{
  "id": 10749790,
  "title": "Neuroimaging of intimate partner violence can underrepresent the most affected survivors",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/29/neuroimaging-of-intimate-partner-violence-can-underrepresent-the-most",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-29T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753381v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Neuroimaging is being utilized more frequently to comprehend intimate partner violence (IPV) and the resulting brain injuries (BI). However, these studies might not reflect the experiences of those most impacted due to the nature of IPV and BI. A key question arises: Which groups are represented in neuroimaging research on IPV and associated BI? Researchers analyzed eligibility, participation, and quality control processes using screening records from 352 women and a later cohort of 207 women who enrolled after experiencing physical IPV.\n\nThe eligibility stage revealed that 60% of women deemed eligible for behavioral research were disqualified for MRI due to specific criteria. At the participation stage, the 61 women who underwent resting-state functional MRI were better educated, more likely to be employed, and reported fewer mental health and behavioral issues than those who did not participate in neuroimaging. The quality-control stage, post-fMRI, showed that motion-based exclusions disproportionately removed women who had experienced the worst partner-inflicted BIs.\n\nThe study's findings illustrate that every stage of the neuroimaging process can skew the representation of demographics, clinical histories, abuse history, and BI severity in an fMRI sample. This bias raises concerns about the generalizability of research findings. By identifying and reporting representation bias, researchers can better understand which experiences are missing from the evidence and work towards minimizing the risk of underestimating the very harms they aim to study.",
  "summary": "Neuroimaging is becoming an increasingly prominent tool to understand intimate partner violence (IPV) and partner-inflicted brain injury (BI). Yet, by nature of IPV and partner-inflicted BI, those most affected may be the least likely to be eligible, participate, and produce usable data in neuroimaging studies. A critical question therefore remains of who is represented in neuroimaging research…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}