Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations
Multi-echo fMRI data acquisition has been widely investigated and suggested to optimize sensitivity for detecting the BOLD signal. Several methods have also been proposed for the combination of data with different echo times. The aim of the present study was to investigate how these advance echo com...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-12-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2016.00571/full |
| _version_ | 1818023422590976000 |
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| author | Adam Kettinger Adam Kettinger Christopher Hill Zoltan Vidnyanszky Christian Windischberger Zoltan Nagy |
| author_facet | Adam Kettinger Adam Kettinger Christopher Hill Zoltan Vidnyanszky Christian Windischberger Zoltan Nagy |
| author_sort | Adam Kettinger |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Multi-echo fMRI data acquisition has been widely investigated and suggested to optimize sensitivity for detecting the BOLD signal. Several methods have also been proposed for the combination of data with different echo times. The aim of the present study was to investigate how these advance echo combination methods provide advantages over the simple averaging of echoes when state-of-the-art group-level random-effect analyses are performed. Both resting-state and task-based dual-echo fMRI data were collected from 27 healthy adult individuals (14 male, mean age = 25.75 years) using standard echo-planar acquisition methods at 3T. Both resting-state and task-based data were subjected to a standard image pre-processing pipeline. Subsequently the two echoes were combined as a weighted average, using four different strategies for calculating the weights: (1) simple arithmetic averaging, (2) BOLD sensitivity weighting, (3) temporal-signal-to-noise ratio weighting and (4) temporal BOLD sensitivity weighting. Our results clearly show that the simple averaging of data with the different echoes is sufficient. Advanced echo combination methods may provide advantages on a single-subject level but when considering random-effects group level statistics they provide no benefit regarding sensitivity (i.e. group-level t-values) compared to the simple echo-averaging approach. One possible reason for the lack of clear advantages may be that apart from increasing the average BOLD sensitivity at the single-subject level, the advanced weighted averaging methods also inflate the inter-subject variance. As the echo combination methods provide very similar results, the recommendation is to choose between them depending on the availability of time for collecting additional resting-state data or whether subject-level or group-level analyses are planned. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T03:44:04Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-393370e083c14d31b4acd84219230fa9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-453X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T03:44:04Z |
| publishDate | 2016-12-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-393370e083c14d31b4acd84219230fa92022-12-22T02:03:28ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroscience1662-453X2016-12-011010.3389/fnins.2016.00571225400Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI CombinationsAdam Kettinger0Adam Kettinger1Christopher Hill2Zoltan Vidnyanszky3Christian Windischberger4Zoltan Nagy5Budapest University of Technology and EconomicsHungarian Academy of SciencesUniversity of ZurichHungarian Academy of SciencesMedical University of ViennaUniversity of ZurichMulti-echo fMRI data acquisition has been widely investigated and suggested to optimize sensitivity for detecting the BOLD signal. Several methods have also been proposed for the combination of data with different echo times. The aim of the present study was to investigate how these advance echo combination methods provide advantages over the simple averaging of echoes when state-of-the-art group-level random-effect analyses are performed. Both resting-state and task-based dual-echo fMRI data were collected from 27 healthy adult individuals (14 male, mean age = 25.75 years) using standard echo-planar acquisition methods at 3T. Both resting-state and task-based data were subjected to a standard image pre-processing pipeline. Subsequently the two echoes were combined as a weighted average, using four different strategies for calculating the weights: (1) simple arithmetic averaging, (2) BOLD sensitivity weighting, (3) temporal-signal-to-noise ratio weighting and (4) temporal BOLD sensitivity weighting. Our results clearly show that the simple averaging of data with the different echoes is sufficient. Advanced echo combination methods may provide advantages on a single-subject level but when considering random-effects group level statistics they provide no benefit regarding sensitivity (i.e. group-level t-values) compared to the simple echo-averaging approach. One possible reason for the lack of clear advantages may be that apart from increasing the average BOLD sensitivity at the single-subject level, the advanced weighted averaging methods also inflate the inter-subject variance. As the echo combination methods provide very similar results, the recommendation is to choose between them depending on the availability of time for collecting additional resting-state data or whether subject-level or group-level analyses are planned.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2016.00571/fullfMRIEPImulti-echoSignal dropoutrandom-effects analysisinter-subject variance |
| spellingShingle | Adam Kettinger Adam Kettinger Christopher Hill Zoltan Vidnyanszky Christian Windischberger Zoltan Nagy Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations Frontiers in Neuroscience fMRI EPI multi-echo Signal dropout random-effects analysis inter-subject variance |
| title | Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations |
| title_full | Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations |
| title_fullStr | Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations |
| title_short | Investigating the Group-Level Impact of Advanced Dual-Echo fMRI Combinations |
| title_sort | investigating the group level impact of advanced dual echo fmri combinations |
| topic | fMRI EPI multi-echo Signal dropout random-effects analysis inter-subject variance |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2016.00571/full |
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