Comments and ControversiesUnderstanding DCM: Ten simple rules for the clinician

•This article provides a short introduction to DCM aimed at the clinician.•We work through a fictitious DCM for fMRI experiment, explaining the key steps.•We briefly discuss how this is translated to MEG/EEG/LFP datasets.•We provide the reader with a table of DCM jargon terms.

Despite almost a decade since the introduction of Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM), there remains some confusion within the wider neuroimaging, neuroscience and clinical communities as to what DCM studies are probing, and what all the jargon means. We provide ten simple rules, and a theoretical example to gently introduce the reader to the rationale behind DCM analyses, and how one should consider neuroimaging data and experiments that use DCM. It is deliberately written as a primer or orientation for non-technical imaging neuroscientists or clinicians who have had to contend with the technical intricacies of understanding DCM.