At the core of interdisciplinary research are individuals from diverse scientific backgrounds joining together to solve problems. Both individual scientists and the scientific discipline are changed by the process of sharing ideas and creating new knowledge.

Brain scientists come from a variety of fields and interact with one another and with imaging scientists. They include: neurologists, psychiatrists, neurosurgeons, neuropharmacologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, geneticists, molecular biologists, etc. Imaging scientists include biomedical engineers, computer scientists, neuroradiologists, radiochemists, etc. Bridges between these groups, which actively collaborate with one another, are also built by people with expertise in biostatistics and bioinformatics. The products of all these interactions includes the development of tools that become widely used, such as software for image analysis, and the further development of new fields, such as neuroeconomics.