NeuroImage 254 (2022) 119122

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

NeuroImage
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neuroimage

Diversifying participation: The rarity of reporting racial demographics in

neuroimaging research
Madeline G. Goldfarb, Darin R. Brown∗
Psychology Field Group, Pitzer College, Claremont, CA 91711, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Functional neuroimaging has been instrumental to the field of cognitive neuroscience; however, its increasing
Neuroimaging prevalence has evoked conversations concerning limitations associated with reproducibility and bias. Prevailing
Diversity racial, cultural, and socioeconomic biases in scientific research perpetuate demographic homogeneity in partic-
Participant recruitment
ipation, contributing to failed replicability and generalizability and driving inaccurate representations of neuro-
Demographics
logical 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.

1. Introduction
While Magnetic Resolution Imaging (MRI) and electroencephalo-
gram (EEG) are widely regarded as progressive tools to study the neural
correlates of behavior (Morita et al., 2016), issues of reproducibility
and bias have attracted much attention. In alignment with the 2015
Open Science Collaboration recommendations concerning reproducibil-
ity (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), the current commentary aims to
obtain a sample the participant demographics of functional neuroimag-
ing studies and explore the related methodological constituents that up-
hold such biases in cognitive neuroscience.
As neuroscientists increasingly recognize social and environmen-
tal influences on neural mechanisms and their manifestations, statisti-
cally controlling for such participant idiosyncrasies has become essential
(Farah, 2017; Gilmore et al., 2017; Sauce and Matzel, 2013). Investiga-
tions into social and epigenetic influences have largely refuted theories
of cognition rooted in biological reductionism, demanding the acknowl-
edgment of relevant psychological, environmental, and social effects on
the brain (Champagne, 2010; Morita et al., 2016). The failure to ac-
knowledge individual variation can have profound effects, and many
hypothesize that such neglect contributes to the field’s contention with
reproducibility and generalizability (Chatterjee, 2005; Isamah et al.,
2010).
The current commentary aims to explore demographic influences
through the categories of race and ethnicity. Both constructs are widely
disputed and harbor culturally variable definitions and applications
(Lee, 2009; Loue, 2006), as race is a socially constructed method of ar-
bitrarily classifying humans. Concepts of race/ethnicity are historically
prescribed to reflect economic, political, social, and cultural conditions,
and their boundaries are heavily influenced by colonialism and imperi-
alism (Lee, 2009; Yellow Bird, 1999). Regardless, race and ethnicity are
not inconsequential identifiers, and contemporary dialogue should aim
to refute deterministic definitions of race and ethnicity.
Racial categories have widespread effects, including findings of
racial disparities in clinical outcomes (Brown et al., 2017; Díaz-
Venegas et al., 2016; Isamah et al., 2010). For example, Alzheimer’s
Dementia (AD) is nearly twice as prevalent among Black versus white
adults in the United States, and such rates cannot be explained by cere-
brovascular factors and socioeconomic status (SES) alone (Manly et al.,
2008; Misiura et al., 2020). Instead, race effects on cognition likely
arise through the intersectional layering of unique sociocultural fac-
tors which are both sources for biological modification as well as ef-
fects of their biological embeddings (Lee, 2009; Manly et al., 2008;
Roberts, 2011). Further exploration of race differences in AD revealed
race-specific functional connectivity patterns and electrophysiological
differences (Misiura et al., 2020). Similar neural signaling effects by race
have also been found with respect to other clinical conditions (Chand
et al., 2017; Hokett and Duarte, 2019). In an EEG study investigat-
ing the influence of race on sleep, Black participants’ EEG revealed de-
creased power in the delta and beta bands, and effects were independent
from SES and education (Hall et al., 2020). Race has also been identi-
fied as a direct correlate of cognitive functioning among older adults,

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: darinb@pitzer.edu (D.R. Brown).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119122.
Received 24 April 2021; Received in revised form 17 March 2022; Accepted 19 March 2022
Available online 23 March 2022.
1053-8119/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
M.G. Goldfarb and D.R. Brown
Fig. 1. (a) Breakdown in demographic reporting by journal and technology. The complete search produced 20 articles that reported race or ethnicity demographics
and 516 papers that did not. 10 of the articles were published in NeuroImage and the other 10 were published in Cerebral Cortex. All 20 articles used MRI. (b)
Breakdown of EEG and MRI research identified from the search according to journal of publication. MRI research was published more frequently by both NeuroImage
and Cerebral Cortex.
contrary to expectations of an indirect influence through SES and ed-
ucation (Zsembik and Peek, 2001). These findings support the unique
and confounding effects of race on cognition.
The present commentary aims to review current practices of docu-
menting race in cognitive neuroscience research to determine the field’s
attitudes regarding race as a consequential demographic influencing the
replicability of findings. Moreover, the review aims to draw attention
to issues of diverse participant recruitment as it relates to the gener-
alizability of research conclusions and the perpetuation of inaccurate
descriptions of neurological normalcy.
2. Methods
A systematic approach was employed to explore the racial demo-
graphics of participants in EEG and MRI research. We narrowed the
scope of the search to the top five journals in cognitive neuroscience
according to their SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) Score in 2019. Because
three of these five selected journals predominantly publish review ar-
ticles, the search was restricted to EEG and MRI research published in
Cerebral Cortex (2019) and NeuroImage (2019), reflecting modern prac-
tices in cognitive neuroscience. These methods yielded 536 articles (Ta-
ble S1 of supplement), and papers that reported their participants’ racial
demographics were isolated (Table 1).
Further, racial demographic information was collected for the in-
stitutions and cities through which the research took place to provide
contextual information about the populations from which participants
were recruited. Because race/ethnicity constructs vary by country, these
additional institutional and city-wide demographics were only supple-
mented for research conducted in the United States or regions with sim-
ilar bureaucratically prescribed guidelines. These demographics were
collected from the 2019 US Census and official diversity reports.
3. Results
The systematic search produced 536 articles (Table S1), and 20 pa-
pers documented their participants’ race/ethnicity (Table 1). These 20
articles represented less than 4% of the articles, revealing widespread
neglect of participant race/ethnicity demographics by the field.
In an attempt to better understand the field’s reporting practices,
trends such as reporting rates by journal and technology were isolated
2
NeuroImage 254 (2022) 119122
(Fig. 1). The reporting rates were less than 10% for both journals, sug-
gesting neither requires such demographic information for publication
(Fig. 1A). Moreover, all of the 20 articles reporting racial demographics
used MRI; however, the majority of the articles collected in general used
MRI technology (Fig. 1B).
To investigate these discrepancies, a brief exploratory review of
EEG literature was conducted (see supplement). Overall, the exploratory
analysis revealed a lack of consideration for participant race/ethnicity,
such that the dearth of reporting is not limited to research published
in NeuroImage and Cerebral Cortex (Table S2). Nevertheless, certain
methodological practices in EEG research (see discussion) have led to
documented difficulties in recruiting participants of color, suggesting a
degree of homogeneity across EEG research participation (Etienne et al.,
2020).
4. Discussion
The methods and techniques used in cognitive neuroscience are ad-
vancing at an impressive rate; however, the most efficacious progress is
often multifaceted, and the inability to recognize demographic variables
in neuroscientific research has vast implications (Gilmore et al., 2017).
The lack of consideration of these factors is problematic, resulting in
inaccurate representations of neurological normalcy.
As shown in the results, only 20 of the 536 articles documented
their participants’ race/ethnicity, exposing a significant methodologi-
cal lapse in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Beyond the extensive
research supporting the importance of racial considerations in neuro-
science research, the lack of transparency perpetuates division in the
field, hindering progress and discovery (Abiodun, 2019; Jones et al.,
2020). Thus, our first recommendation calls for increased transparency
surrounding participation recruitment and demographic information.
Ideally, racial demographic documentation would supply a cohesive
narrative surrounding recruitment (i.e., the methods, geography, and
institutions) and expand upon the demographics widely collected by
the field to date (i.e., sex, age, education). Importantly, these reporting
recommendations should be expanded to cover other social factors (e.g.,
SES) that have suffered from low reporting rates.
However, the complexities surrounding race/ethnicity hinder the
idealistic portrayal of a given cohort (Konkel, 2015), likely perpetuat-
ing the limited transparency and lack of uniformity in the demographics
 M.G. Goldfarb and D.R. Brown
Table 1
Overview of articles documenting participant racial demographics in the systematic search.

Participant Demographics (%) Institutional Demographics (%) City Demographics (%)

Article Tech White Black Asian Indig. Latinx 2+ NR Source of Recruitment∗ White Black Asian Indig. Latinx 2+ NR City White Black Asian Indig. Latinx 2+ NR

Nemrodov et al. (2019) MRI 100 0 0 0 – – – Carnegie Mellon University 28.1 4.3 30.5 0 8.9 – 9.7 Pittsburgh, PA 66.9 23.2 5.7 0.2 3.1 3.5 –
Engelhardt et al. (2019) MRI 43.6 5.1 5.1 – 14.5 29.9 1.7 University of Texas Austin 39.9 4.9 19.5 0.1 21.7 2.7 1.2 Austin, TX 48.3 7.8 7.3 0.6 34.3 3.3 –
Spasov et al. (2019) MRI 99.98 – – – – – 0.02 ADNI, Harvard University 42.9 6.7 17.4 0.2 11.4 – 9.2 Cambridge, MA 67 11 16 0.2 9.2 4.1 –
Thomason et al. (2019) MRI 15.4 62.9 7.7 0 – 7.7 – Michigan State University 65.7 6.8 5.2 0.2 4.3 2.8 – Detroit, MI 14.6 78.6 1.6 0.3 7.6 1.9 —
Fan et al. (2019) MRI 69.5 8.3 19.4 0 2.7 – – Harvard University 42.9 6.7 17.4 0.2 11.4 – 9.2 Boston, MA 52.6 25.3 9.6 0.3 19.7 5.1 –
Boots et al. (2019) MRI 45.7 46.8 – 0 7.4 – – University of Illinois at Chicago 33.8 7.9 18.7 0.1 24.5 2.7 – Chicago, IL 49.4 30.1 6.4 0.3 29 2.7 –
Valenza et al. (2019) MRI 85.29 5.88 – 0 20.59 – – HCP, Harvard University 42.9 6.7 17.4 0.2 11.4 – 9.2 Cambridge, MA 67 11 16 0.2 9.2 4.1 –
Yu et al. (2019) MRI 0 0 100 0 0 – – Tangdu Hospital Shaanxi, China
Harnett et al. (2019) MRI 27.78 72.22 0 0 – – – Birmingham, AL area 59.9 21.2 5.7 0.04 3.2 3.6 – Birmingham, AL 25.3 70.5 0.9 0.2 3.7 1.6 –
Richmond et al. (2019) MRI 71.03 – – – – – 20.7 University of Melbourne Melbourne,
Australia
Jha et al. (2019) MRI 76 21.4 2.1 0.4 – – – University of North Carolina at 62 8 10.7 0.1 7.8 – – Chapel Hill, NC 72.9 9.9 12.5 0.2 6.6 3 –
3

Chapel Hill
Selvaggi et al. (2019) MRI 100 0 0 0 – – – Apulia, Italy Apulia, Italy
Herzmann et al. (2019) MRI – 57.5 – – – – 42.5 Washington University in 52.2 8.1 16.6 0.1 8.5 – 6.6 St. Louis, MO 46.2 46.9 3.2 0.2 4 2.3 –
St. Louis
Ferradal et al. (2019) MRI 45 – – – – – 55 Harvard University 42.9 6.7 17.4 0.2 11.4 – 9.2 Boston, MA 52.6 25.3 9.6 0.3 19.7 5.1 –
Marecková et al. (2019) MRI 100 0 0 0 – – – Masaryk University Brno, Czechia
Morton et al. (2019) MRI 62 17.4 6.5 – 15.2 – 14.1 Wake Forest University 67.5 8.4 3.8 0.8 6.4 2.3 – Boston, MA 52.6 25.3 9.6 0.3 19.7 5.1 –
Reineberg et al. (2019) MRI 82.7 11.3 4.5 – – – – University of Colorado Boulder 66.3 1.6 5.3 0.2 11 4.9 – Boulder, CO 87.2 1.2 5.6 0.3 9.8 3.9 –
Del Maschio et al. (2019) MRI 48 0 52 0 – – – Vita-Salute San Raffaele Hong Kong
University, University of Hong
Kong, Beijing Normal University
Xin et al. (2019) MRI 50 33 0 0 17 – – Allen Human Brain Atlas 42.9 6.7 17.4 0.2 11.4 – 9.2 Cambridge, MA 67 11 16 0.2 9.2 4.1 –
Xu et al. (2019) MRI 75 – – – – – 25 Parkland Hospital in Dallas Dallas, TX 62.5 24.3 3.4 0.3 41.7 2.5 –

Note. The demographics are as reported by the author of research, institution, or census. Demographic categories reflect those outlined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with adaptations suggested by scholars
and activists: white, Black or African American, Asian, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and Latinx or Hispanic (National Institutes of Health. Updated June, 2018; Yellow Bird, 1999).
(∗ ) Source of participant reflects the sources from which the researchers found participants or the institution of the last author, if no source is documented.

NeuroImage 254 (2022) 119122

M.G. Goldfarb and D.R. Brown
presented in Table 1. These inadequate reporting methods are unique
to race/ethnicity and likely avert scientists in the field from consider-
ing such demographics (Lee, 2009). Thus, our second recommendation
surrounds the development of standard reporting guidelines.
Initiatives by the NIH (e.g., Human Subjects System) have required
clinical researchers to report their racial/ethnic demographics to pro-
mote diversity and inclusion; however, no such programs exist for basic
science research (National Institutes of Health. Updated June, 2018).
Without an analogous diversity standard, neuroimaging researchers
could continue to recruit homogenous participant groups. An estab-
lished standard for reporting race/ethnicity demographics would sup-
port transparency in the field, clarifying the landscape of diversity and
promoting inclusion in neuroscience research. Such guidelines and re-
quirements may be most effective if established by journals of publica-
tion.
While the small sample size of articles with documented demograph-
ics offers limited analysis of participant diversity, a prevailing bias in
research participation alludes to predominantly homogenous cohorts,
driving the third recommendation of the current review to encourage
diverse participant recruitment. Studies have revealed that approxi-
mately 80% of global research participants in neuroscience and psy-
chology belong to wealthy, Western, and well-educated societies, and
biases favoring white research participants have been well documented
(Henrich et al., 2010; Konkel, 2015). The conclusions made by cognitive
neuroscientists have vast implications, and thus, generalizations about
human behavior must be cautiously applied. Without strict disclosure
regarding the population to whom the results of a given study apply, it
is injurious to assume that findings can generalize beyond the typical
white, wealthy, and well-educated participant.
To support our appeal for diverse recruitment, we lastly call for pro-
gressive solutions to address currently prejudicial methodological prac-
tices. It is widely recognized that the mesh electrode cap used in EEG
research discriminates against those with textured or non-white hair and
inhibits diverse participant recruitment (Etienne et al., 2020). These
trends were supported by our exploratory analysis (see supplement).
Such inequities are rivaled by ongoing work in the field to develop cre-
ative solutions surrounding the EEG cap (Etienne et al., 2020) and we
support these and similar efforts.
While functional neuroimaging offers progressive insights into the
physiological mechanisms underlying behavior, demographics of race
and ethnicity have been largely neglected by the field of cognitive neu-
roscience. Race may or may not have a confounding role and contribute
to issues of replicability and generalizability, but such conclusions can-
not be substantiated without the corresponding participant data. With-
out clear demographic disclosure, cohorts cannot be determined to rep-
resent the general population, and perceptions regarding the effects of
race on cognition cannot be ascertained. Given the histories of the field,
participant race/ethnicity demographics are critical for contextualizing
contemporary research by exposing biased methodologies and support-
ing investigations into their confounding effects on cognition.
Data and code availably statement
The demographic data for the studies used to support the findings of
this commentary are available online on the NeuroImage [https://www.
journals.elsevier.com/neuroimage] and Cerebral Cortex [https://
academic.oup.com/cercor] webpages. Census data was obtained from
the United States Census Bureau webpage [https://www.census.gov/
data.html]. All webpages where data was obtained is open to the public.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agen-
cies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declarations of Competing Interest
None.
NeuroImage 254 (2022) 119122
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119122.
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