Collaborate
NCI is an open framework that demands scrutiny, validation, and expansion. If you want to test these ideas rigorously, we want to work with you.
What We're Asking For
Each item tests a named claim. A clean failure is as useful to us as a success.
The order of failure under load
Sleep-restriction or sustained-load studies with high-density EEG and standard gating, task-switching and reasoning tasks: does flexibility fail first, abstraction next and filtering last? Prediction 1.
Late-life decline around transitions
Longitudinal aging cohorts: within-person comparisons around a dated retirement, bereavement, relocation or sensory loss, against age-matched controls (Part 2, §9.5).
Burnout by type of work
Existing burnout data with measured task properties: does the factor structure differ between work that holds care and threat on one patient and work that alternates between settings? Prediction 8.
Which configuration the workplace suits
O*NET occupational ratings scored against the five comparators, with the crosswalk registered before anyone looks at the distribution (Part 2, §7.1.5).
Repertoire width in daily life
Experience sampling with wearable sleep and heart-rate-variability data: under load, does the range of behavior narrow more than its center shifts? Prediction 2.
An instrument that separates Position from Range
Part 2 specifies what a conforming instrument must do (§9.4); none exists. Psychometricians and experience-sampling specialists could build it and test it against the Big Five, the TCI and the sensory-processing sensitivity scale. Every study stratified by profile waits on it.
Predictions that need each person’s profile
Prediction 3 (container by tag), Prediction 6 (comparator dissociation) and Prediction 7 (axis separability) need a validated estimate of each participant’s configuration first.
Cross-cultural structure
With an instrument in hand: do the five profiles recur across cultures, or does culture shape their expression and distribution?
Energy turnover under load
Phosphorus magnetization-transfer spectroscopy in the same person at rest and under load, then after sleep deprivation with and without creatine. Prediction 10.
Two brakes on adult plasticity
Rodent sensory entrainment at 40 Hz, 60 Hz and sham, with perineuronal-net and histone measures in the same animals. Prediction 9.
The Three Locks
Staged mechanistic work and ethically approved longitudinal studies of budget, structure and attribution. Structural markers need validating first: peripheral matrix measures are not direct assays of perineuronal nets. Prediction 5.
Imaging with calibrated perfusion
Imaging studies of NCI’s parameters should co-acquire arterial spin labeling or cerebrovascular-reactivity calibration. Resting perfusion varies about twofold between healthy adults, and between-person contrasts may otherwise report it (Part 2, §8).
Pathways
Whether you're a researcher, clinician, educator or institution, there's a way to test, critique or extend the framework.
Research Partnerships
Design or run a test of one of the claims above. We can offer the framework, Part 2’s measurement specification (§9.4), and help with study design and pre-registration. We need research-design expertise, cohorts and datasets, ethics review, imaging and spectroscopy facilities, and publication routes.
Discuss a partnership →Clinicians
Clinicians see the presentations NCI tries to explain, and are well placed to say where it fails. We welcome clinical collaborators in studies with ethics approval and informed consent. NCI is not a diagnostic system or a treatment protocol, and nobody should change a patient’s care on the basis of a theoretical framework (Part 2, §1.2).
Discuss clinical research →Academic Institutions
We welcome relationships with departments in psychology, neuroscience, physiology, occupational health and related fields: guest lectures, thesis co-supervision with NCI as a research topic, and teaching on personality, individual differences and neurodiversity.
Start a conversation →Critical Review
We explicitly welcome constructive criticism from established researchers. If our framework has weaknesses, we want to know. If our neuroscience claims overreach, we want to correct them. Rigor is more important than marketing. The framework is designed to be testable and falsifiable — and we mean it.
Submit a critique →Cite the monographs by section number (§). Both citations are on About NCI and the Monograph page.
Get in Touch
Whether you're a researcher, clinician, or simply someone who finds this framework compelling — we'd like to hear from you.