By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this episode of Neurosalience, Peter Bandettini meets the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group (OS-SIG). Together they discuss the history of and the unique, important role the OS-SIG plays in OHBM. The group fosters open science not only by encouraging best practices and sharing data and code, but also by encouraging inclusivity in science and open- ended discussion in a supportive environment.

Guests: 
Aki Nikolaidis - is chair of the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group, and served on the Student Postdoc Special Interest Group from 2017-2019. He is a research scientist at the Center for the Developing Brain at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. His research focuses on using advanced statistical methods to better understand psychopathology, brain organization, and cognitive performance. Aki's work in neuroscience, psychology, and machine learning has been featured in over 20 peer-reviewed publications. 

Janine Bijsterbosch is chair- elect of the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group. She is Assistant Professor in the Computational Imaging section of the Department of Radiology at Washington University in St Louis. The Personomics Lab headed by Dr. Bijsterbosch aims to understand how brain connectivity patterns differ from one person to the next, by studying the “personalized connectome”. Using open data resources such as the Human Connectome Project and UK Biobank, the Personomics Lab adopts cutting edge analysis techniques to study functional connectivity networks and their role in behavior, performance, mental state, disease risk, treatment response, and physiology. In addition, Dr. Bijsterbosch wrote a textbook on functional connectivity analyses, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

Johanna Bayer is secretary- elect of the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group, treasurer elect of the OHBM Australia chapter and active member of the OHBM Sustainability and Environmental Group. This year is also her second year behind the scenes helping to organize the OHBM Brainhack.  Johanna, who is originally from Munich, Germany has a background in Psychology, Neuroscience and Computer science and was awarded the Melbourne Research Scholarship in 2018 to pursue her PhD at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD work is focusing on creating a normative model of the brain from neuroimaging data to study depression, and on a method to harmonize site-effects in large neuroimaging data sets. In addition to her passion for her work and for Open Science, Johanna also loves dancing, rock climbing, computer science and cats.

Katie Bottenhorn is the secretary of the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group. She is a graduate student who is interested in how large-scale brain network topology varies both between- and within-individuals over the course of everyday life. She is especially interested in how hormonal fluctuations associated with the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptives contribute to this variability, and how this differs with respect to changes in sleep, exercise, and stress.
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Melvin Selim Atay is the inclusivity officer of the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group. He is working at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and his research focus is explainability of deep learning.

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this episode Peter Bandettini finds his similarities with Professor Nik Weiskopf. They are both physicists working at the interface of MRI acquisition and brain physiology and function, plumbing ever more quantitative information about how our brains are organized, how they change with disease and how they vary between individuals. We find out about Nik’s professional history, get into real-time fMRI neurofeedback, and discuss his work on quantitative MRI for deriving maps of myelin, iron content, fiber track direction, and more. All of this done at unprecedented resolutions using their unique Connectome scanner - one of only four in the world.

Guest: 

Professor Nik Weiskopf is the Director of the Department of Neurophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 2004 from Graduate School of Neural & Behavioural Sciences and International Max Planck Research School in Tübingen, Germany.

In 2004 Nik moved to the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London in the UK. He quickly moved up to head the Physics Group there in 2006, becoming Senior Lecturer (equivalent to an associate professor) in 2009. He became full professor of MRI Physics at the UCL Institute of Neurology in 2014 and subsequently moved to the Directorship of Neurophysics at the Max Planck Insitute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig in 2015. 
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Anastasia Brovkin, Katie Moran, Nils Muhlert, Kevin Sitek, and Rachael Stickland.

by Rosanna Olsen, Valentina Borghesani and AmanPreet Badhwar on behalf of the OHBM Diversity & Inclusivity Committee

OHBM initially launched a “Diversity and Gender Task Force” in 2017 to address the growing need to recognize and address multiple forms of inequity with respect to gender balance and geographical representation on the OHBM Council. 

Since 2017, this initiative has worked towards tackling a range of issues surrounding underrepresentation at OHBM. The task force has evolved into a standing “Diversity and Inclusivity Committee” that meets regularly to ensure that the needs of the diverse OHBM community are adequately represented at all levels of the organization and in all of its activities. Not surprisingly, members of the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee liaisons with all OHBM Committees and SIGs throughout the year.

During this year’s virtual meeting we are planning a series of different events to highlight and celebrate issues of diversity and inclusivity in OHBM. 

The 3rd annual DIC symposium: Racial Bias in Neuroscience

This is the third year OHBM will feature a symposium devoted to the discussion of issues in diversity that affect our society. In 2019, speakers presented issues of gender equality that are present at the OHBM meeting, it’s leadership, and the field of human brain mapping. Speakers provided an overview on gender imbalances in academia, including citation counts, conference speakers, and prize awardees. The issue of biologically versus culturally driven sex differences in brain anatomy was also discussed. In 2020, speakers discussed neuroscience issues pertinent to the LGBTQ+ community such as underrepresentation of LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM careers and the complex nature of gender/sexuality and how these factors are addressed in research.

This year’s symposium will be exploring issues of racial bias in neuroscience. People of color are not well-represented in academia, especially at senior levels (e.g. Full Professor). This year our speakers will discuss issues such as systemic racism and other factors leading to the underrepresentation of Black and Latin scholars. Moreover, as in many areas of science, the majority of human brain mapping research is conducted in homogenous, non-representative populations, which is problematic for the interpretability and generalization of research findings. Strategies for promoting equity within the field of human brain mapping, overcoming current barriers for ethnic minorities in OHBM, and increasing the ethnic diversity within our research samples, will be discussed.

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this episode of NeuroSalience, Peter chats with Alex about connectomics, or the study of the brain’s networks of connections. We discuss Alex’s work leveraging the Allen Brain Atlas (https://portal.brain-map.org/) and fMRI to better understand the genetic basis of the network structure. He points out clear differences between network hubs and other network components, with hubs having important roles in resting state dynamics and in neurological disorders. We also discuss the ongoing challenge of removing physiological noise from the fMRI signal in the context of his new and powerful methods for dissecting it out. Last, we touch on the new iteration of the OHBM virtual platform that Alex was instrumental in developing. 

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this episode, Peter Bandettini meets with Tom Nichols, Remi Gau and Jack Van Horn to discuss the motivation for a set of best reporting and analysis practices. This provides insight into how the COBIDAS (Committee on Best Practice in Data Analysis and Sharing) in OHBM started. We talk about the reproducibility crisis in fMRI and how it is being addressed. We discuss how the culture of fMRI has changed from isolated scientists doing N=20 studies to a connected web of researchers collecting and contributing to fMRI databases of high quality data for the purpose of revealing ever more subtle information. Through this work, the field aims to achieve robust biomarkers that are clinically useful in diagnosing and treating diseases. We also discuss many of the issues and decisions made in analysis,  and how this may contribute to irreproducible results. Last, we consider the ongoing and future global efforts to increase data transparency to make fMRI a more effective tool. 

by Roselyne Chauvin & Valentina Borghesani

We’ve freshened up!

After two years of existence as an official OHBM Special Interest Group (SIG), the BrainArt SIG has now proudly released its website, created by Anastasia Brovkin and Désirée Lussier, following brainstorming by all SIG officials. You can browse through all previous competitions and exhibits, as well as submit your pieces for the 2021 edition! 

You can find out more about our SIG by checking out previous posts on how we came of age and how we consolidated our role within OHBM, but also about our prehistory and history. And we highly recommend having a listen to Neurosalience episode #8, where we had a blast chatting with Peter Bandettini.

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this episode Peter Bandettini meets Carolina Makowski, Michele Veldsman and Alex Fornito to discuss the OHBM Student–Postdoc special interest group (SIG), with particular emphasis on their mentoring scheme and meeting-related workshops. Carolina is a current member of the SIG, Michele previously served as its Chair, and Alex has been an active mentor to several junior OHBM members over the years through this group. They discuss the mentorship program, the workshops at the meeting, what good mentorship is, and why it’s needed more than ever, as the stresses and demands of students and postdocs increases within an ever more demanding professional climate. 

Carolina Makowski, Ph.D. is the Career Development and Mentorship Director–Elect of the Student–Postdoc Special Interest Group. Dr. Makowski completed her PhD in neuroscience at McGill University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego with Dr. Anders Dale and Dr. Chi-Hua Chen, with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Fonds de Recherche du Quebec - Santé, and the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind. 

Michele Veldsman, Ph.D. is a previous Chair of the Student-Postdoc Student Interest Group and is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Cognitive Neurology, University of Oxford.

Alex Fornito, Ph.D. is the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Foundation Senior Research Fellow, Professor of Psychological Sciences, and Head of the Brain Mapping and Modelling Research Program at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. He leads his Neural Systems and Behavior Lab and  has actively participated in the student-postdoc SIG. 
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Anastasia Brovkin, Katie Moran, Nils Muhlert, Kevin Sitek, and Rachael Stickland.

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this conversation, Peter Bandettini meets members of the BrainArt SIG to discuss its history from the NeuroBureau to its current formal SIG status. They discuss what brain art (or more generally science art) is, consider what the best features of brain art are, and how, essentially, any scientist trying to convey the essence of their findings can be considered an artist. You’ll discover the planned competitions and directions of the BrainArt SIG. The discussion also considers why diversity in this SIG, the field of Brain Mapping, and science in general is so important. 

In the episode you’ll hear about the ‘Dream Catchers’ exhibit from OHBM2017 in Vancouver, and how those with dementia can discover new artistic creativity. You can also see some highlights from the OHBM 2020 exhibits below: 

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this podcast we discuss some of the history and evolution of OHBM. We also talk about some of the challenges that it has faced in recent years with world events causing a last minute change in venue three times. We talk about the improvements in this year’s virtual meeting as well as the growth in the engagement of younger members of OHBM with all the chapters and SIGs. 

Guests: 
Aina Puce, Ph.D. Aina has been active in OHBM since the beginnings. She is Chair of OHBM Council, otherwise known as President of OHBM and Director of the Indiana University Research Imaging Facility and the Eleanor Cox Riggs Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences. After a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in 1990, she was a post-doc then an associate research scientist at Yale. She moved back to University of Swinburne in 1998, then back again to the states in 2002 to West Virginia University. Finally, she moved to Indiana University in 2008. She is an expert in visual neuroscience and EEG as well as fMRI. 

Daniel Margulies PhD. Daniel started in the US, receiving his BS in 2005 from NYU then in 2008, earned his MS at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland and Ph.D. at Humboldt University in Berlin. From 2009 to 2011 he was a post-doc in the Department of Neurology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig then a group leader of the Neuroanatomy and Connectivity group at Max Planck, Leipzig from 2011-2017. He received the 2018 OHBM Young Investigator (now called Early Career) award and received the Otto Hahn Award in 2010. He has been a pioneer in fMRI connectivity methods and has recently produced novel and penetrating work elucidating the organizational gradient that spans between sensorimotor and trans-modal areas. 
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Anastasia Brovkin, Katie Moran, Nils Muhlert, Kevin Sitek, and Rachael Stickland.

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

This week’s podcast is centered on physiologic fMRI. Generally, when people think of fMRI, they think of a way to map neuronal function, however there is so much information about neurovascular physiology in the signal. Many researchers who use fMRI may not realize all of the potentially untapped information—and confounds!—in the fMRI time series. Dr Jean Chen and Dr Molly Bright each run research groups that focus on this information in complementary ways. Both use physiologic manipulations and an array of acquisition methods to probe and characterize details of the hemodynamic response, though their two research programs focus on different aspects of the haemodynamic response function. In this podcast, they highlight the importance of physiologic fMRI for the field. They also consider the challenges facing women in male-dominated research fields and how the life of women scientists might be improved. 

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this week’s podcast, you’ll hear about clinical applications of resting-state fMRI from Dr Michael Fox. You’ll hear some of the highlights of his research, from the beginnings at Wash U, including his early work on resting-state fMRI and the issue of global signal regression, to his more recent pioneering work on lesion network mapping. Through this, you’ll find out about how lesions can impact behavior through their effects on functional networks. This approach is a promising inroad of fMRI towards clinical utility. 

Guest:  
Michael D. Fox, MD, PhD, is the founding Director of the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is also the inaugural Raymond D. Adams Distinguished Chair of Neurology and the Kaye Family Research Director of Brain Stimulation. He completed a degree in Electrical Engineering at Ohio State University, an MD and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, and Neurology Residency and Movement Disorders Fellowship at Mass General Brigham. Clinically, he specializes in the use of invasive and noninvasive brain stimulation for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric symptoms. Dr. Fox’s research focuses on developing new and improved treatments for brain disease by understanding brain circuits and the effects of neuromodulation. 
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Rachael Stickland, Kevin Sitek, Katie Moran and Anastasia Brovkin

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team​

In this week’s podcast, Dr Catie Chang walks us through her thought process regarding pulling information out of the fMRI time series. After discussing some of the ongoing issues in fMRI, such as whether or not to use global signal regression to remove noise, she leads us into a commonly overlooked effect in fMRI—that of changes in arousal and vigilance. In particular, this has measurable effects on the resting state fMRI signal. She discusses the perspective that one person’s artifact may be another’s useful signal, depending on the goal of the study. 

​Guest: 
Catie Chang, Ph.D. received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. While in graduate school, she opened up the field of fMRI by publishing a seminal paper using time-frequency analysis of resting state fMRI, showing that it was quite dynamic. Since then, she has been exploring the effect of basic physiological processes, such as cardiac function and respiration on the fMRI signal, and has recently been uncovering unique information regarding the influence that changes in vigilance have on the time series signal. 
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Rachael Stickland, Kevin Sitek, Katie Moran and Anastasia Brovkin

By Peter Bandettini & the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this week's episode, Peter talks to directly to MRI scanner vendors. Together, they try to reconcile the importance of fMRI in research contexts with the market pressures of developing clinical applications. As fMRI has virtually no clinical market, does it really influence vendor decisions on pulse sequences and hardware? Could more be done aside from making fMRI more clinically relevant? In this discussion, you’ll hear some fascinating history into the early days of echo planar imaging and high speed imaging, as well as insight into the processes by which products are prioritized. You’ll also find out a possible future of how fMRI may begin to become more clinically useful. 

​​By Charlotte Rae, on behalf of the SEA-SIG

The Sustainability and Environment Action (SEA) SIG has formed three new Working Groups, to tackle the environmental impact of the annual meeting, assess environmental implications of neuroimaging research activities, and educate our community on these.

What are the new Working Groups?

In December 2020, we held two open meetings to talk about the priority actions for our new SIG with the OHBM community. We had colleagues attend from across the world, who shared fantastic ideas on how we should make OHBM activities more sustainable.

From these meetings, there was a pretty clear consensus that we needed to tackle three areas: the Annual Meeting, neuroimaging research pipelines, and education. So, we have set up three new Working Groups that will focus on these particular domains.

The Annual Meeting Working Group will assess the environmental impact of the Annual Meeting, investigate sustainable conference models, and make recommendations to the Council for how to create a more sustainable Annual Meeting beyond COVID-19.

By Peter Bandettini and the OHBM Neurosalience production team

In this week's podcast, Peter gets a birds-eye view of modeling of messy biologic systems, namely the brain, from Professor Danielle Bassett. They talk about the challenges of measurement accuracy and what scale might be most informative to modeling - and how to make do with what we have. On the clinical side, Danielle discusses network control theory for modulating networks for therapy and limitations in technology for modulation. They consider the limits of network modeling and the search for the equivalent of an idea as powerful as “natural selection” for the brain. In the second part of the podcast Peter and Danielle discuss bias in science and what Danielle is doing to help increase transparency to combat bias.

Danielle Bassett PhD, is currently the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with a primary appointment in the Department of Bioengineering and a Secondary appointment in the Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Electrical and Systems Engineering, Neurology, and Psychiatry. Dr. Bassett received her B.S. in 2004 in Physics from Penn State University. She received a Ph.D. in physics in 2009 from the University of Cambridge, UK as a Churchill Scholar, and an NIH Health Sciences Scholar. Following a postdoctoral position at UC Santa Barbara, she was a Junior Research Fellow at the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. In 2013, she joined the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor, and in 2019, was promoted to full professor. She is also founding director of the Penn Network Visualization Program, a combined undergraduate art internship and K-12 outreach program bridging network science and the visual arts. Her primary work is towards developing network models towards deriving principles of brain function. ​
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The Neurosalience production team consists of Rachael Stickland, Kevin Sitek, Katie Moran and Anastasia Brovkin

​By the Neurosalience production team: Rachael Stickland, Kevin Sitek, Katie Moran and Anastasia Brovkin

OHBM has a new podcast:  Neurosalience!  You can listen to it in your car, while out walking, or just in the ever-present home office. Through Neurosalience, you’ll learn about recent advances and current controversies in brain mapping. The host for the podcast, Peter Bandettini, has lined up a stellar cast of interviewees ranging from brain scientists to hardware vendors and health professionals.  This includes finding out about publication biases affecting gender and racial minority groups with Dani Bassett, network neuroimaging in neurological populations from Michael Fox, circuit based neuromodulation from Catie Chang and much more. Get all of this insight through your favourite podcast apps, including Spotify, apple podcasts, anchor and Google Podcasts.

We launch with a brief introduction to the podcast, a fireside chat between Peter and Rachael Stickland (one of the OHBM Communication Committee producers for the show). Then the first full episode explores Aperture, the new open-access publishing platform powered by the OHBM. Through discussions with founding members and the Editor in Chief, you’ll learn how Aperture came about and what it hopes to achieve.