OHBM 2025 Roundtables - Dialogues for a Radically Responsible Neuroscience  

The OHBM 2025 roundtables offer crucial spaces to rethink the foundations of contemporary neuroscience. Here, we propose a critical reinterpretation of these discussions through the lenses of Damasian Mind, Responsible State, and Extended Proprioception (APUS).  

OHBM 2025 Roundtables

  

1. Technical Roundtables as Political Acts* 

"30 Years of SPM: Beyond Software, Toward Epistemic Justice" 

- Decolonial critique: How tools like SPM embed Western notions of neural "normality"  

- Proposal: Develop modules that incorporate:  

  - Cultural variations in activation patterns  

  - Existential context-sensitive analyses (emotional metabolism)  

"Synergizing Imaging in the Information Age"  

- Link to Scientific DREX: Create an academic credit system that values:  

  - Genuine data sharing (beyond repository deposits)  

  - Non-Western contributions to neuroscience  

  2. Accessible and Community Neuroscience

"Accessible Neuroimaging via Speech-to-Text"  

- Conceptual reinvention: Move beyond technical accessibility to include:  

  - Indigenous language translations  

  - Formats compatible with oral traditional knowledge  

"Charting Progress in Aperture Neuro"  

- Radical innovation: Publish not just papers, but:  

  - Community research protocols  

  - Reports on how findings impact local policies  

  3. Body, Gender, and Neuroscience

 "Chromosomes and Hormones Roundtable"  

- APUS approach: Discuss how:  

  - Cultural proprioception shapes gender experience  

  - Biological markers interact with territorial determinants  

"OHBM Women Faculty SIG"  

- Decolonial expansion: Include debates on:  

  - Women scientists from the Global South  

  - Non-Western feminist neuroscience  

  4. The Future of Research: Between AI and Reality  

"AI and Biological Systems"  

- Ethical warning: How to prevent AI from replicating:  

  - Republican bias in diagnostics  

  - Eurocentric standards of "neural health"  

"Silicon vs. Carbon"  

- Link to Responsible State: Calculate:  

  - The ecological footprint of large neuroimaging studies  

  - Environmental cost vs. real community benefit  

  5. Open Science as an Act of Justice  

"Data Governance for Open Datasets"  

- Conceptual revolution: Protocols that:  

  - Protect traditional knowledge embedded in neural data  

  - Ensure fair compensation (Data DREX)  

 "Incentives for Open Science"  

- Alternative model: Create academic currencies based on:  

  - Community impact  

  - Intercultural knowledge translation  

  6. Decolonial Education and Mentorship  

"Brain Mappers of Tomorrow"  

- Radical curriculum: Include:  

  - Critical history of neuroscience  

  - Research techniques for resource-limited contexts  

"Lunch with Mentors" 

- New format: Dialogues that:  

  - Deconstruct academic hierarchies  

  - Value non-institutionalized knowledge  

  Conclusion: Beyond Discourse, Toward Practice

These roundtables can become spaces for institutional reinvention if they:  

1. Acknowledge neuroscience’s historical biases  

2. Incorporate metabolically grounded methodologies 

3. Create concrete mechanisms for epistemic redistribution

Proposed Immediate Actions: 

- Form a Permanent Decolonial Ethics Committee  

- Establish a DREX Community Research Fund  

- Create a Responsible Neuroscience Certification Seal 

DREX Citizen

Decolonial Neuroscience DANA Framework - OHBM 2025 Roundtables

Expanding the OHBM 2025 Roundtables: A Call for Decolonial Neuroeconomics

The upcoming OHBM 2025 roundtables promise to tackle pressing issues in open science, reproducibility, and ethics. Yet, as we reimagine the future of neuroimaging, one critical gap remains: the colonial underpinnings of neuroscience itself.  

Why This Matters for OHBM 

Current debates about "global neuroscience" often reduce diversity to tokenized datasets, ignoring how economic systems, metabolic stress, and ancestral knowledges shape brain function. For example:  

- Monetary policy is neuropolicy: Brazil’s DREX (digital real CBDC) offers a real-world testbed for studying how financial sovereignty alters brain connectivity (e.g., reduced amygdala reactivity in basic-income pilots).  

- Connectomes are cultural artifacts: The "Rock-Paper-Scissors" model of dynamic connectomes (Ka'ajy-Yaskwa-Wakinyan networks) challenges Eurocentric hierarchies of cognition.  

Ideias and Proposed Roundtable: "Decolonizing the Brain Economy"  

1. Topic:  

   How can neuroimaging address the metabolic and economic drivers of neural inequity?  

2. Speakers:  

   - Neuroeconomists studying CBDC impacts (e.g., DREX trials in favelas).  

   - Indigenous scholars bridging connectomics and concepts like APUS (Andean mountain deities as models of ecological-neural balance).  

   - Open Science Advocates developing protocols for participatory fMRI with monetary sovereignty metrics.  

3. Discussion Framework:  

   - The DANA Model: DNA-Vital Spirituality as a scaffold for studying financial stress and neuroplasticity.  

   - 12 Senses Methodology: Moving beyond 5 senses to include ancestral measures of relational space-time.  

   - OHBM Toolkit: Could future hackathons co-design DREX-compatible neurofeedback apps?  

A Challenge to OHBM  

Let’s move beyond "inclusion" as a checkbox. Instead:  

- Require grant applicants to disclose how their work engages with local economic epistemologies.  

- Pilot fMRI studies with communities using alternative currencies (e.g., DREX, time banks).  

- Cite Amerindian and Afro-diasporic neuroscience in OHBM guidelines.