What is the main topic of this paper? What do you think of the future of neuroimaging data analysis?
This paper is about applying pattern classification analyses to neuroimaging data, specifically for studies of brain development, both in healthy and disordered brains. While these methods are generally becoming more popular, they have only rarely been applied to study brain development. We hope that this paper will reach a target audience in developmental neuroscience, and serve as an introduction for those who have been curious about these techniques.
For a regular research paper, we usually write the paper first, then choose a journal and submit there. What about review papers?
In this case the review was written in response to a call for papers for a special issue on the developing brain, that accompanied the UC Berkeley Conference on the Developing Brain, which took place in July ('09). Dr. Fumiko Hoeft presented a tutorial on pattern classification, and we wrote the paper together, with Catie Chang who is also at Stanford, as a companion.
Can you compare your experience with writing a research paper to that with a review paper? Which one is more difficult? Can you share some tips in writing a review paper?
Writing this review was challenging, because I was not an expert in this topic, but at the same time it was a great opportunity to learn more about this field. There were some related topics that we would have liked to cover in more detail, but they seemed best for a more focused paper. I think there is a tradeoff between being as thorough as possible and keeping the paper to a readable length and maintaining focus so the reader is not overwhelmed.
To write a review papers like yours, how many papers do you have to cover and how many of them do you have to read thoroughly?
While I think it's impossible to read every paper, there are usually some notable examples that are worth reading so that you really understand the methodology. Probably for some references I just read the abstract and skimmed the paper, but since this was a methods review I wanted to be clear on how the studies were done.
Was this paper peer reviewed? What was the review process and how is it different from a research paper?
Yes, this paper was peer reviewed. I think the process was similar to any frontiers journal. They have an interactive review system that allows the author and reviewer to discuss individual points through a web-based interface. During the review process the identity of the reviewers was kept anonymous, so I was also surprised to see that at the time of publication the names of the reviewers appeared on the cover page.
How did you handle reviewers' criticism (if the paper was reviewed)?
We had included some simulations in the original manuscript to give a qualitative example of how pattern classification methods work in specific situations. The reviewers thought that these were not quantitative enough to be useful, and in the end we agreed so we removed them.
What do you do after work?
I love to ride my bike in the hills behind Stanford. I also like to read, cook and go out dancing.
