Outsourcing neuroimaging data analysis Implications for scientific accountability and issues in the public interest.

Rodin’s statue The Thinker depicts a solitary ponderer – an iconic image of the individual scientist. Historically, this has been a fitting icon for scientific research in cognitive science domains including philosophy and psychology. However, this ideal is increasingly difficult to achieve in many academic disciplines, and particularly in the field of cognitive neuroscience where the mastery of multiple domains often exceeds the ability of any one individual. The result is an increase in collaborative efforts where responsibility is distributed among a research team. There is, however, an emerging development in cognitive neuroscience. In a new form of collaboration, the academic researcher performing functional neuroimaging can outsource data analysis to commercial companies. Whereas outsourcing might be suitable for some analysis situations, for others it raises important considerations for granting agencies and peer-review policies, and in certain instances can be a disservice to the research enterprise. Although for cognitive neuroscientists outsourcing can be a byproduct of the demands of complex investigations, it is common in other academic fields. Certain biomedical fields, including neuroscience, have outsourced time-consuming procedures that are transparent and/or amenable to standardization (e.g. gene sequencing, tissue analysis and identification of molecular compounds). In such cases outsourcing enables access to knowledgeable analysts, advanced methodologies and expensive equipment. This allows the investigator to remain at the forefront of scientific trends, to maintain several different projects in the research pipeline and to complete projects more quickly. These benefits are now available to neuroimagers. Outsourcing companies provide an array of neuroimaging services for both academic and for private industry clients (e.g. pharmaceutical companies). These services range from low-level image conversion to intermediate pre-processing steps to complete prefabricated analysis pipelines (Table 1). Outsourcing, however, can also have negative implications. The degree of negative impact depends on the degree to which the researcher transfers control [1], which in turn depends on the nature of the outsourcing relationship. In essence, outsourcing neuroimaging data analysis