F32 NIDA Postdoc at Stanford | Former T32 PhD at UMich.
Caught a break in Community College.
½ confused & ½ excited about FMRI, Measurement & Behavior across Development
| Website | https://michaeldemidenko.com/ |
Preprint of a project that we started w/ Keating and colleagues pre-COVID (!!).
We used 3 waves of data to evaluate the association between par SES, disadvantage, affluence & maltreatment with self-reported alcohol & marijuana in a large adolescent sample.
"[W]e explore the labeling theory (Becker, 1963) as a framework to discuss why such often-used conceptualizations of the adolescent period can be counterproductive when not used thoughtfully."
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.945775
Adolescents are stereotypically viewed as risk-takers (“stereotypical risk-takers”) in science, mainstream media, fictional literature and in everyday life. However, increasing research suggests that adolescents do not always engage in “heightened” risk-taking, and adolescents’ own perspectives (motives) on risk-taking are largely neglected in research. Hence, this paper is a commentary and review with two aims. First, taking a cross-national perspective, we discuss the definition of adolescence and risk behavior. We argue that much of the research on what drives adolescent risk behavior (e.g., substance use) focuses on the harms that this behavior promotes rather than on the need to explore and grow into adulthood. Thereafter we summarize the dominant approach to studying motives behind substance use, which has mostly considered young adults, and which has typically not focused on adolescents’ own self-generated motives. The few empirical studies (including one of our qualitative studies) on adolescents’ own motivations for engaging in risk behavior (i.e., cannabis use, alcohol use, and tobacco smoking) show that the most frequently mentioned motives by adolescents were being cool/tough, enjoyment, belonging, having fun and experimenting and coping. Interestingly, the “cool/tough identity” motive is virtually overlooked in research on adolescent risk-taking. The above-mentioned motives, however, generally support newer theories, such as the Developmental Neuro-Ecological ...
Over the weekend, used Google's Free hosting to make a personal webpage. A newb page that I hope to improve over time. Welcome feedback: Things to include? To Exclude?
Using #vim is easy once you learn a few basic keybindings.
h and l - move left and right
j and k - move down and up
η and λ - move backwards and forwards through time
ξ and κ - translation through additional temporal dimension (if applicable)
ᚻ, ᛄ, ᚳ and ᛚ - moving left, down, up, and right through celestial spheres
𐤄 and 𐤋 - switch deity to pantheon member to left or right
𐤉 - supplicate to chosen deity
𐤊 - challenge chosen deity (dangerous)
:q - exit
New year, new instance, new #introduction !
👋 I'm a postdoc at Stanford University working with @Russpoldrack and @scottlinderman. My work focuses on improving and applying statistical techniques for inter-individual comparisons in fMRI data.
I'm really excited about how methods open up new avenues for theory, and I spend a lot of time thinking at this intersection.
I believe that rigorous methods should be broadly accessible, and I'm an active advocate for community-based efforts to promote #openscience and #opensource research software.
@NicoleCRust @albertcardona @matthewcobb
One of the things I've been struggling with recently is how the vast majority of papers (including most or arguably all of mine) don't propose an idea that could in principle get us closer to understanding how the brain does what it does. I have the feeling that there was this moment in time when people were coming up with tons of crazy theories. They were all wrong (probably) but it was exciting. Now we're just talking about how many dimensions a 'neural manifold' has and I just can't get excited about that (sorry manifold people). In my case, I think I've had a small handful of ideas that went in the direction I'd like neuroscience to be going in of proposing ideas that could scale to part of a full explanation of the brain, but I haven't pursued them because they were hard to define or get funding for. My resolution for 2023 is to focus more on those interesting questions and less on things that I think are easy to get published or get funding. For what it's worth, the biggest challenge to neuroscience I reckon is how it can operate in a stable way based on what seems to be a surprisingly unstable substrate (e.g. synaptic turnover). If I had a good idea about how to solve that problem, that's what I'd be working on.
Edited to add: I don't mean to criticise anyone's work! It's more a personal realisation that I've not been pursuing research directions that I believe could really lead to understanding the brain. On a metascience level, I think it's important that different people take very different approaches, most of which they will disagree on. If it's not like this, we won't make progress. My realisation is perhaps that I've been trying too hard to fit in and it's not working for me.
"... more data alone doesn't guarantee better science."
Ian Douglas Scott
Elizabeth DuPre
Dan Goodman