Laura Ana Bustamante, PhD

@lauraabusta.bsky.social

5382 Followers 3030 Following

👩🏻‍🔬 Postdoc @U Medical Center Groningen. Formerly: postdoc @WashU St. Louis & Neuro PhD @Princeton, researching cognitive control & decision making, neurodivergent in computational psychiatry, she/her, Latina 🇨🇺. Views my own. Stand Up for Science!

View from ‘de Brug’ (the bridge) on University of Amsterdam campus, there is a canal below, with 5 story red brick buildings on either side, in the distance is a white bridge and in the far distance you can see a windmill. It’s a sunny day with some clouds.
An orange flower is in the foreground and it is coming from a flower bush, behind there is a brown fence and brick building, the photo was taken in St. Louis
Laura is presenting at a podium, behind her is a slide which has the CNTRACS consortium logo, has her Bluesky handle, her co-author names, and the phrase ‘on the academic job market!’
Picture of Tubingen Germany, the foreground has colorful flowers on a bridge, and the background is a small river with trees on either side
Laura and her brother Eddie holding protest signs which say ‘SUPPORT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT’ and ‘DIVERSITY DRIVES DISCOVERY’ they are standing close to eachother and both wearing baseball caps, they are standing on a sidewalk by the road and there are the backs of other protestors behind them facing the road.
Bellini is laying on a grey sofa stretching, sun is coming in through the window, she looks relaxed. In the background of the photo is a Turkish rug in mustard yellow, navy blue, and red colors.
Bellini laying on a black suitcase which is placed on a wooden chair. To her right are two artworks of her, a colored pencil drawing and a yarn artwork of a calico cat, placed on a wooden dresser.
Bellini the calico cat is laying inside a cardboard cat house, she has a bread-shaped toy in front of her that says “ALL YOU KNEAD IS LOAF”. She is alert and looking up at the camera.
Bellini the calico cat licking water out of a clear drinking glass. You can see her cute pink nose and her tongue is out drinking the water. Her eyes are mostly closed and the photo is a front view.
Bellini the calico cat sitting perched on a windowsill beside a bouquet of flowers. She has a serious expression. The flowers are dark and light pinks and green colors.
A white sign that says “NOT VOTING US THE #1 CAUSE OF UNWANTED PRESIDENCIES” with a baby style Trump cartoon. There is a person behind the sign, with a tshirt that has Lady Liberty, and a street in the background
Laura in a red STL hat smiling holding a blue sign that says “Support scientific research like your life depends on it” and she is next to her brother who is wearing a black hat, smiling and holding a black sign that says “diversity drives discovery” in white paint. There is a peace sign on the poster. Behind them is a long sidewalk with many people with signs all standing along a main road
An infographic from the organization Stand Up For Science that reads “it’s time for a summer send-off. NATIONWIDE CAMPUS ACTION. Stand Up, Fight Back - TOGETHER! - STAND UP with US - Because science, higher ed, and democracy are for everyone - Where: YOUR COLLEGE CAMPUS. When: YOUR LAST DAY OF CLASSES. In the top corner is the link: StandUpForScience2025.org. The background is navy blue, and the text is red and white.
laura in a field of grass, holding a teal blue bullhorn speaker, she is wearing a red STL hat and tan coveralls. she is leading a crowd of 200+ people (not shown) and holding a green sign which says "SCIENCE NEEDS LIVED EXPERIENCE DEFEND DIVERSITY EQUITY INCLUSION & ACCESSIBILITY"
Laura standing with a white sign with black text: “$1 NIH FUND=$2.46 economic impact” she is on a sidewalk next to a busy road, holding an umbrella, in the background are more people with signs. She is wearing a red STL hat, a full body length rain jacket, and black boots. She is smiling because she is proud to be standing up for science
A lime green poster with painted text: “SCIENCE NEEDS LIVED EXPERIENCE DEFEND DIVERSITY EQUITY INCLUSION & ACCESSIBILITY” in Orange, red, and blue paint
Two panel figure titled 'Relationship of individual MDD symptom domains with overall exit threshold (MDD group only)'. A: No diagnostic group differences (x-axis) in overall threshold (y-axis, apples, estimated from low effort conditions). Bar indicates group means, error bars indicate standard error of the mean, points indicate mean overall exit threshold per participant. B: Lower overall exit threshold (y-axes) were significantly related to overall depression severity (x-axes, z-scores, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Total). Dashed line indicates best threshold policy, linear regression line for MDD group only, comparison participants included for completeness.
Figure with one rows and four columns of scatter plots titled 'Effort costs relationships to individual MDD symptom domains.' Blue indicates cognitive effort and red indicates physical effort. A: y-axes: effort costs from MVT model, x-axes: symptom severity (z-scores) for overall depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Total), anhedonia, anxiety, and behavioral apathy (MDD group only)
Two panel plot 'Effort cost by diagnostic group and effort type'. Left panel: mean and standard error of the mean of individual differences in effort cost (y-axis) by effort type (x-axis). Right panel: individual differences histograms, x-axis indicates effort cost (larger values indicate more effort avoidance), y-axis indicates proportion of diagnostic group. Both plots demonstrate no significant group difference.
Foraging trial diagram. On each trial, participants chose to harvest the tree they were at (down arrow key) or travel to a new tree (right arrow key), during the travel they completed an effortful task, after which they arrived at a new patch with a replenished supply of apples. The diagram shows a small warrior character to the left of a tree who harvests red apples that appear in a line below them. It shows N-Back stimuli (series of letters) during the travel.
Picture of the book "The New Mind Readers: What Neuroimaging Can and Cannot Reveal about Our Thoughts" Russell A. Poldrack. There is a black and white sketch of a brain in the center of the cover, and a rainbow of colors coming out from it. You can see Laura's hand holding the book, and a white door in the background
Image taken at camelback mountain, the sky is blue, the foreground has some desert bushes, and there are two rocks jutting out of the ground. The rock on the right has a hole in it, maybe something is living there!
Bellini the calico cat in a blue suitcase. The suitcase lid is covered and just her face is visible behind some clothes.
Bellini, a calico cat is seen drinking ‘cat milk’ out of a shallow white porcelain bowl. Her pink tongue is out and you see her from the right side. The ‘cat milk’ is in a small blue carton on her left. In the foreground is a lace patterned table cloth.
Book cover for MAD at SCHOOL: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic life by Margaret Price, foreword by Tobin Siebers. The cover is grey with red white and yellow text. There is an image of a building with classical style columns in silhouette
A bengal cat is in the center of the photo and it is up close. You can see the leopard like print of the cat. The cat is scratching its neck on a wood plank, which mounted to a tree that sits in the background, the cat is looking down towards the camera and has beautiful green eyes. In the background towards the sky there are green and yellow fall leaves
Two panel figure titled 'Relationship of individual MDD symptom domains with overall exit threshold (MDD group only)'. A: No diagnostic group differences (x-axis) in overall threshold (y-axis, apples, estimated from low effort conditions). Bar indicates group means, error bars indicate standard error of the mean, points indicate mean overall exit threshold per participant. B: Lower overall exit threshold (y-axes) were significantly related to symptom severity (x-axes, z-scores) for overall depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Total), anxiety, depressed mood/suicidality, and physical anergia/slowing. Dashed line indicates best threshold policy, linear regression line for MDD group only, comparison participants included for completeness.
Figure with two rows and four columns of scatter plots titled 'Effort costs relationships to individual MDD symptom domains.' Blue indicates cognitive effort and red indicates physical effort. A: y-axes: effort costs from MVT model, x-axes: symptom severity (z-scores) for overall depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Total), anhedonia, anxiety, behavioral apathy, cognitive function symptoms, depressed mood/suicidality, physical anergia/slowing, and social apathy (MDD group only).
Two panel plot 'Effort cost by diagnostic group and effort type'. Left panel: mean and standard error of the mean of individual differences in effort cost (y-axis) by effort type (x-axis). Right panel: individual differences histograms, x-axis indicates effort cost (larger values indicate more effort avoidance), y-axis indicates proportion of diagnostic group. Both plots demonstrate no significant group difference.
Foraging trial diagram. On each trial, participants chose to harvest the tree they were at (down arrow key) or travel to a new tree (right arrow key), during the travel they completed an effortful task, after which they arrived at a new patch with a replenished supply of apples. The diagram shows a small warrior character to the left of a tree who harvests red apples that appear in a line below them. It shows N-Back stimuli (series of letters) during the travel.
Bellini the calico cat relaxing on top of a dark wood dresser. The photo captures her gaze, and her front paws are extended off the edge of the dresser. Her back paws are small and up against a beige well.
Figure 4. Correlation between individual differences in cognitive and physical effort costs. Experiment 1 (MSIT), A: Individual differences in the high effort travel costs (expressed as the additional cost of the high relative to the low effort condition). Paralleling the pattern of exit thresholds most participants experienced the high effort conditions as effortful (positive cost), whereas some participants were insensitive to the effort manipulation (cost near zero) and others were effort-seeking (negative cost). B: x-axis: Individual differences in cognitive effort costs, y-axis: Individual differences in physical effort costs. Error bars indicate 80% Highest Density Interval. C: Posterior distribution of correlation between high effort cost for cognitive and physical effort. Cognitive and physical effort costs are positively correlated (correlation=0.566, 95% Highest Density Interval=0.355 - 0.766).
Figure 2. Effort travel tasks. Left panel: Cognitive Effort, Multi-source Interference Task. Participants identified which number was the oddball in a list of three numbers. The background color differed for the high effort (interference trials, orange) and low effort (congruent trials, blue) conditions. They responded with the '1', '2', '3' keys. Interference trials have a competing distractor response for which the oddball target is flanked by the distractor and in the spatial position of the distractor. The correct response for each example screen is displayed on the left of that example screen. Right panel: Physical, Rapid Keypressing Task. Participants rapidly pressed the 'a' key while holding down the 'w', 'e', 'f', 'h' and 'o' keys. Pressing the 'a' key moved the avatar rightwards and filled up the grey horizontal bar with green. When participants reached the goal number of presses 'Complete!' appeared in the horizontal bar and participants waited for the rest of the travel time
Images of Laura arranged in a grid. The columns are labelled 'low effort' and 'high effort', the rows are labelled 'cognitive' and 'physical'. For cognitive low effort Laura is playing Zelda on the nintendo switch with her feet up at the desk at work. For cognitive high effort Laura is writing the Effort Foraging Task paper at her desk. For physical low effort Laura is pressing a button to call an elevator and she is smiling. For physical high effort Laura is about to walk up stairs, and she has an apprehensive look on her face.
Figure 1: Foraging trial diagram. On each trial participants chose to harvest the tree they were at (down arrow key) or travel to a new tree (right arrow key), during the travel they completed an effortful task, after which they arrived at a new patch with a replenished supply of apples. The tree is a green circle and rectangular brown trunk. The apples are red and lined up in a row on the bottom of the screen. There is a warrior avatar with a shield, helmet, and sword who jumps to harvest the apples.
Bellini the calico cat is trying to chew open a plastic bag containing brown bread. She is sitting on top of an aluminum oven hood.
Photo of bellini the calico cat, taken at her eye level. She has open green eyes but looks sleepy curled up.
Laura smiling taking a selfie with her cat bellini, who is curled up taking a nap on a tan sofa. Laura is wearing a black shirt with a black and white checkered blazer. She has her brown curly hair down and a necklace.
Bellini the calico cat laying with paws outstretched. She is inside a rolled up exercise mat which is black on the inside and blue on the outside. Under her is a grey blanket and beside her is a brown checkered throw pillow. She looks sleepy and cozy.
Laura presenting a poster at the society for research on psychopathology. She has a poster board behind her, she is wearing an orange blazer with black checkering, an olive green shirt, a gold necklace, a blue mask, and a name tag.
Laura taking a selfie on a bridge called Erasmusbrug in Rotterdam Netherlands, it is a sunny day and she is wearing sunglasses, the bridge is tall with many vertical lines
Laura and her adult calico cat Bellini, the photo is a selfie taken from a low angle under a table, Bellini is on Laura’s lap and both are looking downwards