Diversifying participation: The rarity of reporting racial demographics in neuroimaging research

Abstract

Functional neuroimaging has been instrumental to the field of cognitive neuroscience; however, its increasing prevalence has evoked conversations concerning limitations associated with reproducibility and bias. Prevailing racial, cultural, and socioeconomic biases in scientific research perpetuate demographic homogeneity in participation, contributing to failed replicability and generalizability and driving inaccurate representations of neurological normalcy. The current report employs systematic and exploratory search methods to investigate ongoing practices surrounding participant recruitment and documentation. The systematic search found that only 20 out of the 536 articles collected reported the race and ethnicity demographics of their participants, exposing a dearth of race and ethnicity demographics reporting in neuroimaging research. These results drive our recommendations for increased transparency and diversity surrounding research participation.

Keywords

• Neuroimaging
• Diversity
• Participant recruitment
• Demographics