Research Day

Keynote Presentation: Dr. Lucina Q. Uddin

Bio: After receiving a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the Psychology Department at the University of California Los Angeles, Dr. Uddin completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Child Study Center at New York University. For several years she worked as a faculty member in Psychiatry & Behavioral Science at Stanford University. She recently returned to UCLA where she directs the Brain Connectivity and Cognition Laboratory and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis Core in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Within a cognitive neuroscience framework, Dr. Uddin’s research combines functional and structural neuroimaging to examine the organization of large-scale brain networks supporting the development of social cognition and executive function. Her current projects focus on understanding dynamic brain network interactions underlying cognitive inflexibility in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Uddin’s work has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience, JAMA Psychiatry, and Nature Neuroscience. 

Title: Towards a universal taxonomy of functional brain networks

Abstract: While the idea that the human brain is composed of multiple large functional networks has been gaining traction in cognitive and network neuroscience, the field has yet to reach consensus on several key issues regarding terminology. What constitutes a functional brain network? Are there “core” functional networks, and if so, what are their spatial topographies? What naming conventions, if universally adopted, will provide the most utility and facilitate communication amongst researchers? Can a taxonomy of functional brain networks be delineated? The Workgroup for HArmonized Taxonomy of NETworks (WHATNET) was formed in 2020 as an Organization for Human Brain Mapping–endorsed best practices committee to provide recommendations on points of consensus, identify open questions, and highlight areas of ongoing debate in the service of moving the field toward standardized reporting of network neuroscience results. The group has developed a Network Correspondence Toolbox (NCT) to permit researchers to examine and report spatial correspondence between their novel neuroimaging results and multiple widely used functional brain atlases. The adoption of the NCT will make it easier for researchers to report their findings in a standardized manner, thus aiding reproducibility and facilitating comparisons between studies to produce interdisciplinary insights.

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