OHBM blog: 2020 Roundup

By the OHBM Blog Team

Ilona Lipp (Lead editor):

2020 has been a year that will be remembered for a long time. For the OHBM blog team, it was a year where we continued some of our projects as normal (such as our keynote speaker interview series, oral history interviews and On-Demand tutorials), while featuring content specific to this year's events. One of which was the first ever virtual annual meeting format, which we introduced and then reviewed. We also looked at changes in how we do brain imaging with Covid. 2020 was also the year of Black Lives Matter and discussions of diversity and the neuroimaging community, such as the underrepresentation of some countries at the Annual Meeting. My personal blog year highlight was to add three more OHBM On-Demand tutorials to the list: one on anatomy, one on GABA spectroscopy and one on reproducibility.

Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus:

2020 was the year we were all expecting, and then got striked from the major personal and work related changes it brought to our life. The dramatic effect of social distancing had a dramatic influence on research worldwide, which prompted Nils Muhlert and myself to write a review post on the effect the pandemic had on neuroimaging research around the world. We have learned that the lockdown affected many longitudinal studies which had to come up with creative ways of not missing critical time-points, it affected students’ mentoring and productivity in different ways. Somewhat comforting, we are all in this together. Moving forward, we are working on expanding the community's understanding of brain mapping activities in different locations around the globe (such as in the Middle East).

Claude Bajada:

With travelling out of the question, this year, the OHBM blog team helped me maintain a semblance of connection to the wider neuroimaging world. As a (relatively) new academic at the University of Malta with big dreams of building a local neuroimaging community I’ve been digging into things that are constantly on my mind. The first is my passion for teaching neuroanatomy to beginners. It is what made me fall in love with neuroimaging. The second is the perennial question of how to ensure respect for participant’s data protection rights while being open with data. Finally, what are the best practices to follow in order to build a community based on robust science?

Nabin Koirala:

I was surprised and happy when Nils wrote me an email asking if I have interest in getting involved in the OHBM Communication Committee activities and contributing to the blog. In this despondent year with restrictions, cancellations and virtuals, having something new and exciting was very helpful for me to stay motivated and this opportunity helped me in getting some of that. For the first post, I interviewed Dr. Tonya White, selected as Editor in chief for the newly formed Journal - Aperture. I had never interviewed someone in my life, but interviewing Tonya was such a great experience, so I am looking forward to talking to some of the other great researchers in the field. It looks like 2021 will be much inspiring with the vaccine (light) at the end of the tunnel. So, I hope to be more involved in the blog team and get to meet these fantastic group of people in-person sometime soon.

With the masked face and being on the beach in December in Connecticut (with 15 c), I feel it pretty much sums up the Pandemic and Climate Change ridden year - 2020!

Roselyne Chauvin:

2020 was such a cognitive flexibility challenge, not knowing how things would be organized, under which constraint and restriction to best follow the latest health advice. And this applied to OHBM2020, for which, until the last minute almost, we did not know how and when it would take place. I remember doing the keynote lecture interview of Tomas Paus, via zoom and seeing a piece of Canadian forest behind him as he was outside. So OHBM did not take place in Montreal, but I had my little piece of Canada thanks to the blog. The recent award winner blog post reminded me that even if it was a unique and difficult year, great science was done and to look forward for 2021: doing more infographic for this great series of “OHBM on demand”-based posts (e.g. neuroanatomy), live sketching ...

​One cognitive flexibility challenge for me was moving to another continent between two covid waves.

Rachael Stickland:

In spring 2020, I started with the OHBM blog team and I am not quite sure how it’s December already. It’s been great to get involved with this team and to discuss what topics are relevant and important to bring to the neuroimaging community. I am glad to see such diverse content, from some great On-Demand tutorials to necessary planned action within the Black Lives Matter movement. So far, I have personally contributed by conducting and writing up an interview with keynote speaker Dr. Biyu He, transcribing and editing an interview with Professor Helen Mayberg (to come out soon), and assisting with the wrap-up post about the first OHBM 2020 virtual meeting. It was a pleasure to hear the perspective of such dedicated scientists. I look forward to contributing more in 2021, and I am hopeful that some of my scientific interactions might take place outside of my apartment!

Elizabeth DuPre:

What a year it was! With the pandemic keeping most of us at home, the blog has been a great way to connect with other brain mappers and to hold space for important conversations. I was happy to contribute a write-up on the 2020 OHBM conference, highlighting how resilient and engaged the OHBM community continues to be. I was also happy to read posts about the ongoing work to improve our community, from promoting reproducible science, to centering ethical data sharing, to asking how we can make our science more open for all. I hope that 2021 will build on the bright spots of this year, and I look forward to talking about those moments on the blog!

Ekaterina Dobryakova:

This year was difficult for many people for many reasons. I am happy that we still had the annual conference and working with the OHBM Communication Committee was one of the highlights for me this year. I was able to interview one of the keynote speakers of the conference, Dr. Claudia Buss. It was amazing to learn about her research pertaining to fetal programming of health and disease. In my field of research, I face challenges associated with scanning the brains of individuals with traumatic brain injury (e.g. obtaining medical records to verify severity, presence of lesions and their impact on BOLD signal). However, these challenges seemed pale in comparison with what brain mappers in the field of infant neuroimaging deal with. As always, challenges drive scientific progress and the advances in the field are exciting!

In the coming year I look forward to more enlightening interviews as well as exploring new avenues for lay media blog posts with members of the Communication Committee.

Nils Muhlert (ComCom Chair):

This year has taught many of us a lot about ourselves. Personally I found out that I’m terrible at baking sourdough bread. Alongside all the awfulness there have been some real highlights. Inviting new people to join the blogteam and seeing their first contributions is definitely up there. As is passing the baton of blogteam lead and ComCom chair to Ilona Lipp; the OnDemand tutorials that she’s been leading have become a great resource for those wanting expert-led introductions to the many flavours of MRI. I hugely enjoyed interviewing some of the original founders of OHBM, including John Mazziotta and Helen Mayberg. More to come next year! As to next year, the prospect of an effective vaccine and a gradual return to an upgraded normality are certainly beacons of hope. With a bit of luck I’ll see many of you again at OHBM2022 in Glasgow, if not virtually at OHBM2021. Have a good holiday all, and hope you come back rested and recharged.