Dr. Sarah Thomas
Clinical psychologist. Asst. Professor (Research) at Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Psychiatry and Human Behavior. I study adolescent cannabis use, reward, mental health, the brain, and parent-adolescent interactions. Views are my own
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasLots going on but don’t lose track of the Trump attacks on biomedical research and cancer cures. @jeremymberg.bsky.social posted a leaked #NIH memo today. I want to highlight a few scary parts. They’re about taking power from scientists and experts and giving it to the president’s hacks. 1/ 🧪
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasA bad thing is unfolding at NIH this week: It looks like the Trump administration is trying to replace key civil servant scientific leaders, the Institute Directors, with political hires. These directors control the NIH budget, tens of billions. A bit of a video explainer here: 1/ 🧪
- 👇 Our latest preprint, currently under review, and the first paper from my NIDA K23 study! 🧠
- Link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasOzempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government go.nature.com/47hn0n5
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasToday my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasIn this review, @lucinauddin.bsky.social and Hugh Garavan examine how task and resting-state fMRI can reveal brain-behavior relationships in youth, highlighting current controversies and challenges, outlining solutions, and proposing future directions in developmental neuroscience research.
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasNEW: $8M for Bradley Hospital’s dedicated mental health professionals to boost research & strengthen services. This federal grant will help build a new facility to improve pediatric psychiatric research & make it easier to access top-notch services in one centralized, modern facility.
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasSign the petition to call for the removal of RFK, Jr. www.standupforscience.net/rfk-impeachm...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah Thomasthis ends with a description of what YOU can do. Please get involved now. Everyone can take one of these actions.
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasWe’re heading in to Day 2 of our pre-college summer course at Brown 🧬 🧠 Conducting Research at the Forefront of Science: Mental Health, Policy, and Social Implications of Cannabis Use in the U.S. It’s always a blast teaching with @sarahathomasphd.bsky.social
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasSo important! Please contact your Republican senators, especially Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA). 🙏 amplify!
- As Robert Kuttner writes, the NIH will need support from Republican Senators to avoid draconian cuts to its FY2026 budget. prospect.org/politics/202...
- I am hiring a clinical research assistant for a project on adolescent cannabis use that will use MRI 🧠 and behavioral tasks 🎮 More information is available in the link below, and applicants can send a CV and cover letter to me. Please share—thank you! tinyurl.com/msn8h2ce
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasHere's the NIH's proposed budget - from $48 billion to $27 billion. NIAID, current ~$7 billion cut to ~$4.2 billion. The proposed 15% cap on indirect costs remains. Again, these budgets are passed, and our leadership in science, technology, and innovation is gone. www.hhs.gov/sites/defaul...
- The end of US leadership in science, technology, and innovation. All in one little table. A tremendous gift to China, courtesy of the GOP. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah Thomas🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday 📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj
- I hope this isn’t true. We all need to contact our elected officials and get them to do more to support research right now
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasA Path Forward to Save American Bio-Medical Research talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-pat...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasNew from me: Everything feels overwhelming. But here is a tangible thing you can do: write a comment to oppose Trump's plan to convert 50,000 career civil servants into political appointees. Deadline is May 23. Please share! donmoynihan.substack.com/p/here-is-a-...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasContact your Representative and Senators & urge them to support investments in NSF and NIH. The Administration’s proposed cuts to these vital agencies will harm #science and hinder our prosperity, health, and well-being. www.psychologicalscience.org/act-now
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah Thomas“However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.” Read, share, respond. Call your representatives. The health and well-being of Americans & America's innovation economy are at stake. www.science.org/content/arti...
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasHere is a link to 60 Minutes NIH segment... www.cbsnews.com/news/scienti...
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasPlease consider making a public comment opposing the possibility of making NIH directors, program officers, and other staff (e.g. SRO, GMS) political appointees. This only took me ~90 seconds. Please repost. Thanks 👍
- The notice and COMMENT PERIOD OPENED TODAY AND CLOSES MAY 23. Anyone who would like to register an objection or comment should go to this page and click on the green “public comment” button at the top: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... 6/n
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasIntroducing a new tool from @tsbolt.bsky.social, find-viz (FMRI Interactive Navigation and Discovery Viewer)! It’s a browser-based visualization tool built with one purpose in mind: get researchers to spend more time looking at their fMRI data 🧠 @ohbmofficial.bsky.social @ohbmtrainees.bsky.social
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasFeeling particularly grateful to have had the chance to end the #CPA2025 conference and march in the Hands Off! rally today in Providence, RI with thousands of others to continue to stand up for science and public goods. @standupforscience.bsky.social @sufsnewmexico.bsky.social
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasThe thing about scientific research is that it’s one of the few national investments that’s a clear public good even if you entirely discount the actual ostensible point of it.
- New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024. That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved. Show me a better investment than that. www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah Thomas1 week until we Stand Up for Science in RI! 🗓️ Friday, March 7, 12-4pm 📍 RI State House South lawn @standupforscience.bsky.social
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasThis is amazing 😍😍 @500womensci.bsky.social has made cards for each state on funding for NSF and NIH avail for download bit.ly/NSF_bystate & bit.ly/NIH_bystate if they are helpful for folks
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasToday's action - contact your MOCs about the Federal Register block! I just used @llparker100.bsky.social's resistbot via SMS and there is a little back and forth for it to collect your info but it went through and I got a receipt message from Sen Markey! resist.bot/petitions/PC...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasToday is International Day of Women & Girls in Science. Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Her contributions have left an indelible mark on the world of science & health & continue to inspire generations of scientists & innovators. 🔬 #WomenInScience #WomenInSTEM
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- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasPer an NIH source: “Discussions with colleagues have suggested that if the universities all come together and raise hell about the delays to funding caused by not holding meetings, that might move the needle. From every state. There are well-funded universities in red states that will be impacted.”
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasThanks to everyone's feedback, we have updated our calculator to optimize sample size N & scan time T for fMRI studies: leonoqr.github.io/ORSP_Calcula... The first new feature is that users can explore how different N & T leads to different accuracy, e.g., N=1000 & T=30min => 81% max accuracy. 🧵
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasYour biggest power is as a constituent who cares about the issue and may be directly or indirectly affected by them My format is generally: NIH is important for the nation, both in terms of health knowledge and economics/competitiveness 1/n
- Everyone should also call their senators & reps. I called mine this morning to let them know my concern, and it did not seem like they were being flooded by calls. We need to make it very clear the impact this has on science and research, and that this pause is unacceptable. Senate: 202 224-3121
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasI just reached out to my senators about the NIH situation. If you need to find out how much impact NIH has in your state in terms of dollars in and their economic impact here's a link: www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
- The final version of our article is out now: Our cross-sectional study found that adolescents who vaped cannabis as their primary method had a significantly greater likelihood of a suicide attempt 30 days before psychiatric hospitalization, and greater suicidal ideation doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...
- We adjusted for multiple factors associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and results remained significant for suicide attempts. In the article, we discuss potential mechanisms for the higher acuity associated with cannabis vaping, which is observed in other studies.
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- 👋 I research adolescent cannabis use in the context of brain development, and how it poses risk for depression, suicidality, sleep disruption, and addiction. I also work with the ABCD Study dataset 👇 🧠👩🔬
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah Thomas(reposted 🧵 from the Bad Place) My and @clearlab.bsky.social's Dimensional Affective Sensitivity to Hormones across the Menstrual Cycle (DASH-MC) framework was published in Mol Psychiatry! We aim to reshape how we study and treat #PMDD, #PME, and other forms of hormone sensitivity. rdcu.be/dQYfU
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- Using the APIM with self-report and a behavioral discussion task to measure conflict, we found links between parental knowledge and its sources and conflict processes, demonstrating dyadic interdependence psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...
- Reposted by Dr. Sarah ThomasI really like the idea of interviews on "current status and future challenges in brain imaging". I do NOT like that 14 of 15 interviews are with men. Who is missing from this list? We have lots of amazing neuroimagers who aren't men. #neuroskyence www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
