Flexibility is good except when it isn ’t: Study finds how scientists can reach different conclusions analyzing the same brain scans

Neuroimaging: Many Analysts, Differing Results (Dana Foundation): For decades, both the research and medical communities have relied on neuroimaging tools like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to give them a window into the living human brain. Such scans have provided unprecedented insights into the brain’s structure and function – and the field, as a whole, has used this technique to better understand how the brain gives rise to thoughts, emotions, and actions. But as neuroimaging technology has advanced, so have the different analysis tools and the number of ways one can evaluate the resulting data. Now, the results of unique research project, the Neuroimaging Analysis, Replication, and Prediction Study (NARPS), suggest that different analyses can lead to strikingly different results from the same data set. … “There are so many different software packages now, and different labs use different ones for all manner of different reasons. There are also different philosophies about how analyses should be done. All those little differences can add up,” he (Editor’s note: Russell Poldrack, a cognitive neuroscientist at Stanford University) said. “But, when we looked closely at what people provided, we could see that the results under the hood were substantially more similar than what they concluded. There was something about going from the intermediate steps of analysis workflow to determining the right threshold to denote a final yes/no answer that chang...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Health & Wellness Technology brain scans Brain-Imaging cognitive-neuroscientist flexibility fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging Imaging Techniques NARPS neuroimaging scientific method Source Type: blogs