ReproNim: A Center for Reproducible Neuroimaging Computation News

ReproNim Webinar – Friday, October 2, 2026

David Kennedy — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 3:12:45 GMT

ReproNim First Fridays Webinar – Friday, October 2, 2026 at 2pm ET

ReproNim/INCF Fellowship alum James Kent (Research Associate, University of Texas at Austin) is our featured speaker this month. James is the technical lead for NeuroSynth 2.0 and the lead backend developer for Neurosynth Compose, and actively involved with the open science community as well.

Presentation Title: “Large scale extraction of structured information from neuroimaging articles for meta-analysis and meta-science (LLMs are involved).”

Description: Neurosynth.org puts studies and analyses into coarse buckets severely limiting the claims you can draw from them; what if we could recover structured details about the specific contrasts that occurred in the tens of thousands of neuroimaging studies? Can we close the gap between synthesizing previous data and prospective studies? Can we identify meaningful gaps in the existing corpus of neuroimaging research? Some answers; and many more questions ahead.

Webinar Registration - https://umassmed.zoom.us/meeting/register/mhxcAm_7R_msH3__kO0Lgg#/registration

Video Presentation and Slides will be made available as soon as possible following the presentation.

LLMs in Neuroimaging Workshop - Oct 16, 2026

David Kennedy — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:40:33 GMT

If you are in Boston in October, please note the following:
ReproNim is pleased to announce an upcoming workshop:

Neuroimaging, Reproducibility and LLMs: Early promises and future questions

Date: October 16th 9:30am - 1:00pm EDT (In person only)
Location: MIT - Singleton Auditorium, Building 46 (3rd floor, 3002), 43 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139
Registration: Required but free and open to all! Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/neuroimaging-reproducibility-and-llms-early-promises-and-future-question-tickets-1999618019324?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

The objective of this in-person workshop is to introduce the technology and train neuroscience / neuroimaging researchers on the potential of Large Language Models in brain imaging research. To achieve this, we will show and discuss key directions for which LLMs have - and will have - a fundamental impact, review and contrast research project examples, introduce latest techniques, and discuss potential limitations and risks associated with this transformative technology.

Speakers will include: JB Poline (McGill), David Kennedy (UMassMed), Brent McPherson (McGill), Michelle Wang (McGill), Yaroslav Halchenko (Dartmouth), Johanna Bayer (McGill), and Satra Ghosh (MIT).

ReproNim webinar - Friday, June 5 at 2pm ET.

David Kennedy — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 2:59:44 GMT

Our ReproNim webinar is coming up - Friday, June 5 at 2pm ET. Our guest speaker this month is Hugh Garavan!

Speaker: Hugh Garavan (University of Vermont)

Presentation Title: Capturing individual differences in ABCD: Insights into task fMRI and cannabis use

Webinar Registration - https://umassmed.zoom.us/meeting/register/mhxcAm_7R_msH3__kO0Lgg

Announcement
Hugh Garavan (University of Vermont, Larner Medical School; Professor in Psychiatry, Psychology) is our guest peaker this month. Hugh is a cognitive neuroscientist with very extensive experience using structural and functional neuroimaging to study cognitive control and reward processes, particularly in adolescent development, including addiction and mental health issues. He has notable leadership roles and contributions to a spectrum of longitudinal high impact neuroimaging studies and with large data sets of brain and behavioral development, including Site PI and Associate Directory roles for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) and Healthy Brain Child Development (HBCD) studies, as well as co-founder of the ENIGMA-Addiction working group and a co-investigator on the IMAGEN project.

Bio: Professor Garavan received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, completed postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell University and the Medical College of Wisconsin, and was an Associate Professor in Psychology at Trinity College Dublin prior to his move to Vermont in 2011. His research uses structural and functional neuroimaging to study cognitive control and reward processes with a particular focus on adolescent development, addiction and related mental health issues. He is a co-investigator on the IMAGEN project, a longitudinal neuroimaging-genetic study of over 2,000 teens in Europe. He is a site PI and Associate Director of both the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, a longitudinal neuroimaging-genetic study of over 11,000 children in the USA and the Healthy Brain Child Development study, a longitudinal study of over 5,000 pregnant people and their children from birth to age 10. He is PI on a T32 focused on complex systems methodologies for large neuroimaging datasets, is co-PI on two R25 grants that provide training on the ABCD and HBCD datasets to junior investigators, and is co-founder of the ENIGMA-Addiction working group which is a global neuroimaging data pooling endeavor.

SOBP Brain Hack - 2026

David Kennedy — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 2:46:08 GMT

We're excited to invite you to SOBP Brain Hack - 2026, a hands-on, collaborative event to connect, collaborate, and code with fellow enthusiasts in a fun, informal setting.

When: Tuesday-Wednesday, April 28-29, 2026 | 9 AM - 5 PM
Where: 307 W 38th St, 14th Floor, New York, NY
What: Two days of interdisciplinary collaboration, coding, and problem-solving focused on advancing biological psychiatry research
This in-person event offers researchers at all levels the opportunity to:

- Enhance data science and computational skills
- Work in interdisciplinary teams on real-world projects
- Network with SOBP community members in an informal, energizing environment

Registration Fees:
Staff/Faculty: $50 (includes breakfast & lunch both days)
Students/Postdocs: $20 (includes breakfast & lunch both days)
Financial assistance is available for those with demonstrated need

Registration is open to all - you do NOT need to be attending the SOBP annual meeting to participate.
REGISTER HERE - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sobp-brain-hack-2026-tickets-1984633557395

If you have any questions, please contact SOBPHackInfo@repronim.org. Or, see the website (https://sobpbrainhack.github.io/SOBPHack-2026/).

ReproNim First Fridays Webinar – Friday, April 3, 2026

David Kennedy — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 2:38:58 GMT

ReproNim First Fridays Webinar – Friday, April 3, 2026 at 2pm Eastern Time

Our own ReproNim faculty member Satra Ghosh (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Senior Research Scientist, and Director of the Open Data in Neuroscience Initiative at McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT) is our featured speaker this month! Satra brings a very broadly knowledgeable perspective to bear on all of his endeavors and his work encompasses a wealth of expertise in computer science, computational neuroscience and neuroimaging.

Presentation Title: “Undata - an AI-assisted unraveling of challenges around data models and schemas.”

Webinar Registration - https://umassmed.zoom.us/meeting/register/mhxcAm_7R_msH3__kO0Lgg#/registration

ReproNim Virtual Drop-in Office Hours, Thursday November 6th

David Kennedy — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 8:00:42 GMT

ReproNim ‘First Thursdays’ Virtual Office Hours for November – Special BIDS-focused edition!

Join us for Virtual Drop-in Office Hours, Thursday November 6th (1-2pm ET).
Register Here (https://umassmed.zoom.us/meeting/register/mz3UbrqyRY2hRND3IBp8Hg) for our new Meeting Link for Office Hours (please note change)

ReproNim Office Hours are open to all; it is an opportunity to address reproducibility questions of all sorts and at any level of expertise.

This month, ReproNim faculty are encouraging questions around the use of the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard. We know that some folks use BIDS, others are encouraged to use it (by ReproNim and others), others have frustrations with it, and others choose not to use it. Come one, come all and ask or tell us about your BIDS experiences!

Are you having an issue with BIDS? Come with a question.
Do you have a suggestion or feedback (good or bad) for the BIDS developers? Come and talk back.
Are you tired of people telling you to use BIDS? Come and tell them why you never will.

Our goals for the session are to:
Help people find solutions
Inform ReproNim about issues with BIDS and/or its use, in order to help reduce barriers in the future
Identify success stories in order to create useful tutorials and make it easier for other investigators to use BIDS

If you cannot attend in person, that’s OK, feel free to email comments and questions to info@repronim.org.

ABCD-ReproNim Course 2.0

David Kennedy — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 7:57:23 GMT

Back by popular demand, this ABCD-ReproNim Course is a collaborative effort between the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and ReproNim, to provide comprehensive background, guided curriculum in reproducible data analysis, and hands-on experience working with ABCD datasets. This is a 16-week self-paced, asynchronous, and free online course (e.g., pre-recorded video lectures, supplementary readings, data exercises) that will prepare students for reproducible and responsible analyses of ABCD data.

For Students:
* Registration is required, but enrollment is both rolling and open to an unlimited number of students
* Registration (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenfG13JYAfFkHggagZ8YT5ZSIOKPq7zsoJP8QwaYK5vNuaVw/viewform) is open
* See Participant information/guidelines (https://www.abcd-repronim.org/students.html)

For Teaching Fellows:
* Teaching Fellows Applications – Open Now!
* We are recruiting 10 Teaching Fellows to help with the course (e.g., generate data exercises, host virtual office hours, response to student questions). They will receive a $5,000 participation stipend and an additional $2,000 in travel funds to attend the Miami Hackathon, Jan 20-23, 2026
* Application Deadline:August 1, 2025
* Teaching Fellows Information (https://www.abcd-repronim.org/fellows.html)
* Apply Here - https://www.abcd-repronim.org/fellows.html

Additional Events
* BrainHack Flux, September 1-2, 2025 in Dublin, Ireland
We will be hosting BrainHack Flux (https://fluxsociety.org/brainhack-at-flux-2025-congress/) at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland (Sept 1-2, 2025), just before the Flux 2025 Conference (https://fluxsociety.org/)! Attendees can register through the Flux 2025 Congress registration portal.

* ABCD-ReproNim Hackathon, January 20-23, 2026 in Miami, Florida
After students have an opportunity to work through the course material, we will be hosting the ABCD-ReproNim Hackathon at Florida International University in Miami.
Application deadline: November 1, 2025 (link coming soon)

2025 ReproNim Community Survey

David Kennedy — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 1:16:01 GMT

Greetings.

ReproNim is pleased to announce that the 2025 ReproNim Community Survey is live at:
https://forms.gle/AXqd5ARJZtie38yT6

ReproNim annually tries to get the pulse of the neuroimaging community. We think this information will be valuable to the community itself, and will help developers and practitioners better understand the existing needs and opportunities. This survey can be anonymous, or, if you would like to be contacted about any of the information, you can optionally leave a contact email. The results (but not the optional contact information) will be shared publicly to provide an enhanced dialog between neuroimaging resource users and developers.

There are two main short-answer sections to this survey: First there is a general question. If you only have 2 minutes, we would be very grateful for your response to this question. This is followed by a 'deeper dive' into some of the current practices in neuroimaging, and is comprised of 5 additional questions, that we hope would take only ~10 minutes to complete. Extra gratefulness will be heaped upon those who can contribute to these questions as well.

Thanks in advance for your consideration of this survey.

You are encouraged to take the survey, if you have the time, and to share the survey with any/everyone in the community! The more the merrier...

SOBP BrainHack: Toronto - Registration Open...

David Kennedy — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 4:03:16 GMT

April 22-23, 2025
See the website at: https://www.repronim.org/SOBPHack-042025/
Registration now open at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sobp-brain-hack-2025-tickets-1258326421199?aff=oddtdtcreator

SAVE THE DATE for BrainHack SOBP!

David Kennedy — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 1:12:53 GMT

BrainHack is pleased to announce a 2-day Brain Hackathon on April 22 & 23, 2025 (just before the Annual SOBP Meeting). BrainHack aims to provide researchers with the tools to improve their data science and computational method repertoire. The BrainHack event allows attendees to have open time to work in interdisciplinary teams on projects that utilize design and computational techniques to solve problems of interest to the SOBP community.

Dates: April 22 & 23, 2025

Location: Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, SickKids, 686 Bay St., Toronto, ON M5G 0A4

Cost: A nominal fee is charged to hold spots and support on-site lunch: $50 for Faculty/Staff and $20 for Students. (A Fee waiver is available upon request.)

Contact: sobphackinfo@repronim.org

*Please note that the SOBP has not directly created or managed this meeting or its content. Anyone interested is welcome to attend the meeting, with a maximum of 70 attendees.*