Building a Science of Individual Differences from FMRI

Overview

Journal Trends Cogn Sci

Date 2016 May 4

PMID 27138646

Citations 255

Authors

Julien DuBois

Ralph Adolphs

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

To date, fMRI research has been concerned primarily with evincing generic principles of brain function through averaging data from multiple subjects. Given rapid developments in both hardware and analysis tools, the field is now poised to study fMRI-derived measures in individual subjects, and to relate these to psychological traits or genetic variations. We discuss issues of validity, reliability and statistical assessment that arise when the focus shifts to individual subjects and that are applicable also to other imaging modalities. We emphasize that individual assessment of neural function with fMRI presents specific challenges and necessitates careful consideration of anatomical and vascular between-subject variability as well as sources of within-subject variability.

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