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Alex
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myths about the brain are hampering learning

October 16th, 2014

Myths about the brain are common among teachers worldwide and are hampering teaching, according to new research published today [15 October].

Teachers in the UK, Holland, Turkey, Greece and China were presented with seven 'neuromyths' and asked whether they believe them to be true.

A quarter or more of teachers in the UK and Turkey believe a student's brain would shrink if they drank less than six to eight glasses of water a day, while around half or more of those surveyed believe a student's brain is only 10 per cent active.

Over 70 per cent of teachers in all countries wrongly believe a student is either left-brained or right-brained, peaking at 91 per cent in the UK.

And almost all teachers (over 90 per cent in each country) feel that teaching to a student's preferred learning style - auditory, kinaesthetic or visual - is helpful, despite no convincing evidence to support this approach.

The new research from the University of Bristol, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, calls for better communication between neuroscientists and educators.
The report blames wishfulness, anxiety and a bias towards simple explanations as typical factors that distort neuroscientific fact into neuromyth.

Such factors also appear to be hampering recent efforts of neuroscientists to communicate the true meaning of their work to educators.

The report highlights several areas where new findings from neuroscience are becoming misinterpreted by mainstream education.

More information: "Neuroscience and education: myths and messages." Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2014) DOI: 10.1038/nrn3817
Provided by University of Bristol


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Re: Mainstream Watch

Mind-Controlled Gene Expression



A light-inducible optogenetic implant in mice, powered by EEG, responds to a human participant’s mental state.
A new device uses the electric energy of a person’s brainwaves to trigger a light-emitting diode, which then remotely activates light-inducible genes in a small implant placed in mice.

The system, described in Nature Communications today (November 11), may eventually provide new gene and cell-based treatment opportunities that respond to an individual’s specific mental states. Although the contraption sounds unusual, it relies on combining two well-known technologies: optogenetics, which uses light-sensitive proteins to control gene expression, and an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI), which harnesses the brain’s electrical potentials to create a physical output.
“This work is pretty awesome,” said synthetic biologist Timothy Lu of MIT who was not involved with the study. “This is the first time people have gone this far with combining these technologies.”

Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich, who led the new research, has been working on ways to remotely control gene expression for nearly a decade. His recent work has focused on creating light-inducible transgenes that can produce proteins or chemical signals within cell implants when activated by light of a specific wavelength. Because nerve impulses in the brain captured by an EEG device are electrical, this information can easily be relayed to a light source. BCIs that capture such neural inputs have been used to control cursors, prosthetic devices, or even the movements of animals in the lab. But “never before was it possible to bring brainwaves to the level of expression and controlling transcription of a gene,” said Fussenegger.

To engineer a BCI-powered optogenetic system, the researchers created a small, implantable device that contained cells responsive to near-infrared light, and a light-emitting diode that produced this wavelength. When exposed to the light, the cells produced a bacterial molecule that induced the synthesis of interferons. The cells were contained within an implanted device; secreted proteins diffused into animals’ bodies across a semi-permeable membrane, but the cells could not enter a mouse’s bloodstream.  

This implant was wirelessly linked via a Bluetooth device to a monitor that captured a human participant’s brainwaves with an EEG sensor placed on their foreheads. While monitoring their brain activity, the researchers asked participants to perform one of three mental exercises: to play a focused game of Minecraft for 10 minutes; to control their brain activity in response to the brightness of a visual LED display; or to simply relax, by meditating or letting their minds wander.

“In all three mental states, the brain produced very specific [electrical] signatures,” said Fussenegger. “These EEG signatures were then converted into threshold values which turned on the LED and illuminated the cells,” which were contained within the implant on the benchtop.

The optogenetic implants were then placed under the skin of mice that moved freely on a surface that generated an electric field in response to the EEG signal from a person’s mental state. When switched on by the appropriate brainwaves, the surface transmitted the electric signal to a receiver that powered the infrared LED. With the light turned on, genes within the implant cells were expressed and proteins secreted into the mouse circulation.

Fussenegger expects the technology will be ready for human applications in another decade or so. “Smartphones have batteries that can work as a power source for the LED,” he said. “We could have a device implanted somewhere in [a patient’s] head. It would transmit via Bluetooth to a smartphone, and the phone could then power the implant.”

Such devices are “very forward-thinking,” said synthetic biologist Matthew Bennett of Rice University in Texas who was not involved with the study. “It sounds so futuristic and almost mad-scientist-like, but there might be diseases we could control . . .  depending on the state of an individual’s mind.”
Treatments based on these implants could “be particularly interesting for any type of brain disease where the brain produces a pathological brainwave signature, for example in chronic pain conditions or [some forms of] epilepsy,” Fussenegger noted. Of course, he added, “it’s not meant for general conditions where you could just take a pill or push a button.”

By Jyoti Madhusoodanan | November 11, 2014
Source: TheScientist
http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles … xpression/
Reference: M. Folcher et al., “Mind-controlled transgene expression by a wireless-powered optogenetic designer cell implant,” Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6392, 2014.


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Re: Mainstream Watch

I've found that one to be a bit misleading. (I wonder if that's why you placed under "mainstream watch"?)

It's not really "mind-control" as we neurohackers are familiar with (as in "epigenetics"). In fact, anything could trigger it and there would probably be much better signals to connect to particular genes if they would help solve something (which is another caveat). For the same reasons that we doubt research on "normal ""healthy"" people" I would doubt we could take, for example, a depressed brain to upregulate genes to cure depression when that brain thinks something programmed to trigger it. not really a good example as this would very probably work.. but the point is, why not just simply click a button?! =)

With that said however, it is a cool gadget nevertheless =) but expect all sorts of hype ever more from now on, as everyone and their mothers connect all kinds of freaking light switches to a eeg (not a typo, tho I bet someone will make a chicken put eggs "with their minds! woohooo") and "do something new"  with their minds.. LOL (and then probably publish something for the sole reason of appearing on the mainstream watch thread lol)

There will even be a competition of, among other even more exciting stuff, mind controlled race cars (currently virtual tho, but i envision this will change soon enough into demolition derbies) in just a couple years! (Also in Zurich! another meta-coincidence!)

Maybe this should go into the open source watch thread by the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbag6aE7TM
http://vimeo.com/105739988

Not long after that we'll get to cyborg volley ball:-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3opQOaRXBWE

Best,
A2A.

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Nice!

http://nautil.us/issue/7/waste/nature-the-it-wizard

Many topics there, not least neuroscience.

Tell me what you dudes think =)

Cheers,
A2A

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Alex
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Hi dude,
Nice article; focused, well written, clear and simple.
Some extras from the archives, on 'noise' in processing:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-05-noise-brain.html
"How noise changes the way the brain gets information." May 5th, 2015.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-04-d … brain.html
"Study deciphers the noise in the human brain." April 9th, 2015

www.physorg.com/news192881674.html
"Discarded data may be gateway to new brain insights." May 12th, 2010.

enjoy,
AR


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You're breaking my style, dude cool For the last several months I've been practicing extreme concision around here. smile

Thanks! Quite interesting..

Noise is just a mystery we have not applied a Fourier Transform to yet LOL

See you soon,
A2A

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Hi dudes,
Recently we mentioned this fun alternative to the TE news for those trying to wean themselves off  the newspaper/TV habit:
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/

However, Private eye mostly features stories from one particular area; not very entertaining for those living elsewhere. Here is an alternative for folks further west:
http://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver

Very funny indeed. You still get all the TE 'news', and it's still funny even if you're not interested in the news.

Best,
AR


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Sakiro
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Some inspiration/motivational video ..

And all begins with the "hero journey" ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9QmCafNPRA

Enjoy


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Love the clip  :  )  It wasn't long enough! More of this welcome  :  )

Meanwhile, remember our prediction that educational institutions won't be able to keep up with the pace of scientific discovery? Read on...

UK Psychology education 'normalizing' the Fundamental Attribution Error prompts protest from scientists
(Open letter)
"As two university lecturers, we are concerned about the new psychology A-Level, which has been taught to teenagers since September 2015. Our concern is that the new syllabus is narrow and out of step with much psychological research and practice. This is worrying because for many students, A-Level psychology will be their only formal encounter with the subject.
We are also concerned that the government’s reforms have been influenced by “nudge theory” – the science of influencing people’s behaviour – from behavioural economists and cognitive scientists. This has resulted in the curriculum focusing on “problems” within individuals, rather than taking into account the influence of society on people’s actions and behaviour.

This explicitly goes against the current move within the British Psychological Society (BPS) to take into account the psychological effects of structural disadvantage and poverty.

We wanted to take a look at the content of the new A-Level, so we set ourselves a challenge: to try and answer exam questions from the A-Level sample papers for psychology created by AQA, the largest exam board. (Edexcel and OCR also offer psychology A-Level qualifications.) Below is one example question.
Our answers ticked few of the right boxes according to the sample mark schemes (unless the examiners were feeling generous). But we did attempt to do something else: to ask critical questions of the exam itself, and to think about the implications of asking students to answer these sorts of questions.
Pens at the ready, and phones confiscated, the exam begins …

The question
(Specimen 7182/3, Paper 3. Section D: Aggression or Forensic Psychology or Addiction.)
Read the item and then answer the question that follows.
News correspondents in inner cities have remarked upon how young males frequently carry weapons and engage in threatening behaviour.
Using your knowledge of evolutionary explanations of aggression, account for these high levels of aggression in young males.
(This is a two-hour paper with 96 possible marks, and this question is worth four marks.)

Our suggested answer
This is the way we would answer it:
Our knowledge of evolutionary explanations of aggression lead us to contest them being used as an explanatory factor in why young males in inner cities may carry weapons. Evolutionary explanations are problematic for many reasons: findings from animal studies cannot always be easily applied to humans; evolutionary explanations that emphasise mating behaviour tend to assume heterosexualism; they are hard to test; they have been used to justify and naturalise social hierarchies; and have been criticised for being ideological.

Examples abound of the incredibly problematic use of evolutionary theory within psychology, such as to “explain” rape as a form of mate choice; to justify colonialism; and as an underlying factor in eugenics.

It’s important to ask questions about why and in what contexts evolutionary explanations are used to “account” for particular phenomena, particularly by those in power, such as the government. Attempting to explain the anger of young urban men through evolution, or genetics, allows us to overlook social, economic and political factors that may provide the context for young men carrying weapons.

A recent report into the psychological impact of austerity provides evidence of direct links between cuts to public services and poor mental health, through mechanisms such as humiliation and shame, fear and distrust, insecurity, and powerlessness. These are not only all factors that may link to young men feeling the need to carry weapons but may also play a part in the racial discrimination and institutional racism within policing.

For example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that police stop and search disproportionate numbers of black and Asian young men in England and Wales. Perhaps young men are angry because of the poverty and racism that they are experiencing? This includes the racism and Islamophobia that lies within the current anti-radicalisation Prevent Agenda, and that makes us see certain racialised groups as suspicious. If so, then evolutionary explanations don’t go far to help reduce these oppressions and inequalities, and if anything historically have deepened them.

The marks
The sample mark scheme on the AQA website sets out the framework for marking the question as follows:
Male aggression derives from need to acquire/defend resources such as mates or territory (in the city) and/or to establish status (in groups of peers or between gangs); male aggression derives from sexual jealousy of other males who may have sex with or steal their mates.
Our view is that this mark scheme leaves no space for the kind of critical thinking that we offered above. Although a generous marker may give us marks for touching on (and then critiquing) “mating behaviour”, the lack of attention that the mark scheme pays to the problematic use of evolutionary theory highlights how uncritically psychology is being taught at A-Level. It’s likely that our answer would have scored a low mark because we discuss aggression as embedded within social and political contexts, and not as an individual trait linked to territory and sex.

Thinking critically
In doing this exercise, we are in no way criticising individual teachers who teach this curriculum – some of whom may share our concerns. Nor are we glorifying the undergraduate subject of psychology in comparison, which can also be outdated. Rather we hope to start a conversation between students, A-Level teachers, and university teachers, lecturers and professors that could change the very terms by which we understand what psychology means, is, and does.

The question on aggression we have chosen is not an isolated case, and is one of many others that would provoke similar issues, for example one which asks students about the highly controversial new “mental illness” of hoarding disorder, and another which asks students to diagnose different types of attachment disorder based on one sentence descriptions of children’s behaviour.

The daily reality of many psychologists is not one that involves debating the evolutionary origins of aggression. Instead it often involves working with people and communities who are marginalised and experiencing poverty. As many psychologists are increasingly arguing, psychology should not be there to “treat” the symptoms of poverty. And so teaching A-Level psychology students to look inside individuals for society’s ills seems misguided.

Source: https://theconversation.com/why-the-a-l … date-48853


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Sakiro
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Hey guys,

Hopefully we use this two, new born, techonology to enhance our skills and not to depends on it.

Agumented Reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9spsx_QSQ9I

Virtual Reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO4k2Rv … tml5=False


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Alex
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WARNING – Re: Oculus Rift

If you value your privacy, do not buy!

From: Private Eye #1416; 15 April 2016

“We're all having to get used to being tracked by advertisers wherever we go both online and offline, thanks to smartphones, cookies and the like. But it's reassuring to know this will extend into the realm of virtual reality when we're all hiding behind our VR headsets.

Details from the technical specifications of the new Oculus Rift virtual reality gear, owned by notorious friend of privacy Facebook, reveal that the kit will be able to collect information about users and what they use the technology for and look at what's on their hard drive, as well as collect audio from its built in microphone, whether the system is on or off.

The purpose? From the device's own “privacy” policy: “To market to you. We use the information we collect to send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you on and off our services. We also use this information to measure how users respond to our marketing efforts.” Welcome to the wonderful virtual future!”

[...and how long will it be before Facebook, Twitter et al are using the same software? Or are we too late to prophecy that one...? -ed]


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You're too late.

https://youtu.be/qpWV-2Xue7Y

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LooooooooooLz [1] lol

Let me ask you, fellow defenders of the secrets of Castle Grayskull: When reality finally gets more.. directly.. programmable[2], who's gonna claim the roles of Masters of the Universe beside the 1st man?[3]

Think about it.. [4]

  o
<[+]>
A2A

[1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant- … s-program/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwIpQ1Hzr84
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yeA7a0uS3A
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2yyAHccL6g

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Interesting...

Annals of Neurology; July 7 2016
An open letter concerning do-it-yourself users of transcranial direct current stimulation
Authors:
Rachel Wurzman PhD,
Roy H. Hamilton MD, MS,
Alvaro Pascual-Leone MD, PhD,
Michael D. Fox MD, PhD

As clinicians and scientists who study noninvasive brain stimulation, we share a common interest with do-it-yourself (DIY) users, namely administering transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to improve brain function. Evidence suggests that DIY users reference the scientific literature to guide their use of tDCS,[1] including published ethical and safety standards.[2-4] However, as discussed at a recent Institute of Medicine Workshop,[5] there is much about noninvasive brain stimulation in general, and tDCS in particular, that remains unknown. Whereas some risks, such as burns to the skin and complications resulting from electrical equipment failures, are well recognized,[6-8] other problematic issues may not be immediately apparent.[9] We perceive an ethical obligation to draw the attention of both professionals and DIY users to some of these issues.[10]

Stimulation affects more of the brain than a user may think. Electrodes are often placed in specific scalp locations to target specific brain regions. However, stimulation extends well beyond the regions beneath the electrodes. Current flows between electrodes in complex ways based on different tissues in the head, and can affect the function of various structures along its path.[11-15] Furthermore, the effects of tDCS can extend beyond brain regions directly affected by the stimulation to connected brain regions and networks.[16-20] These indirect effects of stimulation on connected brain networks may alter brain functions that are unintended. In other words, brain connectivity has an effect on—and can be affected by—brain stimulation.[21-23]

Stimulation interacts with ongoing brain activity, so what a user does during tDCS changes tDCS effects. Brain stimulation with tDCS has a different effect on neurons that are active during the time of stimulation compared to neurons that are not.[24, 25] Because of this feature, the cognitive or behavioral activity occurring while tDCS is applied will modify the effects.[26-29] Stimulation while reading a book, meditating, visually fixating on a point, watching TV, doing arithmetic, sleeping, or playing video games could all cause different changes in the brain. Even activity occurring before tDCS or the time of day tDCS is administered may change the effects of stimulation. Which activity or time of day is best to achieve a certain change in brain function is not yet known.

Enhancement of some cognitive abilities may come at the cost of others. Cognition involves functional networks, with different components (or combinations thereof) responsible for different functions. In addition, brain networks interact with each other, such that modifying activity in one network can change the activity in other networks. Therefore, stimulating one brain area may improve the ability to perform one task but hurt the ability to perform another. For example, tDCS can enhance the rate of learning new material, but at the cost of processing learned material, and vice versa, depending on the stimulation site.[30] Such tradeoffs are likely under-recognized, as most tDCS studies focus on only one or two tasks. Furthermore, such cognitive tradeoffs could develop over time and only become recognizable long after the stimulation.

Changes in brain activity (intended or not) may last longer than a user may think. Brain plasticity is an ongoing process that is in part driven by neural activity itself, so changes initiated during stimulation can be long lasting and even self-perpetuating. Cognitive enhancements (as well as concurrent tradeoffs) have been reported 6 months after stimulation, and may linger beyond then.[30-32] Ongoing regular application of tDCS may be especially effective for sustaining these benefits, but may also increase risks. We have never formally studied tDCS at the frequencies many DIY users experiment with—for example, stimulating daily for months or longer. Because we know that stimulation from just a few sessions can be quite lasting,[31] we infer that changes induced by these protocols may be even more so. We do not know yet whether such changes are reversible, and the possible risks of a cumulative dose over years or a lifetime have not been studied.

Small differences in tDCS parameters can have a big effect. Mild changes in tDCS settings including current amplitude, stimulation duration, and electrode placement can have big and unexpected effects. For example, increasing the stimulation amplitude from 1 to 2mA or increasing the duration from 10 to 20 minutes might be expected to double the effect, but can actually reverse the effect and cause the opposite change in brain function.[33] More stimulation is not necessarily better; more is simply different. Similarly, slight differences in electrode placement can produce dramatic shifts in the shape of the current path, and thus the neurophysiological effects.[34-36]

tDCS effects are highly variable across different people. Results reported in the scientific literature are almost always averaged across groups of subjects because the effect of tDCS on any one individual is variable and unpredictable.[37, 38] Even across groups of subjects, tDCS effects can be highly variable. Up to 30% of experimental subjects respond with changes in cortical excitability in the opposite direction from other subjects using identical tDCS settings. Even with consistent changes in cortical excitability, these changes can have different effects on individuals' ability to perform a task,[37] including potentially undesirable effects.[39] Furthermore, this variability occurs despite controlled experimental conditions designed to reduce it. Factors such as age,[40, 41] gender,[42] hormones,[43] handedness,[44, 45] cognitive ability,[46, 47] neurological or psychiatric disorders, medications,[48, 49] recreational drugs,[50] neurotransmitter levels,[49] prior exposure to brain stimulation,[51] and differences in head anatomy[12, 36, 52, 53] are likely to impact and could potentially even reverse a given tDCS effect.

The risk/benefit ratio is different for treating diseases versus enhancing function. Despite all the above uncertainty, risks, tradeoffs, and potential detrimental effects of tDCS, there are numerous studies that administer repeated sessions of tDCS with the intent of causing lasting changes in brain function. However, nearly all such studies are performed in patients with brain disease, with the goal of alleviating symptoms. Such studies provide detailed disclosure of risks, according to regulations for informed consent of human research subjects, and risks are evaluated for the patient population to be studied. Consider that the level of acceptable risk is different for healthy subjects, who in general are functioning quite well and thus have less to gain, and more to lose. Application of tDCS in children warrants special consideration given the particularities of the developing nervous system, the scarcity of studies in this population, and that minors are not fully able to assess the risks of tDCS for themselves.

In sum, it is important to know that: (1) the tissue stimulated and effects induced are less deterministic than a user may think, (2) significant tradeoffs may be part of the bargain for functional gains, and (3) whatever brain changes occur may be long-lasting—for better or worse. We encourage consideration of these issues and involvement of health care providers in making decisions regarding DIY brain stimulation.

Acknowledgment
We thank the many tDCS experts with whom we discussed these matters. The names and affiliations of 39 colleagues who have endorsed the content of this letter are included in the Supplementary Table.

Potential Conflicts of Interest
M.D.F. and A.P.-L. share intellectual property with Neuroelectrics, a tDCS device manufacturer. A.P.-L. serves on the scientific advisory board of Neuroelectrics.

All references viewable here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced … /ana.24689


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It never rains but it pours...

A bug in the software used by researchers to interpret fMRI data could invalidate fifteen years worth of neuroscientific research, a paper claims.

Three of the most popular pieces of software for fMRI – SPM, FSL and AFNI – were all found to have false positive rates of up to 70 per cent. These findings could invalidate "up to 40,000 papers", researchers claim.

fMRI measures blood flow inside the brain and, by proxy, brain activity. It assumes cerebral blood flow is coupled or correlated with neural activity, and has been used to explore how the human brain responds to robots, how memory and imagination interact how the brain looks when someone has an idea and more.


"Though fMRI is 25 years old, surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data," said Anders Eklund.
The team used resting-state fMRI data from 500 people, split into 25 groups, and measured this data against each other to generate 3 million comparisons.

This resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls was downloaded from the 1,000 Functional Connectomes Project. The authors said resting-state data "should not contain systematic changes in brain activity", but their previous work showed this assumption can have a large impact on the degree of false positives.
And this, the team say, "may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results".
"It is not feasible to redo 40,000 fMRI studies, and lamentable archiving and data-sharing practices mean most could not be reanalysed either," the team said. "Considering it is now possible to evaluate common statistical methods using real fMRI data, the fMRI community should, in our opinion, focus on validation of existing methods.
"It is important to stress we have focused on inferences corrected for multiple comparisons in each analysis, yet some 40 per cent of a sample of 241 recent fMRI papers did not report correcting [these] comparisons, meaning many group results in the fMRI literature suffer even worse false-positive  rates than found here.”

Source: Wired
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/fmri-bug … ns-results

The study has been published in PNAS, extract below: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/27/1602413113

Cluster failure: Why fMRI inferences for spatial extent have inflated false-positive rates
Anders Eklund, Thomas E. Nichols and Hans Knutsson
 
Significance
Functional MRI (fMRI) is 25 years old, yet surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls to conduct 3 million task group analyses. Using this null data with different experimental designs, we estimate the incidence of significant results. In theory, we should find 5% false positives (for a significance threshold of 5%), but instead we found that the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of some 40,000 fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results.

Abstract [Open Access Paper]
The most widely used task functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses use parametric statistical methods that depend on a variety of assumptions. In this work, we use real resting-state data and a total of 3 million random task group analyses to compute empirical familywise error rates for the fMRI software packages SPM, FSL, and AFNI, as well as a nonparametric permutation method. For a nominal familywise error rate of 5%, the parametric statistical methods are shown to be conservative for voxelwise inference and invalid for clusterwise inference. Our results suggest that the principal cause of the invalid cluster inferences is spatial autocorrelation functions that do not follow the assumed Gaussian shape. By comparison, the nonparametric permutation test is found to produce nominal results for voxelwise as well as clusterwise inference. These findings speak to the need of validating the statistical methods being used in the field of neuroimaging.
 
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/ … 13113.full


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