Pain Neuroimaging SIG

Meeting Date: January 30th 4pm (eastern)

Adam Thomas, PhD leads the Data Science and Sharing Team at the National Institute of Mental Health’s Intramural Research Program. The team mission is to support and advance the creation, distribution, and utilization of large, open datasets to accelerate discovery. The team provides tools and training to help scientists embrace open and reproducible science practices. This includes standardized; community recognized formats and repositories for data storage and dissemination, collaborative, version controlled tools for developing analysis code, and open distribution of all experimental methods and results to maximize impact and reproducibility. In this presentation Dr. Thomas will provide a brief overview of the past, present, and future of neuroimaging data sharing repositories as well as the challenges the field faces in achieving wide adoption of data sharing.

Etienne Vachon-Presseau, PhD

Assistant professor, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University

New insights for chronic pain using large publicly available datasets Substantial scientific progress has been observed due to publicly available large datasets. I will first discuss data-driven models applying machine learning algorithms on self-report questionnaires to derive a pain risk score predictive of different pain conditions, spreading of pain, medical conditions, use of opioids, disability, and other comorbidities. I will then provide specific examples of brain-based biomarkers derived in the UK Biobank for different pain conditions, insisting on the limitations of the approach for personalized medicine. Yet, I will still argue that brain-based biomarkers studied across a wide range of pain-related medical conditions are informative to better understand and characterize chronic pain syndromes.