ArticleCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2022
Limits of decoding mental states with fMRI.
Article in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- GINNA, a 33 resting-state networks atlas with meta-analytic decoding-based cognitive characterization.Communications biology · 2025Pooled it
- A machine learning approach towards the differentiation between interoceptive and exteroceptive attention.The European journal of neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Multi-voxel pattern analysis for developmental cognitive neuroscientists.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- The functional neurobiology of negative affective traits across regions, networks, signatures, and a machine learning multiverse.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Precision fMRI and cluster-failure in the individual brain.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- State rumination predicts inhibitory control failures and dysregulation of default, salience, and cognitive control networks in youth at risk of depressive relapse: Findings from the RuMeChange trial.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2024Article
- Clustering Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Time Series in Glioblastoma Characterization: A Review of the Evolution, Applications, and Potentials.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Widespread, perception-related information in the human brain scales with levels of consciousness.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- How our understanding of memory replay evolves.Journal of neurophysiology · 2023Review
- Assessing Pain Research: A Narrative Review of Emerging Pain Methods, Their Technosocial Implications, and Opportunities for Multidisciplinary Approaches.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A growing number of studies claim to decode mental states using multi-voxel decoders of brain activity. It has been proposed that the fixed, fine-grained, multi-voxel patterns in these decoders are necessary for discriminating between and identifying mental states. Here, we present evidence that the efficacy of these decoders might be overstated. Across various tasks, decoder patterns were spatially imprecise, as decoder performance was unaffected by spatial smoothing; 90% redundant, as selecting a random 10% of a decoder's constituent voxels recovered full decoder performance; and performed similarly to brain activity maps used as decoders. We distinguish decoder performance in discriminating between mental states from performance in identifying a given mental state, and show that even when discrimination performance is adequate, identification can be poor. Finally, we demonstrate that simple and intuitive similarity metrics explain 91% and 62% of discrimination performance within- and across-subjects, respectively. These findings indicate that currently used across-subject decoders of mental states are superfluous and inappropriate for decision-making.
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Registered trials
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.