Biology subjects

Blair, R. W.

Publications and source records attributed to Blair, R. W..

7 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Advancing image-based meta-analysis for fMRI: A framework for leveraging NeuroVault data

Image-based meta-analysis (IBMA) is a powerful method for synthesizing results from various fMRI studies. However, challenges related to data accessibility and the lack of available tools and methods have limited its widespread use. This study examined the current state of the NeuroVault repository and developed a comprehensive framework for selecting and analyzing neuroimaging statistical maps within it. By systematically assessing the quality of NeuroVault's data and implementing novel selection and meta-analysis techniques, we demonstrated the repository's potential for IBMA. We created a multi-stage selection framework that includes preliminary, heuristic, and manual image selection methods. We conducted meta-analyses for three distinct domains: working memory, motor, and emotion processing. The results from the three manual IBMA approaches closely resembled reference maps from the Human Connectome Project. Importantly, we found that while manual selection provides the most precise results, heuristic methods can serve as robust alternatives, especially for domains that include a heterogeneous set of fMRI tasks and contrasts, such as emotion processing. Additionally, we evaluated five different meta-analytic estimator methods to assess their effectiveness in handling spurious images. For domains characterized by heterogeneous tasks, employing a robust estimator (e.g., median) is essential. This study is the first to present a systematic approach for implementing IBMA using the NeuroVault repository. We introduce an accessible and reproducible methodology that allows researchers to make the most of NeuroVault's extensive neuroimaging resources, potentially fostering greater interest in data sharing and future meta-analyses utilizing NeuroVault data.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Neuroscout, a unified platform for generalizable and reproducible fMRI research

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has revolutionized cognitive neuroscience, but methodological barriers limit the generalizability of findings from the lab to the real world. Here, we present Neuroscout, an end-to-end platform for analysis of naturalistic fMRI data designed to facilitate the adoption of robust and generalizable research practices. Neuroscout leverages state-of-the-art machine learning models to automatically annotate stimuli from dozens of naturalistic fMRI studies, allowing researchers to easily test neuroscientific hypotheses across multiple ecologically-valid datasets. In addition, Neuroscout builds on a robust ecosystem of open tools and standards to provide an easy-to-use analysis builder and a fully automated execution engine that reduce the burden of reproducible research. Through a series of meta-analytic case studies, we validate the automatic feature extraction approach and demonstrate its potential to support more robust fMRI research. Owing to its ease of use and a high degree of automation, Neuroscout makes it possible to overcome modeling challenges commonly arising in naturalistic analysis and to easily scale analyses within and across datasets, democratizing generalizable fMRI research.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

PET-BIDS, an extension to the brain imaging data structure for positron emission tomography

The Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) is a standard for organizing and describing neuroimaging datasets. It serves not only to facilitate the process of data sharing and aggregation, but also to simplify the application and development of new methods and software for working with neuroimaging data. Here, we present an extension of BIDS to include positron emission tomography (PET) data (PET-BIDS). We describe the PET-BIDS standard in detail and share several open-access datasets curated following PET-BIDS. Additionally, we highlight several tools which are already available for converting, validating and analyzing PET-BIDS datasets.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Analysis of task-based functional MRI data preprocessed with fMRIPrep

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a standard tool to investigate the neural correlates of cognition. fMRI noninvasively measures brain activity, allowing identification of patterns evoked by tasks performed during scanning. Despite the long history of this technique, the idiosyncrasies of each dataset have led to the use of ad-hoc preprocessing protocols customized for nearly every different study. This approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and unsuitable for combining datasets from many sources. Here we showcase fMRIPrep (http://fmriprep.org), a robust tool to prepare human fMRI data for statistical analysis. This software instrument addresses the reproducibility concerns of the established protocols for fMRI preprocessing. By leveraging the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) to standardize both the input datasets --MRI data as stored by the scanner-- and the outputs --data ready for modeling and analysis--, fMRIPrep is capable of preprocessing a diversity of datasets without manual intervention. In support of the growing popularity of fMRIPrep, this protocol describes how to integrate the tool in a task-based fMRI investigation workflow.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2018

Crowdsourced MRI quality metrics and expert quality annotations for training of humans and machines

The neuroimaging community is steering towards increasingly large sample sizes, which are highly heterogeneous because they can only be acquired by multi-site consortia. The visual assessment of every imaging scan is a necessary quality control step, yet arduous and time-consuming. A sizeable body of evidence shows that images of low quality are a source of variability that may be comparable to the effect size under study. We present the MRIQC Web-API, an open crowdsourced database that collects image quality metrics extracted from MR images and corresponding manual assessments by experts. The database is rapidly growing, and currently contains over 100,000 records of image quality metrics of functional and anatomical MRIs of the human brain, and over 200 expert ratings. The resource is designed for researchers to share image quality metrics and annotations that can readily be reused in training human experts and machine learning algorithms. The ultimate goal of the database is to allow the development of fully automated quality control tools that outperform expert ratings in identifying subpar images.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2018

FMRIPrep: a robust preprocessing pipeline for functional MRI

Preprocessing of functional MRI (fMRI) involves numerous steps to clean and standardize data before statistical analysis. Generally, researchers create ad hoc preprocessing workflows for each new dataset, building upon a large inventory of tools available for each step. The complexity of these workflows has snowballed with rapid advances in MR data acquisition and image processing techniques. We introduce fMRIPrep, an analysis-agnostic tool that addresses the challenge of robust and reproducible preprocessing for task-based and resting fMRI data. FMRIPrep automatically adapts a best-in-breed workflow to the idiosyncrasies of virtually any dataset, ensuring high-quality preprocessing with no manual intervention. By introducing visual assessment checkpoints into an iterative integration framework for software-testing, we show that fMRIPrep robustly produces high-quality results on a diverse fMRI data collection comprising participants from 54 different studies in the OpenfMRI repository. We review the distinctive features of fMRIPrep in a qualitative comparison to other preprocessing workflows. We demonstrate that fMRIPrep achieves higher spatial accuracy as it introduces less uncontrolled spatial smoothness than commonly used preprocessing tools. FMRIPrep has the potential to transform fMRI research by equipping neuroscientists with a high-quality, robust, easy-to-use and transparent preprocessing workflow which can help ensure the validity of inference and the interpretability of their results.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2017

MRIQC Web-API: Crowdsourcing image quality metrics and expert quality ratings of structural and functional MRI

SynopsisThe MRIQC Web-API is a resource for scientists to train new automatic quality classifiers. The MRIQC Web-API has collected more than 30K sets of image quality measures automatically extracted from BOLD and T1-weighted scans using MRIQC. MRIQC is an automated MRI Quality Control tool, and here we present an extension to crowdsource these quality metrics along with anonymized metadata and manual quality ratings. This new resource will allow a better understanding of the normative values and distributions of these quality metrics, help determine the relationships between image quality and metadata such as acquisition parameters and finally, provide a cost-effective, easy way to annotate the quality of a large number of cross-site MR scans.

bioinformatics↗