Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

Professor @Caltech. Computational Neuroscience, fMRI, learning theory. Forthcoming "Dopamine Rules." 2026 return to full-time bike racing & hour record attempt. hss.caltech.edu/people/steven-… Joined September 2011

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Michael Easter @Michael_Easter

22 hours ago

We’ve hit peak health neurosis. A 🧵on the new and growing obsession with health optimization and its downsides.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

4 days ago

@thekevingrimm Just a break along a route from Ventura to Santa Barbara.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

6 days ago

Solid endurance ride on the new build today despite the tough weather conditions - partially cloudy!

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

5 days ago

@arhamgrowthcap Ironically the paper states all these limitations, but Soberg just ignores them all.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

5 days ago

How to make a protocol: take a tiny, observational study of 8 winter swimmers, observe some interesting physiological differences, and then market those results as a scientifically validated 11/57 cold/heat “optimal” protocol for the general public. Optimal duration? No. It’s just the observed average of what those 8 winter swimmers did. No testing various durations/frequencies. Health benefits of the 11/57 protocol? Maybe. But the study just looked at physiological differences. No clinical endpoints. Not even evidence of clinically significant weight loss. And the study isn’t even designed to test whether the protocol causes those differences. Upshot: 10% science. 90% marketing.

Huberman Lab Clips @HLPClips

a week ago

Optimal duration of cold and heat exposure for health benefits:" "when we calculated the numbers, we could see that it ended up being 11 minutes in total per week." "When we divide that out it corresponds to being in cold water 1 to 2 minutes at a time, but also in the sauna 10

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@prestejeUAE @faustocoppi60 It's the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which is on Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@SahilBloom @ElizabethSBloom then there's when he's old enough watching Field of Dreams together...

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@ethanjweiss is that the retracted study featured in the documentary that "could upend everything we think we know about cholesterol?"

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

The Kahneman & Deaton study used a measure of affective well-being that wasn't able to capture the range of positive affect. Killingsworth had a continuous measure that was. FWIW, this debate was only about the affective component of subjective well-being, not the evaluative component (life satisfaction). And Kahneman wasn't a fan of these measures - he thought they were susceptible to retrospective biases and worked to develop alternative approaches (his objective happiness). And Deaton didn't care much for the affective component.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

Your statement above is trivially true - obviously all brain processes are 'related' to metabolism. The BOLD signal in fMRI is a metabolic signal etc. You frequently make the stronger claim that mental illnesses ARE metabolic disorders or mitochondrial disorders. If you look at the philosophy of science literature, those identity statements are reductionist claims. And yours are widely regarded as reductionist fallacies.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@lebosquet @Brady_H actually Bakersfield! It's a pic of the infamous 'cow path of death' section of the Rock Cobbler, one of the original gravel races.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

the wandering mind paper has no income data and the 2023 paper has no attention data, so no study in which income, attention, and happiness are measured together in one sample and modeled jointly. The $40,000 present person outscoring a $400,000 distracted person in the post is made up.

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@pl_valenzuela very interesting paper - are there plans for examining other periods of their season?

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Olivier George @brainaddiction

a week ago

Interesting meta-analysis showing enriched environments decreases cocaine-seeking across 48 rodent studies using CPP (A), self-administration (B), and locomotor sensitization (C). Remarkable reproducibility across laboratories, particularly for CPP. good example that animal models, when done right, can be highly reproducible and good reminder that the brain doesn't develop addiction-like behaviors in a vacuum, the environment matters tremendously. doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.…

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Steven Quartz PhD @StevenQuartz

a week ago

@NTFabiano the quality of these reviews speak for themselves. The mechanistic claim about BDNF refers to a retracted paper - that's listed as retracted in the references....