us from the first wave in 2020 did i.e. push yourself. 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

So, most recoveries happen in the first few months. Do your best to help your body to recover. How? By rest & rest & rest. It's been shown eg in Ziauddeen et al that inadequate initial rest is correlated w long covid later on. @Dr2NisreenAlwan , @Know_HG 4/

Characteristics and impact of Long Covid: Findings from an online survey

Background Long Covid is a public health concern that needs defining, quantifying, and describing. We aimed to explore the initial and ongoing symptoms of Long Covid following SARS-CoV-2 infection...

journals.plos.org

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

I am profoundly devastated. Yesterday, we at @neuromatch found out the organization cannot support participation of Iranian students, due to US sanctions against Iran. This has left us heartbroken. This is the ugly reality of existing sanctions: online learning is not equal 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

The mistake most of us from the first wave in Spring 2020 did was to exert ourselves, because we didn't know any better, because we were told to do so. This causes Post Exertional Symptom Exacerbation (PESE) or Post Exertional Malaise (PEM) that #pwME knew about all along! 5/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

And here is the preprint: "Characterizing Long COVID in an International Cohort: 7 Months of Symptoms and Their Impact" Special thanks to thousands of you who participated in our study on #LongCovid . a thread 🧵 0/

Characterizing Long COVID in an International Cohort: 7 Months of Symptoms and Their Impact

Objective To characterize the symptom profile and time course in patients with Long COVID, along with the impact on daily life, work, and return to baseline health. Design International web-based...

www.medrxiv.org

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

7 months

My heart is broken for civilian Israelis, brutally murdered or kidnapped on Oct 7. My heart is broken for civilian Gazzans, bombed in return. My academic fellows: shouldn't we shout peace, organize 'pro-peace' rallies, instead of drawing the dividing line thicker & fueling rage?

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Initial cases of #LongCovid did not know about PEM/PESE. In an urge to return to our 'normal' life, we were pushing our way towards pre infection baseline only to find ourselves more and more ill. Until we stopped, listened, read and learned from the #MECFS community. 8/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Not only do they know the rule (yellow scores on the left, blue scores on the right), but also all sorts of behavioral nuances you can find in basketball games -- cooperation, competition, speed-accuracy tradeoff. & they're playing for the sake of playing, not the treat!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

@LongCOVIDPhysio has a lot of good resources on rehabilitation, fatigue, and exercise. You need to respect your energy envelope and pace accordingly. 15/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Data suggest recovery after the first few months is infrequent. Tran et al (France)*: -Of LC patients who were still sick at 2 months, only 15% recovered by 1 year -Of those who thought they were better, 33% subsequently relapsed *Non-vaccinated 2/

Course of post COVID-19 disease symptoms over time in the ComPaRe long COVID prospective e-cohort

Nature Communications - Long-term complications and persistent symptoms occur following COVID-19, but the nature and duration of the long-term symptoms are not fully characterised. Here the authors...

www.nature.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Yes, PEM/PESE is a very well known concept among #pwME and actually is the cardinal symptom for #MECFS diagnosis. Before the COVID-19 pandemic it was 10.4 times more likely to happen in ME/CFS than control groups. 6/

Meta-analysis investigating post-exertional malaise between patients and controls - Abigail Brown,...

Post-exertional malaise is either required or included in many previously proposed case definitions of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. A met...

journals.sagepub.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

So, if you've had Omicron recently and are still struggling with lingering symptoms, first: I'm really sorry. Second: show down, rest and make it your priority to recover before it's too late. Of course rest alone is not enough (depending on the damage), but it's essential. 18/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

In a cross-sectional study (of 477 participants mean age 45 years, median Long Covid duration was 383.5 days) Wright et al found that physical activity worsened symptoms in 74.84% of participants. 9/

The Relationship between Physical Activity and Long COVID: A Cross-Sectional Study

The relationship between Long Covid (LC) symptoms and physical activity (PA) levels are unclear. In this cross-sectional study, we examined this association, and the advice that individuals with LC...

www.mdpi.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Read the article, read the thread. Similar to @GeorgeMonbiot , I was also shocked & embarrassed (as a scientist) when I learned about the history of #MECFS , PACE trial, & the gaslighting that patients have been subject to for decades. Same happening to #LongCovid patients now.

George Monbiot

@GeorgeMonbiot

3 years

How I became a human plague – and stumbled into one of the most astonishing scientific stories I’ve ever encountered. My column. Plus thread.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

According to Wright et al, unfortunately most of these harmful activities were recommended by health care providers! Our intuitions are wrong too, since we're biased to think exercise can only do good. Academic paper & social media know it, thanks to #MECFS 11/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

In another thread, I'll try to summarize what we know, so far, about LC sub-categories. No matter the underlying pathophysiology, pacing is essential. #LongCovid sucks. It literally sucks life & energy out of Every Single Cell of your body. Avoid it. Wear 😷, avoid infection 19

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

For those unfamiliar w/ PEM: being sedentary doesn't explain the activity intolerance. In VanNess et al, within 24hrs of the test, 85% of controls fully recovered vs 0% of #pwME . The remaining 15% of control recovered within 48hrs vs only 1 ME patient 7/

Postexertional malaise in women with chronic fatigue syndrome - PubMed

The results of this study suggest that PEM is both a real and an incapacitating condition for women with CFS and that their responses to exercise are distinctively different from those of sedentary...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Whitaker et al (UK)*: - A rapid drop-off in symptom reporting by 4 weeks, a further, smaller drop by 12 weeks, but then very limited further decline (for up to ~22 weeks of study duration) for both men and women. *Non-vaccinated population 3/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Trickiest thing about PEM/PESE is that symptom exacerbation is usually delayed (few hours, next day) after the trigger. This makes it very difficult to see the pattern and detect the triggers. And again, triggers are varied and can be both mental and physical. 13/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

After multiple relapses, I joined a #COVID19 support group -it saved my sanity & soul. There was a survey underway to aggregate experiences. I joined the effort and here's our 50p report on data from 640 participants. Help us make it heard! A thread

COVID-19 Prolonged Symptoms Survey - Analysis Report

docs.google.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

No matter how light or heavy these activities are, they can exacerbate symptoms. ADLs: Activities of Daily Living MPA: Moderate Physical Activity VPA: Vigorous Physical Activity 12/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

March 17: I fell ill w something that I naively thought will be over in 2 weeks. Today: 6 months later, & naively keep hoping I can have 2 weeks straight w no symptom, after every episode of relapse that the angry gods send down like a thunder. Alas, sky is stormy! #LongCovid

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

We have some new additions to the lab - Neurons!! real neurons in a trained animal! sounds trivial?! not for a #NewPI ! :) Freshly recorded neurons - 350 (correlated?) channels, out of 1200 available ones in a neuropixel probe. Kudos to @elenamenichini , Viktor, & rest of LIMLab!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

In horror and shock, but not surprised, since this is not the first time. #Sharif university was besieged tonight and tens (or hundreds) of students have been arrested/beaten up/shot. Many still under siege and in danger. #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی

nahid zokaei

@nzokaei

2 years

I write this tweet with a heavy heart... as I write this, university students in the top university of Iran are rounded up on university grounds and are being slaughtered... please take notice and support them #Mahsa_Amini @UniofOxford

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

This is similar to what we @patientled had identified before - 89.1% of participants reported experiencing either physical or mental PEM/PESE. 10/

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Going back to symptoms, 89.1% of participants reported experiencing either physical or mental Post-Exertional Malaise: "worsening or relapse of symptoms after physical or mental activity" one of the most demoralising features of #LongCOVID /15

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

@PutrinoLab has two excellent threads on different types of PEM/PESE. 1. Metabolic-led, where metabolic dysfunction and cell exhaustion can cause a vicious cycle of inflammation, tissue hypoxia and symptom exacerbation. 13/

Putrino Lab

@PutrinoLab

2 years

Time for a 🧵 about metabolically-led post-exertional symptoms. This is quite possibly the most dangerously misunderstood piece of #LongCovid , #MECFS and infection-associated chronic illness puzzle (including non-viral pathologies that involve mitochondrial damage). (1/n)

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

You can also find good tips on how to conserve your energy here: 16/

How to manage your energy levels

www.rcot.co.uk

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

Hey world, have u heard of >1000 school girls in Iran who've been poisoned in the past 3m? #bbc in this 'impartial' report talked to a known figure for his controversial views in the #MECFS community, to suggest it's mass hysteria #SaveIranianSchoolgirls

Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas?

Hundreds of students have fallen ill with similar symptoms - but what is making them sick?

www.bbc.co.uk

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

7 months

Sometimes it feels like ppl of 'democratic' countries take democracy for granted; then I want to remind them of tales of my home country-how walking the line of dictatorship starts w apparently small, justified steps of censorship. I feel very sorry for eLife & the academia today

Michael Eisen

@mbeisen

7 months

I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of @eLife for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

2. Autonomically-led PESE/PEM, where autonomic nervous system is under strain. It's quite important to distinguish these two, particularly if you have signs of #POTS or Dysautonomia. 14/

Putrino Lab

@PutrinoLab

2 years

Today's 🧵 is about autonomically-led post-exertional symptom exacerbation (PESE) in #LongCovid , #MECFS and other infection-associated chronic illnesses. This form of PESE is different to metabolically-led PESE, but it is also possible to have both occurring at the same time (1/)

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

This is a shout out to all the staff at the #LongCovid clinic at @uclh . Yes, after almost 19 months I finally had my 1st appointment today! First time that someone treating me actually knew about Long COVID, its all possible outcomes w\ clear insights into underlying causes 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

What is happening here is extremely harmful, @ClareGerada & @PaulGarnerWoof . Ignoring years of data on "Post-Exertional Malaise" is irresponsible/unscientific. Do you know how I learnt about PEM? After burning myself out, again & again, to get back to my pre-covid active days 1/

Robert Saunders (aka McMullen)

@RobertHMcMullen

3 years

Dr Clare Gerada talking about #LongCovid on BBC Breakfast this morning: “There is nothing that isn’t made better through exercise. OK. Nothing. No matter what age, what condition, exercise will always improve it.” 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

You can also join support groups - Body Politic ( @itsbodypolitic , on slack) - Long Covid Support Group ( @long_covid ) where members share a wealth of experience and knowledge on how to navigate pacing and avoid frequent crashings. 17/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

My take on #Neuralink live demo: - engineering (high channel count, solid wireless transmission): v cool! Can u plz make the technology avail to neuroscientists, @elonmusk , Thx in advance! - What's the signal good for: extremely naive, no real science (consciousness, memory,..)

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

well, my thread had 20 tweets. It seems @Twitter ate the second half, and doesn't cough it up ... will add them later

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

1 week ago I was profoundly devastated. Now I'm profoundly happy & grateful! Happy that we received emergency license to operate in Iran. Grateful to @meganakpeters @KordingLab @seanescola @GunnarBlohm @bradpwyble @Mohsen_Omrani @ZahraRezazadeh @aha_momentum & more @neuromatch

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

I am profoundly devastated. Yesterday, we at @neuromatch found out the organization cannot support participation of Iranian students, due to US sanctions against Iran. This has left us heartbroken. This is the ugly reality of existing sanctions: online learning is not equal 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Not easy to share personal stories here, but in case it helps somebody to re-evaluate #COVID19 risks, now that many places are reopening & lockdown fatigue is hitting harder. 3 solid months of battling this virus. Score is subjective, based on severity of objective symptoms. 1/

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

After multiple relapses, I joined a #COVID19 support group -it saved my sanity & soul. There was a survey underway to aggregate experiences. I joined the effort and here's our 50p report on data from 640 participants. Help us make it heard! A thread

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

@PaulGarnerWoof Hi Paul. I'd really appreciate if you could point me to the literature on "disordered homeostasis in the brain" that "explains postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), the skin rashes, the brain fog", which then can be "reprogrammed via positive thinking". Many thanks!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Yesterday, for the first time since March, left home in a vehicle to somewhere which is not a hospital! Yes, a🚕 not an 🚑 to go to @SWC_Neuro . Felt unreal & magical! Did a surgery, the 1st neuropixel implant of the lab! Even more magical :) Embracing myself for a relapse 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Today marks 4months I'm struggling w #LongCovid . Right now: mild fever, nasty joint/muscle ache, racing heart, fatigue, brain fog. Yes, I put up a happy face, pretend I'm ok, work & interact w friends/colleagues. But seconds later I'm down to my knees 1/

Most Covid-19 patients admitted to a Sydney hospital in March still have symptoms

Exclusive: more than three months after being discharged from St Vincent’s hospital, some 80% continue to experience symptoms, doctors say

www.theguardian.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

6 months

Honored & excited to be one of the awardees for this year's #ERCCog ! A big 'thank you' to the wonderful lab members, colleagues & collaborators! I will be recruiting postdocs & RAs. Please get in touch if you're interested in studying statistical learning in humans, rats & mice!

European Research Council (ERC)

@ERC_Research

6 months

📢 Results of the 2023 ERC Consolidator Grant competition are out. €627 million for 308 researchers. Who has been offered funding? What topics and questions will they investigate? Where will they conduct their research? 🇪🇺 @HorizonEU #ERCCoG news 👉

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

An in-depth piece by @jcouzin , @ScienceMagazine on #LongCovid ; excellent summary of various enduring symptoms, all we know and so much that we don't know. Thx for giving me a chance to reflect on my experience & our patient-led research. 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY! Our Patient-Led Research Team is pleased to announce our 2nd official survey, on recovery from #COVID19 , and #LongCovid . This study is sponsored by @UCL (as the lead Institute), w the partnership of @OHSUNews . 1/ #COVID19Survey2

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Those advocating for adding SARS-COV-2 to the long list of circulating 'mild' viruses, & destroyed any possible plan to eradicate COVID-19: take note EBV increases chance of Multiple sclerosis 32 fold (explains majority if not all MS cases). We had HPV & cervical cancer already.

Patrick Kearns

@kearnsneuro

2 years

Phenomenal paper just published in Science persuasively demonstrating that EBV causes most if not all multiple sclerosis. Phenomenal epidemiological design and technical achievement. 👏

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Absolutely the same for me -- I feel ashamed, as a scientist and as a citizen, that I did not know much about #MECFS before my own experience w/ #LongCovid . Fortunately & unfortunately, there's a lot to learn from their experience--lessons in medicine, anthropology, psychology..

Michael A Osborne

@maosbot

3 years

The most horrifying thing I learned about last year is #MECFS . I could have learned this any time. It is not a secret. It just seemed a bit rare, complex, difficult. So I ignored it. That ME/CFS is ignored is core to its horror. However, now it is common, and can not be ignored.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

I had a CO2 meter w/ me, during the trip to Portugal. It's a proxy to how well ventilated an area is. Recommended level is <800ppm ) Absolute winner: Lisbon airport; almost outdoor air quality! Absolute loser: #cosyne2022 workshop room (ours): >3000! 😱 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

"If you think in terms of 1 year, plant a seed; if in terms of 10 years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people", Confucius Pandemic learned me seedling. @neuromatch showed me teaching the globe is possible & beautiful. Politics showed its ugly face & cut nerves

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

What you do, when struggling to recover from a novel condition for which there is 0 info available? self-organise & collaborate to shed some light on unknown #LongCovid Silver lining of all: get to know these wonderful women. Thx @tanyabasu & @techreview

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

My fellow Iranians, please hang in there. Your enthusiasm, energy, and love for science and knowledge should and will, only grow, in response to hardship and limitations. We will be in touch. 4/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 months

Come work with us at @SWC_Neuro ! Multiple postdoc positions (both theory & experiment) are available in my group, to study computational & neural principles of statistical learning in the brain (of mice, rats, humans). Apply until March 18. Please share!

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

🧵Brain is mysterious, yes. But recently, I'm reading about brain-immune communication and have to say it's CRAZY! Take, for instance, Behaviourally Conditioned Immunosuppression, first discovered by Adler and Cohen (1975). Yes, you can behaviourally learn immune responses! 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

It's been a difficult, but hopeful, year for my home country. I say this with a heavy heart, but more than ever it's needed to celebrate #Nowruz . More than ever needed to shout #WomanLifeFreedom . For those who died in streets and prisons of Iran. For freedom. Happy Nowruz!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Furious Just got off phone talking to the GP (a random Dr working with our primary care center). Can't believe after all these there are GPs who - still think #LongCovid is a respiratory condition after ICU - haven't heard of the long covid clinics set up by @NHS Totally nuts!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

New preprint (first from the lab)! 📢 "From recency to central tendency biases in working memory: a unifying attractor network model" by @vizhe4 (Vezha Boboeva), Alberto Pezzotta, co-supervised by me & @ClopathLab ! @SWC_Neuro , @imperialcollege (1/25)

From recency to the central tendency bias in working memory: a unifying attractor network model

The central tendency bias, or contraction bias is a phenomenon where the judgment of the magnitude of items held in working memory is biased towards the average of past observations. This phenomenon...

www.biorxiv.org

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

I'm humbled. & I have no words for how deeply I love the spirit, determination, willpower & enthusiasm of the NMA family, & how much I'm awed by everyone's energy & passion at the #NeuromatchAcademy ! Thanks everyone! ♥️🙏

Kording —-& Lab 🦖

@KordingLab

4 years

Today’s #NMAVolunteer is Athena Akrami( @AthenaAkrami ). Athena is a brilliant scientist and leads the Learning, Inference, and Memory lab () who use theory and experiment to ... 1/3

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Our matching team @neuromatch worked round the clock to match all #NeuromatchAcademy students to mentors, based on the 369 project proposals that students submitted on Friday!! 🎉 All emails sent to students, TAs & matched mentors. Check your (spam) inboxes! Ready for projects?!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

This is a special call for those who've already recovered from #COVID19 . In order to better understand #LONGCOVID , we need to contrast data against those w shorter recovery. Please join our study & fill the survey, if already recovered from C19 symptoms.

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY! Our Patient-Led Research Team is pleased to announce our 2nd official survey, on recovery from #COVID19 , and #LongCovid . This study is sponsored by @UCL (as the lead Institute), w the partnership of @OHSUNews . 1/ #COVID19Survey2

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

It was about a year ago, when the post-covid clinic's dr told me "I'm not worried about you, u're in good spirits & don't look like having any psychological issues, #MECFS happens to those w/ pre-existing psychological problems". That mentality invests in such misguided studies.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Here some leaflets on Post-Exertional Symptom Exacerbation, Autonomic symptoms and their management. 9/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Students & faculty of #SharifUniversity , one of the most important universities in Iran, are under attack by armed forces and there HAS NOT BEEN A SINGLE official news on it yet. All we know: thanks to citizen journalists. #مهسا_امینی #MahsaAmini #WomanLifeFreedom #دانشگاه_شریف

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

In horror and shock, but not surprised, since this is not the first time. #Sharif university was besieged tonight and tens (or hundreds) of students have been arrested/beaten up/shot. Many still under siege and in danger. #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

The vision behind NMA is to bring together scientists from around the world, to further our collective pursuit of knowledge. We believe that knowledge belongs to all citizens of the world. This is why I joined NMA. I'm heartbroken that political forces are preventing this 2/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

And I can't be any happier!

Kording —-& Lab 🦖

@KordingLab

4 years

Spectacularly happy @neuromatch news: we just received an emergency license from the US Government to operate in Iran. Thanks to the community that helped make this happen! ��️ We can now push further towards the dream of global science without borders.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

As an Iranian member of @neuromatch , who is feeling absolutely outraged about the situation, I believe NMA should go ahead & happen this year. Cancelling/postponing would disadvantage many underserved, URM & disadvantaged people who cannot be educated elsewhere. 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

I had all incentives in the world to return to even 10% of "3 days/w gym" life but boom & bust cycles were devastating. Do you know how I finally started to feel better? After I read the literature, listened to #MECFS patients, & gave my body a full rest for few months 2/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

Enjoying the passage of the century (Persian New Year in few hours) at the airport, en route #cosyne2022 ! Glad that after 2 years #LongCovid is manageable enough that I can do this, though it's still bad enough that this morning I was seriously considering calling it off.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Experiencing loss is an inevitable part of having a pet. Yet, this knowledge never prepares you. You feel racked by grief and loss. If you've lost a cherished pet, I feel you. Life is magnificently beautiful. Life is excruciatingly brutal. RIP Choobak (April 2010-April 2021)

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

How can the brain close the gate to distractors during decision making? See the piece that @neurochong & I wrote on the brilliant work by Finkelstein et al out at @NatureNeuro @svoboda314 , @ratecoding Our piece: Finkelstein et al:

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

My fellow Iranians, I'm terribly sorry. & I want to assure you this sentiment is shared by all the members of the Academy. All were acting in good faith & this news came to us as a total surprise, in spite of our previous legal enquiries that encouraged us Iranians can be in 3/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Second wave is happening, & still the focus is only on the binary outcome: if you don't die, all is good. It's not! Morbidity matters. This is #LongCovid : Few days of relief & symptoms again: 100.5°F (38°C), numbness, fatigue, pins & needles (>6 months in). #CountLongCovid

UK COVID-19

@UKCovid19Stats

4 years

🇬🇧 United Kingdom coronavirus (COVID-19) persons tested positive by specimen date (blue) vs. deaths by date of death (red).

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

And on positive thinking -- well, placebo works on many people. Should we come out & shout placebo is the solution?! Or worse, blame patients if placebo doesn't work for them?! We need proper research to find proper therapy, instead of prescription based on personal experience 3/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

And finally published in @EClinicalMed by @TheLancet ! A big shout out to my wonderful co-authors @patientled : @ahandvanish @GinaAssaf @LisaAMcCorkell @herlifeinpixels Ryan Low @YochaiReemMD @Robotistry Jared Austin #LongCOVID See the full article here:

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

And here is the preprint: "Characterizing Long COVID in an International Cohort: 7 Months of Symptoms and Their Impact" Special thanks to thousands of you who participated in our study on #LongCovid . a thread 🧵 0/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

6 years

Trial-to-trial variability, noise or structure? A new work by Ryan Low and Sam Lewallen from Tank lab. An elegant (nonlinear) manifold discovery method that provides an elegant account for neuronal variability in hippocampus 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Who knew my first last-author preprint will appear on MedRxiv, instead of BioRxiv?! Grateful to the amazing team @patientled , who made this tiring year a meaningful one. Preprint will be out soon on characterizing 205 symptoms in #LongCovid . Some sleep now! Merry Xmass!🎄

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

I can't believe #NeuromatchAcademy is coming to end. Thank you everyone for making NMA something we're all proud of 🙏 Thanks NMA family for helping me focus on beautiful things in the world while struggling w #LongCovid (& thanks for putting up w random bouts of my sickness♥️)

Neuromatch

@neuromatch

4 years

It’s the last day of #NeuromatchAcademy and we would like to thank SO MANY people for making this possible! A huge THANK YOU to all our volunteers that have worked so hard to bring computational neuroscience training to students all over the world! Here are a few of them:

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

" #LongCovid has exposed medicine's blind spot". Which blind spot? Previous (post-infection) chronic symptoms, despite a long history of high numbers of patients, have remained very poorly understood and constitutes one of medicine's largest blind-spots.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

@Mehrnoosh They couldn't find a more controversial figure than Wessley to talk to. This is unbelievable. Why on earth, would you go ask opinion of a person that ALWAYS favours psychological explanations for EVERYTHING (ME/CFS, Gulf war syndrome, long COVID, ...)?

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 month

I cannot hide my anxiety and fear of yet another bloody war. People of Iran don't want yet another bloody war. #NoMoreWars #StopThisInsanity

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Going back to symptoms, 89.1% of participants reported experiencing either physical or mental Post-Exertional Malaise: "worsening or relapse of symptoms after physical or mental activity" one of the most demoralising features of #LongCOVID /15

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

5 years

>350 neuroscientists have signed this petition so far. Surely there are more who are on board with the message. Then sign it!! The minimum to ask @SfNtweets is to calculate & publish publicly the annual CO2 footprint.

Petition to Society for Neuroscience to Act on the Climate Crisis (https://twitter.com/SfN_climate)

TO: The Council of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) FROM: Members of SfN (current and recently active) We are proud of our society’s legacy of scientific excellence and leadership that was vividly...

docs.google.com

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

I think I can safely and confidently announce that I'm the only masked person in the entire Stansted airport. How did that happen?! #ShowMeTheDataWhenAndHowThePandemicEnded

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

And w this, we're releasing a large behavioural dataset (> 2million trials) from a rat Auditory Parametric Working Memory task (first ever such data), as well as comparative human behaviour - 19 rats: 2,540,006 trials, 11 human subjects: 9,507 trials 1/

Jonathan Pillow

@jpillowtime

4 years

New pre-print with Nick Roy, @jihyun_bak , @AthenaAkrami , Carlos Brody, and @IntlBrainLab : describes a flexible method for tracking the dynamics of animal decision-making behavior on a per-trial basis over the course of learning!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

@trishgreenhalgh Trish, no outrage at her feeling better. So glad she's recovered. Her voice has huge impact. She could've easily made it clear she's ONLY talking about her own personal experience. Overgeneralizing in TV while dismissing experiences of others goes against evidence based medicine

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Aren't I the luckiest PI? These beautiful flowers, indeed, brought Spring to our household! It's been a hard ride, this past month, to shake off #COVID19 , & I'm so grateful to all ppl in the lab - I should've been there for them, instead, they cheer me up w their kindness.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

This 👇. Actually if one thinks it's possible to go from novice to expert in 3 weeks, then it's a dangerous sign: superficiality is winning. #NeuromatchAcademy 's goal is to foster process of asking the right question, critical thinking, and to open your eyes to known unknowns. 1/

the viking (@[email protected])

@GunnarBlohm

4 years

Super important 👇: everyone will get something else out if a summer school! Don't expect to go from novice to expert... But gain a basic overview! Learning is iterative! Once you know what's out there you can revisit and deepen your understanding later...

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Going beyond static memories -- A continuous attractor model w/ memory-dependent asymmetry in synaptic connectivity: spontaneously breaks equilibrium of memory & produces dynamic retrieval. By Davide Spalla, Isabel Maria Cornacchia, Alessandro Treves

Continuous attractors for dynamic memories

A neural network model with asymmetric synaptic interactions can store and retrieve multiple continuous memory sequences with their temporal structure.

elifesciences.org

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

This is insane! ICE telling students on visas they have to depart the country, if their university goes online-only this fall -- a lot of these students will have real difficulty to get back into the US, due to visa restrictions, travel ban. They may not be able to come back ever

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

@ReichlinMelnick

4 years

This is bad. ICE just told students here on student visas that if their school is going online-only this fall, the students must depart the United States and cannot remain through the fall semester.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

This is insanely crazy -- pulse oximeters systematically overestimate O2 sat level in dark-skinned ppl. And this was known at least since 2005! And yet, during COVID pandemic it continued to (possibly) harm thousands or millions of non-white individuals. Read the whole thread.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

2 years

We're rocking "learning" over 2days @CosyneMeeting workshops! The what, how & when of learning: How do artificial & biological agents approach the problem of learning, and how can approaches from one inform the other? Organizers: @javier_masis , @KJuechems , Tom Ringstrom & I. 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

You literally cannot find a more controversial figure than Wessley, when it comes to attaching causes to illnesses. If a journalist reaches out to Wessley, that means they know what they're looking for. It's not an impartial view, it's imposing a very biased view. 4/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

And #Banksy strikes again? "At first I thought I should just shut up and listen to black people about this issue. Buy why would I do that? It's not their problem. It's mine." #BlackLivesMatter

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

Who knew I'd appear on CNN, not to talk about neuroscience, or politics, or arts, but to talk about #COVID19 long-haulers. Long-haulers: you're not alone. Society: we need to look into this carefully. Healthy people: calculate risks carefully @NewDay

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 month

Introducing Dr. Peter Vincent to the world -- Lab's First-Ever PhD Graduate, who successfully passed his viva yesterday! Sincere thanks to the examiners @smfleming & @BaysLab ! It's been a blast working w Peter & Maneesh Sahani (co-adviser). Stay tuned to read Peter's work soon!

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Tomorrow I'll talk about "Neurological manifestations in #LongCovid ", at the Oxford Autumn School in Neuroscience, organised by @MasudHusain . Together w/ Avi Nath from @NINDSnews , @MaximeTaquet , & @pollywaite from @UniofOxford . #OxAutNeoro21 , @OxNeuro 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

I'm sorry, but wtf do you know? Have you examined anyone? Have you seen medical reports, lab tests of anyone? Have you examined the evidence? I think this judgment alone tells a lot about his previous views on other conditions too ... 6/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

While you're here, let's remember that humanitarian impacts of US sanctions are well beyond "online learning". Read this report by @hrw showing how the Iranians’ right to healthcare and education has been restricted, despite claims for exemptions. 1/

Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

I am profoundly devastated. Yesterday, we at @neuromatch found out the organization cannot support participation of Iranian students, due to US sanctions against Iran. This has left us heartbroken. This is the ugly reality of existing sanctions: online learning is not equal 1/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Those who still experience PEM after 6 month, on average experience a lot more symptoms, compared to those w no PEM. PEM is a mandatory symptom for ME/CFS. Intriguingly, among those still experiencing symptoms at month 6 w no PEM, fatigue was still the most common symptom 17/

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

4 years

So true! How many times, for God's sake, how many times, I thought I'm recovered?! Every single time I'm deluded to think 'this is it, it's finally over', but alas ... Good sign though that we don't give up! hope is alive! 😂 #LongCovid , Snakes and Ladders playground

Prof Nisreen Alwan 🌻

@Dr2NisreenAlwan

4 years

One of the most devastating things about #LongCovid is the repeated deception of feeling recovered only to go back to symptoms & feeling ill. A constant cycle of disappointing yourself & those around you. That’s why measuring recovery is tricky and needs careful consideration.

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

3 years

Which fraction of breakthrough infections lead to #LongCovid is not known. More data needed. But we know LC can follow initially "mild" cases. Read this excellent piece on what's known & why it's important to take LC risks seriously. By our very own @ahandvanish Thank you Hannah!

The Guardian

@guardian

3 years

When it comes to breakthrough cases, are we ignoring long Covid once again? | Hannah Davis

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Athena Akrami

@AthenaAkrami

1 year

To sit in your comfortable psychiatrist/journalist chair, from the heart of London, and so confidently bullshit is just abhorrent. Here you can read more nuanced reports on #IranianSchoolgirls 7/ 1. 2. 3.

Iranian officials to investigate ‘revenge’ poisoning of schoolgirls

The attacks on female students – called an act of ‘biological terrorism’ – are thought to be retaliation for protests against hijabs in the country

www.theguardian.com

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