Wang Jiahui, Ren Yudan, Hu Xintao, Nguyen Vinh Thai, Guo Lei, Han Junwei, Guo Christine Cong
School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Queensland, Australia.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2017 Apr;38(4):2226-2241. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23517. Epub 2017 Jan 17.
Functional connectivity analysis has become a powerful tool for probing the human brain function and its breakdown in neuropsychiatry disorders. So far, most studies adopted resting-state paradigm to examine functional connectivity networks in the brain, thanks to its low demand and high tolerance that are essential for clinical studies. However, the test-retest reliability of resting-state connectivity measures is moderate, potentially due to its low behavioral constraint. On the other hand, naturalistic neuroimaging paradigms, an emerging approach for cognitive neuroscience with high ecological validity, could potentially improve the reliability of functional connectivity measures. To test this hypothesis, we characterized the test-retest reliability of functional connectivity measures during a natural viewing condition, and benchmarked it against resting-state connectivity measures acquired within the same functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. We found that the reliability of connectivity and graph theoretical measures of brain networks is significantly improved during natural viewing conditions over resting-state conditions, with an average increase of almost 50% across various connectivity measures. Not only sensory networks for audio-visual processing become more reliable, higher order brain networks, such as default mode and attention networks, but also appear to show higher reliability during natural viewing. Our results support the use of natural viewing paradigms in estimating functional connectivity of brain networks, and have important implications for clinical application of fMRI. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2226-2241, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
功能连接性分析已成为探究人类大脑功能及其在神经精神疾病中功能障碍的有力工具。到目前为止，大多数研究采用静息态范式来检查大脑中的功能连接网络，这得益于其对临床研究至关重要的低要求和高耐受性。然而，静息态连接性测量的重测信度中等，这可能是由于其行为约束较低。另一方面，自然主义神经成像范式作为认知神经科学的一种新兴方法，具有较高的生态效度，有可能提高功能连接性测量的可靠性。为了验证这一假设，我们在自然观看条件下表征了功能连接性测量的重测信度，并将其与在同一功能磁共振成像（fMRI）会话中获得的静息态连接性测量进行了对比。我们发现，与静息态条件相比，在自然观看条件下，大脑网络的连接性和图论测量的可靠性显著提高，各种连接性测量的平均增幅近50%。不仅视听处理的感觉网络变得更可靠，默认模式和注意力网络等高级大脑网络在自然观看期间似乎也表现出更高的可靠性。我们的结果支持在估计大脑网络功能连接性时使用自然观看范式，并且对fMRI的临床应用具有重要意义。《人类大脑图谱》38:2226 - 2241, 2017。© 2017威利期刊公司。
