{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]],"date-time":"2026-04-15T13:43:03Z","timestamp":1776260583201,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]],"date-time":"2026-04-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1776211200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Neuroinform."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Neuroimaging presents us with an in-depth understanding about brain structure and function, yet the data complexity poses significant analytical challenges. Current frameworks suffer from issues such as scalability, poor integration with traditional statistics and a need for a programing background, which hinder researchers from focusing on neuroscience questions. To address these limitations, we present BrainInsights, an integrated and automated GUI-based pipeline ecosystem designed to facilitate the analysis of multi-modal or multi-parametric neuroimaging data in a flexible way. The framework comprises three core tools: MARIA (MAgnetic Resonance Imaging data Analysis and inspection tool) for data inspection and hypotheses testing, ML Pipeline for automated feature selection and model construction, and ML DaViz for model evaluation and bio-signature generation. Deployed as a singularity container, the system ensures reproducibility and scalability across computing environments. We validated BrainInsights using diverse datasets, including multi-parametric MRI studies of Anorexia Nervosa, Crohn\u2019s disease, and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Specifically, the framework distinguished young Anorexia Nervosa patients from controls with a balanced accuracy of 65%, while in the PreCePRA trial, it predicted Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment response with a balanced accuracy of up to 95.4% using functional pain markers. The results demonstrate the ability of the framework to achieve high separation of subgroups and treatment success and additionally bridge hypotheses-driven statistical analysis with data-driven machine learning analysis. By enabling interpretability tools like SHAP, BrainInsights empowers researchers to move beyond \u201cblack-box\u201d modeling to uncover stable, biologically plausible bio-signatures. Ultimately, this framework aids in accelerating the translation of complex neuroimaging data into meaningful clinical insights.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fninf.2026.1760583","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]],"date-time":"2026-04-15T12:44:27Z","timestamp":1776257067000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["BrainInsights: a comprehensive framework for pre-processing, analysis, and interpretation of neuroimaging data using traditional statistics and machine learning"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Mageshwar","family":"Selvakumar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Andrea","family":"Mendez Torrijos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Laura Cristina","family":"Konerth","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Stefanie","family":"Horndasch","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School and University Medical Center OWL, Protestant Hospital of the Bethel Foundation, Bielefeld University","place":["Bielefeld, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Raja","family":"Atreya","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine 1, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg and Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Erlangen","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Arnd","family":"Doerfler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neuroradiology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg and Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Erlangen","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Georg","family":"Schett","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine 3\u2014Rheumatology and Immunology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg and Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Erlangen","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Juergen","family":"Rech","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine 3\u2014Rheumatology and Immunology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg and Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Erlangen","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Andreas","family":"Hess","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]},{"name":"Department of Neuroradiology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg and Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Erlangen","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]},{"name":"FAU NeW\u2014Research Center for New Bioactive Compounds, Friedrich-Alexander- Universit\u00e4t Erlangen\u2013N\u00fcrnberg","place":["Erlangen, Germany"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"805","DOI":"10.1006\/nimg.2000.0582","article-title":"Voxel-based morphometry\u2014the methods.","volume":"11","author":"Ashburner","year":"2000","journal-title":"NeuroImage"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"26","DOI":"10.1109\/RBME.2011.2170675","article-title":"Analysis of multimodal neuroimaging data.","volume":"4","author":"Biessmann","year":"2011","journal-title":"IEEE Rev. 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