In this episode of the OHBM Neurosalience Podcast, host Peter Bandettini sits down with Dr. Simon Eickhoff, a leading clinician-scientist in brain mapping. As a panelist at the 2024 OHBM meeting in Seoul, Dr. Eickhoff brought fascinating insights—this conversation picks up where that discussion left off.Dr. Eickhoff, a professor and director at Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf and Forschungszentrum Jülich, works at the crossroads of neuroanatomy, data science, and brain medicine. His research focuses on understanding individual differences in brain organization, aging, and psychiatric disorders using machine learning and large-scale neuroimaging analysis.Topics include: - The challenges of deriving biomarkers and using fMRI in clinical settings - His experience leading the journal Human Brain Mapping & the evolving publishing landscape - The role of AI in psychiatry and the future of precision medicineJoin us for a deep dive into the innovations and challenges shaping neuroscience and brain imaging today!Episode ProducersXuqian Michelle LiOmer Faruk Gulban
This episode features Dr. Sepideh Sadaghiani directing the CONNECTlab at Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Sadaghiani’s lab explores large-scale brain networks, focusing on cognitive control, attention, and spontaneous neural activity. Using fMRI, EEG, and genetics, they uncover how brain connectivity shapes perception and behavior. Tune in for cutting-edge insights into the brain’s dynamic communication.
Episode Producers
Omer Faruk Gulban
Karthik Sama
This episode features Prof. Mac Shine from the University of Sydney. Mac is a systems neurobiologist interested in understanding how neurobiology supports awareness and flexible, parallel behavior. This engaging conversation between Peter and Mac offers takeaways for neuroscience from the study of other complex systems, such as weather patterns. It further explores how principles from fluid dynamics could inspire ways to rethink brain states and interpret fMRI data. The discussion also highlights the inherently interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience and emphasizes the crucial role of communication between its subfields as the field navigates these exciting times. For more details check out the episode!
We hope you enjoy it!
Episode Producers
Alfie Wearn
Karthik Sama
Join Peter Bandettini as he sits down with Seiji Ogawa, the visionary scientist behind the discovery of BOLD (blood oxygenation level-dependent) contrast fMRI. In this insightful conversation, Dr. Ogawa reflects on his groundbreaking work, the evolution of neuroimaging, and the challenges of translating fMRI into clinical practice. 1. Ogawa’s Early Journey – From Stanford to Bell Labs, and the influences that shaped his career. 2. The Discovery of BOLD fMRI – How experiments with hemoglobin oxygenation laid the foundation for modern neuroimaging. 3. Impact on Neuroscience – Why fMRI became a cornerstone in understanding brain function. 4. Challenges in Clinical Translation – Variability and reliability in single-subject analyses. 5. Scientific Reflections – Ogawa’s thoughts on curiosity, persistence, and the art of discovery. 6. Future Directions – Exploring brain interactions, neurovascular coupling, and innovations in imaging techniques. Notable Quotes: “If you can look into your brain without opening your skull… that’s a great thing.” “The important thing is to know what is important.” “Many phenomena don’t last long, but fMRI has proven to be enduringly significant.” Seiji Ogawa’s contributions have left an indelible mark on neuroscience, inspiring researchers worldwide. Don’t miss this fascinating exploration of his life, work, and ongoing curiosity about the mysteries of the human brain. Episode Producers Omer Faruk Gulban Nagashree Thovinakere
Our guest today is Dr. Vesa Kiviniemi, a radiologist and researcher at Oulu University in Finland.
Dr. Kiviniemi’s recent focus has been on using an extremely high-speed MRI technique called MREG. This technique allows for the collection of an entire volume of data with a TR of just 100 milliseconds, using a stack-of-spirals approach. The reason he values this technique so much is that it enables him to examine various types of brain pulsations, including cardiac and respiratory pulsations, as well as what he refers to as glymphatic or CSF pulsations.
In this episode, Dr. Kiviniemi explores how he has applied this technique in his research. He also discusses the history of our understanding of the glymphatic system, its potential functions, the many unknowns surrounding it, and the opportunities it presents for future research. Among other topics, he explains why using this high-speed technique might complement—or in some cases even be better than—slower approaches in certain ways.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Episode producers:
Xuqian Michelle Li
Omer Faruk Gulban
This episode is unique in the sense that it’s actually a talk Peter gave during the OHBM 2024 meeting, specifically during the education session on communicating science.
Peter wanted to share this talk because it focuses on the podcast and his own approach to creating it. He discusses his philosophy, heuristics, what he considers important about podcasting, and why he enjoys doing it. The talk emphasizes the value of conversation and explains how the podcast showcases the human side of scientific investigators and the stories behind their research.
We hope you enjoy it!
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li
In this episode, Peter Bandettini interviews Matthew Cobb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cobb), the author of the book “The idea of the brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience”.
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Alfie Wearn
Our guest is today is Dr. Alan Evans. He completed his Ph.D. (1979) and post-doctoral fellowship studying structure-function interaction of proteins at the Department of Biophysics at Leeds University in the U.K. Subsequently he worked for five years as a PET physicist at Atomic Energy of Canada in Ottawa.
In 1984, he joined the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, where his research interests include multimodal brain imaging with PET and MRI, structural network modelling, and large scale neural informatics.
For the past 40 years, he has been an institution at McGill University. He is the co-director of the Ludmer Centre and He is currently Co-Director of both the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health and the Helmholtz International BigBrain Analytics Learning Laboratory (HIBBALL). He is Scientific Director of McGill’s “Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives” (HBHL) , and Scientific Director of the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform (CONP). The technical infrastructure underpinning CONP includes a multi-modal databasing system (LORIS) and an international grid-processing portal (CBRAIN) both developed in Prof. Evan’s MCIN lab. These platforms also support international brain networks, notably the Canada-China-Cuba Axis and the Global Brain Consortium, both co-chaired by Prof. Evans. Furthermore, he was named the Victor Dahdaleh Chair in Neurosciences in October of 2022.
Episode producers
Xugian Michelle Li
Nagashree Thovinakere
Today our guest is Dr. Angie Laird, who trained as an imaging physicist, but has evolved into a cognitive neuroscientist and a true pioneer in meta-analysis of fMRI data. Dr. Laird has spent the bulk of her career developing novel data analysis algorithms, neuroscience informatics tools, and neuroimaging ontologies to yield analytic strategies for improving investigations into functional brain networks of healthy individuals as well as in populations with psychiatric and neurologic diseases and disorders. Early on she has seen the untapped value in meta-analysis, and has fostered growth in this fundamentally important area in functional brain imaging.
Dr. Laird received her B.S. in Physics from Florida State University in 1998, and her Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. She was a faculty member at the Research Imaging Institute of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio from 2004-2012, and currently she is Professor and Director for Imaging Science at Florida International University in Miami. Along with her development of meta-analysis tools and her own research, she plays a central role in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) consortium which is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.
This was a great conversation that spanned the early culture of fMRI research, early efforts towards data sharing, to the current practices today where data sharing and analyzing data across studies and from large shared datasets is becoming the norm. We also spent time talking about the origin, logistics, and impact of the ABCD project.
We hope you enjoy it!
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
Xuqian Michelle Li
In this special kickoff to the new season of Neurosalience, we turn the tables as Peter Bandettini, our host, joins us as the guest! We dive into highlights from last season and explore exciting plans for the episodes ahead. In addition, we had an insightful conversation on resting-state fMRI, computational modeling of the brain, and the importance of deep sampling in individuals. Plus, we discuss some news on the shifting landscape of scientific publishing.
We hope that you enjoy the new season of Neurosalience.
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
In this final episode of Neurosalience Season 4, Peter Bandettini hosts Janaina Mourao-Miranda, Simon Eickhoff, Sepideh Sadaghiani, Thomas Yeo, Michael Milham. The discussion was centered around:
Clinical relevance of fMRI today.
Future directions of neuroimaging, promises to get excited about, and overpromises that need to be considered cautiously.
How can fMRI help to understand the brain from a general point of view.
This is the final episode of Neurosalience Season 4! See you in the next season :)
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
In this episode, Peter Bandettini hosts Jon Polimeni, Renzo Huber, Nikola Stikov, Luca Vizioli, and Essa Yacoub. They talk about the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) conferences where they have attended both over many years. The conversation revolves around what each meeting offers, how they differ, how we might increase cross-talk, and why that would be a good thing. They also highlight some of the exciting work and developments gleaned from ISMRM that might not appear at OHBM. Enjoy!
Episode producers:
Omer Faruk Gulban
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
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
#A conversation with 2024 Keynote Speaker Nicola Palomero-Gallagher TODO: Link to blog post Interviewers: - Naomi L. Gaggi - Beatriz Padrela
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
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
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
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
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