BrainWaves: The Neuroscience Graduate Program Newsletter

Using Social Media to Promote your Work

Author: Fahed Abu-Hijleh

Social media is being used more than ever by companies to connect with their existing and potential customers. Why shouldn’t researchers do the same? The time of publishing a paper and sitting back and hoping that one day it gets cited is over. It’s time that you use social media to promote your work and connect with fellow researchers! How? Start with Facebook and Twitter.


Facebook is a great social media platform that allows for rich personal interactions. You can join various kinds of groups that are related to your research. For an example, I am part of a group called ‘Neuroscience News and Research Group’. Members of this group come from throughout the world with all sorts of backgrounds (PhD students to curious grandmas). Here you can promote your work with a simple post composed of a lay summary and a link to the paper.


Twitter is another great social media platform, though it is less personal than Facebook. It allows for a wider reach since each tweet is public (unless you use a private account). I would recommend you follow fellow researchers (see below for a list of fellow MiNDS students). Tweeting a lay summary and link to your paper with a #hastag’s related to the topic will increase the chance someone comes across your tweet. Since we know that Twitter is a great way to promote research, Brainwaves has decided to create our own Twitter account. This Twitter will be used to promote the work of the graduate students in the neuroscience program. We will tweet out any publications that you are first author or shared first-author on.

Here is a list of recent first authored publications from students in our program:


1. Sawarya Owais - Psychopathology in the Offspring of Indigenous Parents with Mental Health Challenges

Link: Psychopathology in the Offspring of Indigenous Parents with Mental Health Challenges: A Systematic Review: Psychopathologie des descendants de parents autochtones ayant des problèmes de santé mentale: Une revue systématique - PubMed (nih.gov)


2. Carly McIntyre-Wood - A Reinforcer Pathology Approach to Cannabis Misuse: Evaluation of Independent and Interactive Roles of Cannabis Demand and Delay Discounting in a Sample of Community Adults

Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096758/


3. Sarah Brassard - A Review of Effort-based Decision-making in Eating and Weight Disorders

Link: A review of effort-based decision-making in eating and weight disorders - ScienceDirect


4. Kathryn E. Reynolds - Astrocyte-mediated Purinergic Signaling is Upregulated in a Mouse Model of Fragile X syndrome

Link: Astrocyte‐mediated purinergic signaling is upregulated in a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome - Reynolds - 2021 - Glia - Wiley Online Library


5. Herry Patel -Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptomatology and Substance Use in an Outpatient Concurrent Disorders Sample

Link: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptomatology and Substance Use in an Outpatient Concurrent Disorders Sample - Herry Patel, Katherine Holshausen, Assaf Oshri, Krysta Andrews, Stephanie Penta, Holly Raymond, Margaret McKinnon, Jennifer Brasch, James MacKillop, Michael Amlung, 2021 (sagepub.com)


6. Fahed Abu-Hijleh – Novel Mechanism of Action for Mood Stabilizer Lithium

Link:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bdi.13019#:~:text=Taken%20together%2C%20these%20data%20suggest,the%20AP%E2%80%901%20transcription%20factor.


7. Neda Mortaji - Maternal Pregnancy Diet, Postnatal Home Environment and Executive Function and Behavior in 3-4 Year-Olds (in press)

Link:https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqab202/6308078


8. Jee Su Suh - An Investigation of Cortical Thickness and Antidepressant Response in Major Depressive Disorder: A CAN-BIND Study Report

Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158220300127



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