Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40661603›Full record

ArticlebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology2025

NiCLIP: Neuroimaging contrastive language-image pretraining model for predicting text from brain activation images.

Julio A Peraza, James D Kent, Thomas E Nichols, Jean-Baptiste Poline, Alejandro de la Vega, Angela R Laird

Abstract readPreprint
In one paragraph

Article in bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–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

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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

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

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

6 authors.

Julio A PerazaDepartment of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3816-5903
James D KentDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-4892-2659
Thomas E NicholsBig Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-4516-5103
Jean-Baptiste PolineDepartment of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-9794-749X
Alejandro de la VegaDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-9062-3778
Angela R LairdDepartment of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3379-8744

Funding

Large-scale meta-analysis of functional MRI dataR01MH096906 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN · PI Alejandro De La Vega · 2012 to 2026
$7.9M
NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH096906
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Predicting cognitive processes from brain activation maps has remained an open question within the neuroscience community for many years. Meta-analytic functional decoding methods aim to tackle this issue by providing a quantitative estimation of behavioral profiles associated with specific brain regions. Existing methods face intrinsic challenges in neuroimaging meta-analysis, particularly in consolidating textual information from publications, as they rely on limited metrics that do not capture the semantic context of the text. The combination of large language models (LLMs) with advanced deep contrastive learning models (e.g., CLIP) for aligning text with images has revolutionized neuroimaging meta-analysis, potentially offering solutions to functional decoding challenges. In this work, we present NiCLIP, a contrastive language-image pretrained model that predicts cognitive tasks, concepts, and domains from brain activation patterns. We leveraged over 23,000 neuroscientific articles to train a CLIP model for text-to-brain association. We demonstrated that fine-tuned LLMs (e.g., BrainGPT models) outperform their base LLM counterparts. Evaluation of NiCLIP predictions revealed that performance is optimized when using full-text articles instead of abstracts, as well as a curated cognitive ontology with precise task-concept-domain mappings. Our results indicated that NiCLIP accurately predicts cognitive tasks from group-level activation maps provided by the Human Connectome Project across multiple domains (e.g., emotion, language, motor) and precisely characterizes the functional roles of specific brain regions, including the amygdala, hippocampus, and temporoparietal junction. However, NiCLIP showed limitations with noisy subject-level activation maps. NiCLIP represents a significant advancement in quantitative functional decoding for neuroimaging, offering researchers a powerful tool for hypothesis generation and scientific discovery.

Indexed as

CLIPdeep learningfMRIfunctional decodinglarge language modelmeta-analysis

Identifiers

PMID40661603
PMCPMC12259196

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

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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.