75 - Russ Poldrack: What can neuroimaging research tell us about the brain and why is reproducible neuroscience important?

Bella chats with professor Russ Poldrack.

Russ is the Albert Ray Lang professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he directs the Poldrack lab. Russ also serves as the director of the Stanford Center for Reproducible Neuroscience and the SDS center for Open and Reproducible science. Russ and his lab use cognitive, computational, and neuroimaging approaches to study how decision-making, executive control, and learning and memory are implemented in the human brain.

In this episode, we discussed Russ's research in cognitive neuroscience using neuroimaging techniques such as MRI and fMRI, as well as his effort and contribution to reproducible science. For example, along with colleagues, Russ created and is currently managing a platform called Openneuro, an Open Archive For Analysis And Sharing Of Brain Initiative Data. Russ also talked about an innovative and fascinating study called “My connectome project”, in which he was his own subject for 18 months. He then shared interesting findings from this project and how this project had impacted how he thinks about his brain and future neuroimaging research. 

In the end, Russ shared his advice and tips with people who are applying to graduate school in neuroscience, as well as a fun story about discovering a surprising finding in his own brain.

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Links:
Russ's lab: https://poldracklab.stanford.edu/
Russ’s Twitter: @russpoldrack
Russ’s books:
- Hard to Break: why our brains make habits stick https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691194325/hard-to-brea
- The New Mind Readers https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691178615/the-new-mind-readers

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