Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28732273›Full record

ReviewCurrent opinion in neurobiology2017

Using computational theory to constrain statistical models of neural data.

Scott W Linderman, Samuel J Gershman

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Current opinion in neurobiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. An integratediScience · 2026
    Article
  3. Revisiting the role of computational neuroimaging in the era of integrative neuroscience.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024
    Review
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. Statistical neuroscience in the single trial limit.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2021
    Review
  7. Article
  8. Scaling up psychology via Scientific Regret Minimization.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020
    Article
  9. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Scott W LindermanDepartment of Statistics, Columbia University, United States.
Samuel J GershmanDepartment of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, United States. Electronic address: gershman@fas.harvard.edu.

Funding

CRCNS: Representational foundations of adaptive behavior in natural and artificial R01MH109177 · NIMH · PRINCETON UNIVERSITY · PI DAW, NATHANIEL DOUGLASS · 2015 to 2017
$1.2M
NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH109177
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Computational neuroscience is, to first order, dominated by two approaches: the 'bottom-up' approach, which searches for statistical patterns in large-scale neural recordings, and the 'top-down' approach, which begins with a theory of computation and considers plausible neural implementations. While this division is not clear-cut, we argue that these approaches should be much more intimately linked. From a Bayesian perspective, computational theories provide constrained prior distributions on neural data-albeit highly sophisticated ones. By connecting theory to observation via a probabilistic model, we provide the link necessary to test, evaluate, and revise our theories in a data-driven and statistically rigorous fashion. This review highlights examples of this theory-driven pipeline for neural data analysis in recent literature and illustrates it with a worked example based on the temporal difference learning model of dopamine.

Indexed as

Computational BiologyModels, NeurologicalModels, StatisticalAnimalsHumansNeurosciences

Identifiers

PMID28732273
PMCPMC5660645

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.