NS+: A new meta-analysis tool to extend the utility of NeuroSynth

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.