Michael P. Milham, MD, PhD, is an internationally recognized neuroscience researcher, clinician, and the founding director of the Center for the Developing Brain at the Child Mind Institute.
You have helped found and organize several major brain imaging data sharing projects, starting with the 1000 Functional Connectomes Project. Could you tell us a bit about how these projects got started?
That actually brings up a funny memory – back in 2008, myself and some colleagues had just had a paper accepted, which focused on establishing the test-retest reliability resting-state after MRI in the journal Cerebral Cortex. At that point I was in San Francisco, and went for a truly bizarre hair cutting experience.
As I walked out the door of the barbers, I rang my colleague Zarrar Shehzad and mentioned that we should start looking across imaging sites. Zarrar, a talented Research Assistant of mine at the time, asked “why would I do that?” My response was “you’re right! It’s not your thing”. I then called Bharat Biswal, a friend and colleague, who helped to found resting state fMRI – he was very excited to give it a try. Continue reading →
