Retraction to rebound: DIANA paper

Much controversy has emerged since the first appearance of the DIANA paper in the popular literature. Due to the high status of the journal and the high stakes of the claims, a flurry of activities followed to replicate the results which turned out to be elusive. Now, in a nod to the first scientific rebuttal of the paper (Phi Van 2024, A different interpretation of the DIANA fMRI signal), Prof. J.-Y. Park put out a pre-print discussing possibility of contamination of the DIANA signal by artifacts in spoiled gradient-echo imaging. The team, now with a new, rising graduate student (J.-Y. Keum) in the lead, observed non-biological signals akin to DIANA under certain conditions, and concluded that such conditions were likely present in the original experiments. See: Update on the reproduction and interpretation of DIANA fMRI. Given this revelation, the team decided to retract the paper from the journal Science while investigating the exact role that such artifacts played in the initial results. Does this mean the end of DIANA? Unlikely. First, the original paper triggered massive interest in line scan-based fast fMRI which will likely continue in some form. Second, the sheer amount of positive data on detailed association between the DIANA signal and neuronal activities (Keum 2024, Direct imaging of neural activity reveals neural circuits via spatiotemporal activation mapping) cannot possibly be all coincidental. We may still be chasing the signal mechanism. Practically, at any rate, this development underlined the difficulty of separating out a neuronal signal from non-biological artifacts when the former has a low SNR on the order of 0.1%.

MRI research lab featured in public blog

The MRI research lab in NY is featured in the company's public blog, highlighting the lab's history of innovation and recent neuroimaging emphasis. See here.

In a separate news, the King's College in London, UK has announced the 4th High-Performance Neuroimaging Symposium to be held in December (link). This two-day meeting will prominently feature the Lab's 3T head-only scanner development and applications.