Table 2.

Areas of emphasis within a population neuroscience framework

Areas of emphasis	Why?	How?
Increase the representativeness of samples using neuroimaging approaches	• Neuroimaging studies based on convenience samples may not optimally address target research questions or may come to erroneous conclusions	• Increased emphasis on sampling approaches (goal 5)
	• All brains are not the same	• Use of sophisticated sampling and analytic techniques to decrease N needed in samples (goal 3)
Increased collection of larger, well-characterized neuroimaging samples at multiple points across the life span	• Understand developmental trajectories of brain development	• Merging existing data sets and meta-analysis (goal 2)
	• Increase replicability and generalizability of results	• Large-scale collaborative studies
		• Piggybacking neuroimaging on existing behavioral studies
		• Increased work on cross-site imaging and standardization of protocols to allow for combining samples (goal 1)
		• Longitudinal imaging (goal 6)
Increase the emphasis on larger social context and experience as a predictor and moderator of brain-behavior links	• Evidence in social sciences emphasizes the importance of broader context and culture on behavior	• Examination of moderators and collection of data from diverse groups (both cross- and within-culture) (goal 4)
	• Ignoring these variables assumes uniform brain-behavior relationships which is unlikely	• Examination of ecological and interactional models (goal 6)
Increased training and collaboration between neural and social scientists	• Neural science can gain from increased focus on samples and on contextual effects	• Funding focused on this “high-risk, high-reward,” large-scale collaboration
	• Population science can gain from increased understanding of the brain as a mediator of context-behavior links	• Conferences and national meetings for collaboration and learning
		• Emphasis on making each discipline’s methods accessible (goal 5)