Thoughts about the brain from Peter Bandettini and Eric Wong
Below is my annual summary of some of the best books I read in the past year. There are a few themes that weave their way throughout: the brain, running, history, and biographies. Here I also try to rank them loosely – the first ones are my top choices. Enjoy! The Strange Order of Things … Continue reading "The best books I read or listened to in 2023"
It is with sadness that I convey the news that Dr. Sean Marrett, a treasured staff scientist for the NIH intramural program’s Functional MRI Facility (FMRIF) for over 20 years, has passed away after a 16 month battle with Mesothelioma. The cruel irony is that it was discovered weeks before his planned retirement. Sean’s “joie … Continue reading "A few words for Dr. Sean Marrett, who passed away…
After a bit of a hiatus, I’m finally back to putting out in blog form what I find interesting in the world of brain imaging. I like the idea of keeping up a more regular pace in putting out incompletely finalized thoughts out there. There are a few things I want to write about. Some … Continue reading "I was recently invited by NeuroImage to (re)join the editorial team as Associate Editor (?!)"
There are many obvious things that we humans do to a much larger degree than other animals. We construct great civilizations, we create advanced technology, we use complex language, we make art and tell stories. How do our unique capabilities guide us in figuring out how our brains are different from those of other animals, … Continue reading "The tipping point: From animal intelligence to human…
The paper by Marek et al (Reproducible brain-wide association studies require thousands of individuals, Nature, 602, 7902, pp 654-660, 2022) came out recently, and caused a bit of a stir in the field for a couple of reasons: First, the title, while an accurate description of the findings of the paper, is bold and lacking … Continue reading "The Challenge of BWAS: Unknown Unknowns in Feature Space…
One defining and often overlooked aspect of fMRI as a field is that it is has been riding on the back of and directly benefitting from the massive clinical MRI industry. Even though fMRI has not yet hit the clinical mainstream – as there are no widely used standard clinical practices that include fMRI, it … Continue reading "The Unique Relationship Between fMRI and MRI Scanner Vendors"
This year I was among the four ISMRM Gold Medal recipients for 2020. These were Ken Kwong, Robert Turner, and Kaori Togashi. It was a deep honor to win this along side my two friends: Ken Kwong, who arguably was the first to demonstrate fMRI in humans, and Bob Turner, who has been a constant … Continue reading "ISMRM Gold Medal 2020"
The BrainSpace Initiative is an outreach program that allows researchers to present their work, currently on non-invasive technique. It is also a meeting space to discuss papers and issues. I was invited to both be a member of the advisory committee and to give a talk. I decided to present a talk on all the … Continue reading "My talk on layer-fMRI in the Brain Space Initiative Speaker Series."
We submitted our rebuttal to Brain and received a prompt reply from the Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Kullman himself, offering us an opportunity to revise – with the main criticism that our letter contained unfounded insinuations and allegations. We tried to interpret his message as best we could and respond accordingly. To most readers it was pretty … Continue reading "Revision: Defending Brain Mapping,…
This blog post was initiated by Dr. Vince Calhoun, director of the Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science and of Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University. Vince shot me an email asking if I saw this editorial in Brain by Dimitri Kullman (Brain, Volume 143, Issue 4, … Continue reading "Defending fMRI, Brain…