Claudia Massaccesi
clamassaccesi.bsky.social
Claudia Massaccesi
@clamassaccesi.bsky.social
Postdoc @LonsdorfLab | previously @ScanUnit @CSNunit & @UZH | (pro)social motivation, reward, opioids & dopamine
Pinned
New paper out in NYAS!
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
We show that protecting others' from pain promotes effortful prosocial behavior 💪🧑‍🤝‍🧑🤝
w/ @clauslamm.bsky.social @silanilab.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social
(thread below)
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
The ESCAN 2026 website is now live! → escan2026.eu

Join us in Rome, 3–6 June 2026, for the next European meeting in cognitive and affective neuroscience.

Find the registration info, venue details, and updates all in one place.

More news soon.
#ESCAN2026 #Neuroscience #Rome2026
Home - ESCAN 2026
ESCAN 2026 is the 9th ESCAN Conference, the biennial meeting of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
escan2026.eu
November 27, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Bee positive: A demonstrator’s positive attitude toward the potential for a reward is picked up by an observer in 🐝 #neuroskyence
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Positive affective contagion in bumble bees
Affective contagion, a core component of empathy, has been widely characterized in social vertebrates but its existence in any invertebrate is unknown. Using a cognitive bias paradigm we demonstrate p...
www.science.org
October 24, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Thanks ACNP! Excited to (virtually) attend my first ACNP meeting 🤩
Congratulations to the ACNP 2025 Global Scholarship Awardees! 🤩
October 14, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
🚨 PhD/Postdoc alert 👇

If you are interested in doing a PhD/Postdoc in computational psychiatry (starting Sept 2026), do get in touch by October 4th at [email protected] :)

Any inquiries are welcome. To apply, please attach your CV, half page motivation and half page research statements.
🚨 I am over the moon 🌓 to announce that I am joining University College Dublin @ucddublin.bsky.social as an Assistant Professor this fall to start the Uncertain Mind (UMI) lab 💫

I am looking for PhD/Postdoc candidates to join (more below 👇 ). Please RT as the deadline is pretty soon 🙏
October 1, 2025 at 3:22 PM
New paper out in NYAS!
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
We show that protecting others' from pain promotes effortful prosocial behavior 💪🧑‍🤝‍🧑🤝
w/ @clauslamm.bsky.social @silanilab.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social
(thread below)
October 2, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Please RT
2 new positions in the lab as postdoc & PhD!

Interested in stress, pain, or reward? This project has it all!

We are a friendly but ambitious group. Oslo is a capital city on the fjord & bordered by forest, great urban & outdoors opportunities: 💃 ⛷️ 🚣 🎭 🎶

www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (286516) | University of Oslo
Job title: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (286516), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
www.jobbnorge.no
September 24, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
✨ Exciting news for our upcoming S4SN Lisbon meeting! ✨

Join us from September 23-26 for a dynamic program filled with inspiring talks, poster presentations, and networking opportunities. Get ready to connect, learn, and share ideas in the beautiful city of Lisbon!

The program is out 😍
August 23, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Major news!
Exhaustive metaanalysis (N=2706) finding that endogenous opioids play a MINOR role in human pain regulation:
Consistent with 0.3 on 11-point VAS

By @isabellmeier.bsky.social @martintrostheim.bsky.social @marieeikemo.bsky.social @loseth.bsky.social et al

Thread 👇
osf.io/preprints/os...
OSF
osf.io
August 11, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
New in Nature MentalHealth! with Vrizzi, Najar, Lemogne, and @mael-lebreton.bsky.social

We tested whether behavioural and RL-based model parameters are test-retest reliable and predict mental health traits.

The result? Not really.

A cautionary tale for comp. psychiatry
doi.org/10.1038/s442...
Behavioral, computational and self-reported measures of reward and punishment sensitivity as predictors of mental health characteristics - Nature Mental Health
Reinforcement learning task-based behavioral and computational measures displayed low test–retest reliability at the individual level. Also in contrast to self-assessed personality measures, behaviora...
doi.org
May 26, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Its a long weekend here in Canada, which seems appropriate to mourn our recent @npp-journal.bsky.social paper, in which we find that FAAH inhibition does NOT improve symptoms in PTSD🙁

A heroic effort w/ @cannabrain.bsky.social @connorhaggarty.bsky.social @ryanntansey.bsky.social & many more 🧵⬇️
The efficacy of elevating anandamide via inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) combined with internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorde...
Neuropsychopharmacology - The efficacy of elevating anandamide via inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) combined with internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of...
www.nature.com
May 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Only 1 week left to apply for our open PhD position! 🧠

‼️ Deadline: May 18th
🚨 Come work with us!

3-year fully funded PhD position in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience @univie.ac.at @clauslamm.bsky.social to join our project investigating prosocial behavior under uncertainty.

More info: shorturl.at/1fnb2

Please share widely 🔁
3y_PhDposition_univie_ScanUnit.pdf
shorturl.at
May 12, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
still a couple of days left to apply!
⚠️Permanent position (E13) as lab manager (psychophysiology, experimental behavioral neuroscience) at University of Bielefeld. Earliest starting date is in July but later is absolutely possible. Please share widely uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/427...
Laborleiter*in (m/w/d) Psychophysiologie und Verha...
In der Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft ist zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt die Stelle der*des Laborleiter*in (TV-L E12 bzw. E13) im B...
uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org
May 9, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
⚠️Permanent position (E13) as lab manager (psychophysiology, experimental behavioral neuroscience) at University of Bielefeld. Earliest starting date is in July but later is absolutely possible. Please share widely uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/427...
Laborleiter*in (m/w/d) Psychophysiologie und Verha...
In der Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft ist zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt die Stelle der*des Laborleiter*in (TV-L E12 bzw. E13) im B...
uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org
April 24, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Amazing opportunity to join the fantastic @scanunit.bsky.social and do cool research on prosocial behavior 🤝🧠
Apply or share widely!
🚨 Come work with us!

3-year fully funded PhD position in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience @univie.ac.at @clauslamm.bsky.social to join our project investigating prosocial behavior under uncertainty.

More info: shorturl.at/1fnb2

Please share widely 🔁
3y_PhDposition_univie_ScanUnit.pdf
shorturl.at
April 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
3-year postdoc position (100% fte, TVL-E13) in human fMRI and psychopharmacology at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany. Applications are invited for a 3-year postdoc position in the Comparative Psychology research group
April 3, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Out in Biological Psychiatry
"Affective and Social Predictors of Food Consumption During the COVID-19 Lockdown"
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...
Affective and Social Predictors of Food Consumption During the COVID-19 Lockdown
COVID-19 lockdowns were linked to a surge in unhealthy food–related behaviors, potentially as an attempt to cope with disrupted social homeostasis. Here, we tested bidirectional associations between m...
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com
April 1, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
🎉New paper out in Royal Society Open Science!🎉

Our lab member Raimund Buehler has just published his second ever, first-author paper!

📄 Read it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
#AutismResearch #Neuroscience
Autistic traits relate to reduced reward sensitivity in learning from point-light displays (PLDs) | Royal Society Open Science
A number of studies have linked autistic traits to difficulties in learning from social (versus non-social) stimuli. However, these stimuli are often difficult to match on low-level visual properties,...
royalsocietypublishing.org
March 28, 2025 at 6:53 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
🌍 We are launching a new #ManyLabs!!! Join the Heat & Cognition project! We're studying how extreme heat affects human thinking, social behavior & well-being — globally.
Contribute & co-author:
🔗 Info: heatandmind.wordpress.com
📋 Sign up: www.soscisurvey.de/HeatandCogni...
#EnvironmentalPsychology
March 27, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
A little bby from my PhD is published!

we did a complex study to answer a simple Q:
do day-to-day feelings impact choices?

A: Yes. When feeling motivated (independent of other stable or unstable feelings) choices changed because rewards seemed greater.

open access link:
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Day-to-day fluctuations in motivation drive effort-based decision-making | PNAS
Internal states like motivation fluctuate substantially over time. However, studies of the neurocomputational mechanims of motivated behavior have ...
doi.org
March 18, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
As the world grows scarier, let's talk about social connection!

We review its role in addiction & how it's influenced by opioids, now out in Biological Psychiatry (special issue on social homeostasis)

It's @loseth.bsky.social's brainchild & covers A LOT🧠

doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

#neuroscience
Redirecting
doi.org
February 18, 2025 at 9:07 PM
New preprint from my postdoc work @scanunit.bsky.social
osf.io/preprints/ps...
“Avoiding pain to others motivates effortful prosocial behavior reducing prosocial apathy”
w/ @clauslamm.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social @silanilab.bsky.social
OSF
osf.io
February 17, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
Negative affectivity drivers of impulsivity in opioid use disorder

Review by Jasmin Vassileva, Elena Psederska & James M. Bjork

Web: go.nature.com/40hYoG5
PDF: rdcu.be/d6CGB

#psychology #psychscisky #addictionsci
January 17, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
The @pact-lab.bsky.social is hiring 🤩

We're looking for a nurse to support our psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy clinical trials for alcohol use disorder (ongoing) and concussion (upcoming) at UCalgary 🍄

More info here: careers.ucalgary.ca/jobs/1547185...
Casual (Hourly) Clinical Research Nurse, Psychiatry in Calgary, AB, ...
Casual (Hourly) Clinical Research Nurse, Psychiatry in Calgary, AB, ...
careers.ucalgary.ca
January 17, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Claudia Massaccesi
We are a bit late for this, but happy new year from the SCAN unit! 🎈
We are thankful for the productive and joyful times together and looking forward to another year of exciting research! 🤩
Here is our 2024 in review 👇
January 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM