

Neurosalience
OHBM
The Neurosalience podcast is supported by the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM). Dr. Peter Bandettini interviews neuroscientists who measure, map, and model brain function and structure and delves into latest advancements, challenges, controversies, and controversies. He engages young and old and strives to add insight and perspective wherever the conversation goes.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 12, 2024 • 1h 6min
Neurosalience #S4E19 with Sofie Valk, Hae-Jeong Park, Kevin Sitek - OHBM 2024 Preview
Here Kevin Sitek (the Chair of the OHBM Communications Committee and a Research Assistant Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University), Sofie Valk (Research group leader and Scientific representative at Otto Hahn Group Cognitive Neurogenetics), and Hae-Jeong Park (Professor of Nuclear Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, South Korea) discuss what to expect from OHBM 2024, including the education sessions, Oral Sessions, Symposia, Keynotes, and Talairach Lecture as well as discussion of the many informal round table sessions offered, the social events, the outreach, the SIGs, and the Communication Committee. They also discussed a bit about Korea and how the meeting came to be here this year. A great discussion with lots of information! See you there June 23 to June 27!
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li

Jun 5, 2024 • 1h 10min
Neurosalience #S4E18 with Vince Calhoun - (Part 2/2) A principled approach to data mining
Dr. Vince Calhoun is the founding director of the tri-institutional center for translational research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) which is a consortium formed by Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, and Emory University.
In this part 2 of Peter and Vince’s discussion, they dive further into addressing the challenges that fMRI and other modalities face in finding useful information about psychiatric disorders that can be used clinically. They talk about what neuroimaging has taught us about schizophrenia, as well as the goals and challenges of establishing clinical relevance. They also talk a bit about the importance of a data driven approach to development of processing methods, as well as variability in fMRI data, and the challenges and opportunities that big data sets offer, the promise of data fusion, and multivariate modeling. Lastly, they also discuss his latest work in deep learning and what it offers, and spend quite a bit of time discussing data driven approaches vs model driven approaches.
This discussion was an outstanding perspective builder. We hope that you enjoy it!
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li

May 30, 2024 • 34min
OHBM2024 Keynote Interview Nicola Palomero-Gallagher
#A conversation with 2024 Keynote Speaker Nicola Palomero-Gallagher
TODO: Link to blog post
Interviewers:
- Naomi L. Gaggi
- Beatriz Padrela

May 22, 2024 • 33min
OHBM 2024 Keynote Interview Series: Luis Concha
A conversation with 2024 Keynote Lecture presenter Luis Concha
https://www.ohbm-com.com/blog/a-conversation-with-keynote-speaker-luis-concha
Interviewers:
- Eduardo A. Garza-Villarreal
- Diana Giraldo

May 21, 2024 • 1h 16min
Neurosalience #S4E17 with Vince Calhoun - (Part 1/2) Fusing and squeezing data for information
Today our guest is Dr. Vince Calhoun, who's also a longtime colleague and friend of Peter Bandettini. Vince is the founding director of the tri-institutional center for translational research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) which is a consortium formed by Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, and Emory University.
Vince Received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, in 1991, two masters degrees in Biomedical engineering and information systems from Johns Hopkins in 1993, and 1996, and his Ph.D. in EE from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2002. After four years at Yale University, he became President of the Mind Research Network and Distinguished Professor at the University of New Mexico, before he moved to Atlanta for his present position several years ago.
Vince's focus over the years could be summarized as using fMRI and other neuroimaging methods while developing processing methods to extract every possible useful bit of information. He's been prodigiously engaged and productive for over 20 years advancing multi-modal brain imaging, data fusion, and machine learning. His work has inspired new ways of looking at the data.
In this discussion, Peter and Vince talk about work, professional journey from the east coast to New Mexico and now to Atlanta, as well as his successful battle with cancer in about 2010. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Episode producers:
Xuqian Michelle Li
Johanna Bayer
Omer Faruk Gulban

May 16, 2024 • 37min
OHBM 2024 Keynote Interview Series: Mac Shine
A conversation with 2024 Keynote Lecture presenter Mac Shine
https://www.ohbm-com.com/blog/a-conversation-with-dr-mac-shine-ohbm-2024-keynote-interview-series-pt3
Interviewers:
- Alfie Wearn
- Xuqian Michelle Li

May 9, 2024 • 36min
OHBM 2024 Keynote Interview Series: Zarin Machanda
A conversation with 2024 Talairach Lecture presenter Zarin Machanda
https://www.ohbm-com.com/blog/a-conversation-with-2024-talairach-lecture-presenter-zarin-machanda
Interviewers:
- Elisa Guma
- Lavinia Uscatescu

May 8, 2024 • 1h 13min
Neurosalience #S4E16 with Todd Woodward - Pulling out network subtleties with CPCA in Schizophrenia
Today we zoom in on Vancouver British Columbia to interview Dr. Todd Woodward, who is a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and director of the UBC Brain Dynamics Laboratory. He's also the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Schizophrenia Laboratory at BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute in Vancouver.
Dr. Woodward received his Ph.D. in Experimental Neuropsychology at the University of Victoria in 1999, and performed his post-doc in the department of psychology at UBC. Since 2003 he's moved up from research scientist to professor - all at the University of British Columbia.
He's been working at the interface of processing methods and well-crafted experimental designs to probe the networks that may be disrupted in schizophrenia and other disorders. He and his team developed almost two decades ago a unique and elegant method known as constrained principal component analysis ( or CPCA), which he has been applying successfully with many different tasks.
He's also deeply interested in novel non-pharmaceutical interventions that help augment schizophrenia treatment - having developed a program called metacognitive training (MCT), which may allow those with schizophrenia to be able to step back and begin to assess their own beliefs.
This was such a wide ranging conversation which delved into the nuts and bolts of CPCA as well as the potential future role that neuroimaging can play in better understanding and ultimately treating schizophrenia. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li

Apr 24, 2024 • 1h 14min
Neurosalience #S4E15 with Peter Fox - Brain coordinates, predicting BOLD, data sharing foundations
This episode’s guest is arguably one of the most influential scientists in the human brain mapping community. Dr. Peter Fox, director of the Research Imaging Institute at the University of Texas Health, San Antonio. Early in his career he wrote the seminal paper that showed, using positron emission tomography , that brain-activation related increases in blood flow are accompanied by only small increases in oxidative metabolic - resulting in the blood locally increasing in oxygenation. This paper set the foundation for understanding all of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent Contrast used in fMRI today. The true purpose of activation-related flow increases is still an open question. The story of the events and details surrounding this are in his review article from the 2012 NeuroImage special issue. It's titled, simply "The coupling controversy."
Dr. Fox was also among the first to promote data sharing and pooling with his brainmap database, and early on, established stereotactic coordinates and spatial normalization as a way to put data into a shareable space. He started the annual meeting that pre-dated the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, and also founded one of the major brain mapping journals today, titled: Human Brain Mapping.
Peter had his formative undergraduate education at the extremely unique St. Johns college in Annapolis. He received his MD from Georgetown University, interned at Duke University, then carried out his residency and fellowship at Washington University where he worked closely with Dr. Mark Raichle, who was at the time pioneering PET scanning.
In this discussion, we delve into his contributions in a wide range of topics, from neurovascular coupling to the challenge of spatial normalization - particularly at high resolution - to subject variability, to clinical applications and the ongoing evolution of scientific publishing. Lots of history, content, and insight here. We hope you enjoy it!
Notable paper:
Fox PT., The Coupling Controversy, Neuroimage. 2012 Aug 15; 62(2): 594–601.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019339/
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Stephania Assimopoulos

Apr 10, 2024 • 1h 16min
Neurosalience #S4E14 with Rotem Botvinik-Nezer - 70 teams and a multiverse of analyses (NARPS paper)
In this episode, our guest is Rotem Botvinik-Nezer, a postdoc at Dartmouth University, working with Dr. Tor Wager in his Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab. In 2020, Dr. Botvinik-Nezer was first author of an influential paper published in Nature, titled Variability in the analysis of a single neuroimaging dataset by many teams, where the results were compared from 70 independent teams analyzing a single data set having 9 hypotheses. This paper made it clear that there are many points of variability in data analysis pipelines, and provided further incentives for sharing data and code to grow consensus and replicability. While the popular press suggested that this paper was yet another hit to fMRI, we discuss how even papers that critique the results of this seminal paper ultimately converge in agreement with the overall message of systematic transparency. Dr. Botvinik-Nezer also has a strong interest in how our brains influence our perception of pain, having just published a recent paper showing evidence that regions associated with painful stimuli remain active even when subjects experience less pain while having the belief that a placebo is effective.
In this conversation, Peter and Rotem delve into all these topics and more, but spend the bulk of the discussion on the interplay between choices in analyses, such as determining a statistical threshold, and variability in results. We also discuss incentives for users to share data and code and possible ways to create a more solid scaffolding for best practices.
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li


