Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions

Christiana Westlin; Jordan E Theriault; Yuta Katsumi; Alfonso Nieto-Castanon; Aaron Kucyi; Sebastian F Ruf; Sarah M Brown; Misha Pavel; Deniz Erdogmus; Dana H Brooks; Karen S Quigley; Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli; Lisa Feldman Barrett

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2022.12.015

Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions

Trends Cogn Sci. 2023 Mar;27(3):246-257. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.12.015. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: westlin.c@northeastern.edu.
² Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
⁶ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Computer Science and Statistics, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA.
⁸ Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: l.barrett@northeastern.edu.

Abstract

Neuroimaging research has been at the forefront of concerns regarding the failure of experimental findings to replicate. In the study of brain-behavior relationships, past failures to find replicable and robust effects have been attributed to methodological shortcomings. Methodological rigor is important, but there are other overlooked possibilities: most published studies share three foundational assumptions, often implicitly, that may be faulty. In this paper, we consider the empirical evidence from human brain imaging and the study of non-human animals that calls each foundational assumption into question. We then consider the opportunities for a robust science of brain-behavior relationships that await if scientists ground their research efforts in revised assumptions supported by current empirical evidence.

Keywords: brain-behavior relationships; complexity; degeneracy; variation; whole-brain modeling.

Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding