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author Taylor, Paul A.
Aggarwal, Himanshu
Bandettini, Peter
Barilari, Marco
Bright, Molly
Caballero-Gaudes, Cesar
Calhoun, Vince
Chakravarty, Mallar
Devenyi, Gabriel
Evans, Jennifer
Garza-Villarreal, Eduardo
Rasgado-Toledo, Jalil
Gau, Remi
Glen, Daniel
Goebel, Rainer
Gonzalez-Castillo, Javier
Gulban, Omer Faruk
Halchenko, Yaroslav
Handwerker, Daniel
Hanayik, Taylor
Lauren, Peter
Leopold, David
Lerch, Jason
Mathys, Christian
McCarthy, Paul
McLeod, Anke
Mejia, Amanda
Moia, Stefano
Nichols, Thomas
Pernet, Cyril
Pessoa, Luiz
Pfleiderer, Bettina
Rajendra, Justin
Reyes, Laura
Reynolds, Richard
Roopchansingh, Vinai
Rorden, Chris
Russ, Brian
Sundermann, Benedikt
Thirion, Bertrand
Torrisi, Salvatore
Chen, Gang
author_facet Taylor, Paul A.
Aggarwal, Himanshu
Bandettini, Peter
Barilari, Marco
Bright, Molly
Caballero-Gaudes, Cesar
Calhoun, Vince
Chakravarty, Mallar
Devenyi, Gabriel
Evans, Jennifer
Garza-Villarreal, Eduardo
Rasgado-Toledo, Jalil
Gau, Remi
Glen, Daniel
Goebel, Rainer
Gonzalez-Castillo, Javier
Gulban, Omer Faruk
Halchenko, Yaroslav
Handwerker, Daniel
Hanayik, Taylor
Lauren, Peter
Leopold, David
Lerch, Jason
Mathys, Christian
McCarthy, Paul
McLeod, Anke
Mejia, Amanda
Moia, Stefano
Nichols, Thomas
Pernet, Cyril
Pessoa, Luiz
Pfleiderer, Bettina
Rajendra, Justin
Reyes, Laura
Reynolds, Richard
Roopchansingh, Vinai
Rorden, Chris
Russ, Brian
Sundermann, Benedikt
Thirion, Bertrand
Torrisi, Salvatore
Chen, Gang
contents Visualizations are vital for communicating scientific results. Historically, neuroimaging figures have only depicted regions that surpass a given statistical threshold. This practice substantially biases interpretation of the results and subsequent meta-analyses, particularly towards non-reproducibility. Here we advocate for a "transparent thresholding" approach that not only highlights statistically significant regions but also includes subthreshold locations, which provide key experimental context. This balances the dual needs of distilling modeling results and enabling informed interpretations for modern neuroimaging. We present four examples that demonstrate the many benefits of transparent thresholding, including: removing ambiguity, decreasing hypersensitivity to non-physiological features, catching potential artifacts, improving cross-study comparisons, reducing non-reproducibility biases, and clarifying interpretations. We also demonstrate the many software packages that implement transparent thresholding, several of which were added or streamlined recently as part of this work. A point-counterpoint discussion addresses issues with thresholding raised in real conversations with researchers in the field. We hope that by showing how transparent thresholding can drastically improve the interpretation (and reproducibility) of neuroimaging findings, more researchers will adopt this method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07824
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Go Figure: Transparency in neuroscience images preserves context and clarifies interpretation
Taylor, Paul A.
Aggarwal, Himanshu
Bandettini, Peter
Barilari, Marco
Bright, Molly
Caballero-Gaudes, Cesar
Calhoun, Vince
Chakravarty, Mallar
Devenyi, Gabriel
Evans, Jennifer
Garza-Villarreal, Eduardo
Rasgado-Toledo, Jalil
Gau, Remi
Glen, Daniel
Goebel, Rainer
Gonzalez-Castillo, Javier
Gulban, Omer Faruk
Halchenko, Yaroslav
Handwerker, Daniel
Hanayik, Taylor
Lauren, Peter
Leopold, David
Lerch, Jason
Mathys, Christian
McCarthy, Paul
McLeod, Anke
Mejia, Amanda
Moia, Stefano
Nichols, Thomas
Pernet, Cyril
Pessoa, Luiz
Pfleiderer, Bettina
Rajendra, Justin
Reyes, Laura
Reynolds, Richard
Roopchansingh, Vinai
Rorden, Chris
Russ, Brian
Sundermann, Benedikt
Thirion, Bertrand
Torrisi, Salvatore
Chen, Gang
Neurons and Cognition
Visualizations are vital for communicating scientific results. Historically, neuroimaging figures have only depicted regions that surpass a given statistical threshold. This practice substantially biases interpretation of the results and subsequent meta-analyses, particularly towards non-reproducibility. Here we advocate for a "transparent thresholding" approach that not only highlights statistically significant regions but also includes subthreshold locations, which provide key experimental context. This balances the dual needs of distilling modeling results and enabling informed interpretations for modern neuroimaging. We present four examples that demonstrate the many benefits of transparent thresholding, including: removing ambiguity, decreasing hypersensitivity to non-physiological features, catching potential artifacts, improving cross-study comparisons, reducing non-reproducibility biases, and clarifying interpretations. We also demonstrate the many software packages that implement transparent thresholding, several of which were added or streamlined recently as part of this work. A point-counterpoint discussion addresses issues with thresholding raised in real conversations with researchers in the field. We hope that by showing how transparent thresholding can drastically improve the interpretation (and reproducibility) of neuroimaging findings, more researchers will adopt this method.
title Go Figure: Transparency in neuroscience images preserves context and clarifies interpretation
topic Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07824