NS+: A new meta-analysis tool to extend the utility of NeuroSynth
Poster No:
1944
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Meng Du1, Matthew Lieberman1
Institutions:
1University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
First Author:
Co-Author:
Introduction:
A vast amount of human neuroimaging research seeks to understand the functional mapping of brains with forward inference analyses, which show brain activities produced by specific manipulations but do not indicate causal relationships in the opposite direction. NeuroSynth (Yarkoni, et al., 2011) is a tool that aims to address this problem by synthesizing more than 14000 fMRI studies, and automating reverse inference meta-analysis such as mapping activation probabilities (e.g., in Broca's area) given terms of interest (e.g., "language"). However, Neurosynth can be limited in its flexibility: it is easy to get regions of interest given predefined research topics, but not vice versa. Here, we created a new software tool, NS+, which explores research terms given ROIs, and further extends the utility of NeuroSynth-based reverse inference meta-analysis.
Methods:
The software tool, NS+, was developed as a standalone software application with a graphical interface. It is based on the core Neurosynth package, together with NeuroSynth's database of 14371 fMRI studies and 3168 predefined research terms. To be friendly for users of all levels, NS+ can be operated either with just button clicks or as a Python package, and does not require a separate installation of any programming environments or NeuroSynth itself.
In this presentation, we will use NS+ to examine the functions and subdivisions of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) as a demonstration.
In this presentation, we will use NS+ to examine the functions and subdivisions of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) as a demonstration.
Results:
NS+ supports automated and highly customizable forward and reverse inference analyses within any given ROI, which are not allowed by the NeuroSynth online tool or any other tools. Specifically, NS+ allows 1) Analyses of custom research topics by joining NeuroSynth predefined terms. For example, removing "self reported" from "self" to restrict the scope to "self"-related studies, or getting the overlap of "attention" and "shift" to create "attentional shift". 2) Ranking of 3000+ predefined and/or custom terms in any given ROI by their posterior probabilities, which reveals the most likely cognitive functions of ROIs based on reverse inference. 3) Pairwise and multi-term comparisons ("Battle Royale" analysis), which show the territory where each term dominates in the given ROI against all other considered terms, and provides an ROI map that is functionally subdivided by the terms of interest.
In the example analysis of TPJ, we first conducted an exploratory term ranking with NS+. Based on the resulted list together with previous literature, we summarized the most important roles of TPJ as "mentalizing" (theory of mind), "language", "autobiographical memory", "episodic memory", and "attentional orienting". Next, we customized multiple predefined terms to create these 5 topics, and compared them in NS+ ("Battle Royale"). The resulting map shows TPJ and its surrounding areas functionally subdivided by these topics.
The resulting map suggests a strong link between mentalizing and most of the central TPJ, as well as associations of posterior TPJ with autobiographical memory, anterior right TPJ with attentional orientation, and anterior left TPJ with language comprehension. We also further recognized and examined the relatively non-selective TPJ areas.
In the example analysis of TPJ, we first conducted an exploratory term ranking with NS+. Based on the resulted list together with previous literature, we summarized the most important roles of TPJ as "mentalizing" (theory of mind), "language", "autobiographical memory", "episodic memory", and "attentional orienting". Next, we customized multiple predefined terms to create these 5 topics, and compared them in NS+ ("Battle Royale"). The resulting map shows TPJ and its surrounding areas functionally subdivided by these topics.
The resulting map suggests a strong link between mentalizing and most of the central TPJ, as well as associations of posterior TPJ with autobiographical memory, anterior right TPJ with attentional orientation, and anterior left TPJ with language comprehension. We also further recognized and examined the relatively non-selective TPJ areas.
Conclusions:
NS+ is a powerful meta-analysis tool based on NeuroSynth. We developed it to support automated analyses and comparisons of custom research topics, as well as acquisitions of functionally subdivided maps of any ROI. It can be helpful for researchers to gain insights into their research questions as well as results, and to explore the functional mapping of human brains in general. In this presentation, we will demonstrate how to conduct these analyses with only a few button clicks in NS+.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Neuroscience Other
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Methods Development 2
Other Methods
Neuroinformatics and Data Sharing:
Informatics Other 1
Keywords:
Data analysis
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Informatics
Meta- Analysis
Multivariate
Structures
Workflows
Other - software
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
My abstract is being submitted as a Software Demonstration.
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Provide references using author date format
Yarkoni, T. (2011). Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Nature methods, 8(8), 665.