[HN Gopher] The Trouble with Brain Scans ___________________________________________________________________ The Trouble with Brain Scans Author : dnetesn Score : 21 points Date : 2021-04-01 10:57 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (nautil.us) (TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us) | arafa wrote: | This article reads like a longform version of why statistical | power/effect size is important but doesn't mention it by name, | only alluding to it. I suspect there would be much less of a | replication crisis if, instead of just focusing on statistical | significance, there was also a focus on effect size, or both. | checkyoursudo wrote: | As a cognitive scientist with only 1 graduate level fMRI course | and no hands-on experience outside of playing around with | Neurodebian, I will not be so bold (haha) as to make a claim that | there is absolutely nothing to fMRI. | | However, I am very skeptical. | | I would not be willing to make any strong claims about causality | when the alleged neural event and the measurement thereof are | 15-30 seconds apart, and the thing being measured (blood flow) is | not the event itself (neural activity), and there are so, so many | potential sources of error. | | Now, structural MRI is super cool. | | I have a bunch of friends at my university who work in fMRI brain | imaging. I feel bad, but when we talk about their work, I can't | help but think they are chasing alchemy. Or maybe a better | analogy is that it is almost like they are trying to learn about | the world (brain, cognition) based on the shadows at the back of | Plato's cave (fMRI BOLD signals). | | I sincerely hope they overcome the challenges, but I expect they | will be facing the exact or nearly the same challenges 20 years | from now. | jessriedel wrote: | My impression is that Nautilus and Quanta are, among pop science | magazines, fairly high brow, but that Nautilus is substantially | more likely to use human-interest narratives (e.g., the opening | vignette) to keep the reader's attention. Is that right, or do I | have the wrong impression? | Sephr wrote: | You'll never get a full brain scan with fMRIs. For real detail, | you'll need a planetary-scale XFEL with a human head-sized | reticule and be okay with your irl head being vaporized. | | Optimized models for simulating your brain accurately don't exist | yet either. I highly suspect that we will have to finish the | above first. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-01 23:01 UTC)