Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University.
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
Psychol Sci. 2020 Jul;31(7):792-806. doi: 10.1177/0956797620916786. Epub 2020 Jun 3.
Identifying brain biomarkers of disease risk is a growing priority in neuroscience. The ability to identify meaningful biomarkers is limited by measurement reliability; unreliable measures are unsuitable for predicting clinical outcomes. Measuring brain activity using task functional MRI (fMRI) is a major focus of biomarker development; however, the reliability of task fMRI has not been systematically evaluated. We present converging evidence demonstrating poor reliability of task-fMRI measures. First, a meta-analysis of 90 experiments ( = 1,008) revealed poor overall reliability-mean intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = .397. Second, the test-retest reliabilities of activity in a priori regions of interest across 11 common fMRI tasks collected by the Human Connectome Project ( = 45) and the Dunedin Study ( = 20) were poor (ICCs = .067-.485). Collectively, these findings demonstrate that common task-fMRI measures are not currently suitable for brain biomarker discovery or for individual-differences research. We review how this state of affairs came to be and highlight avenues for improving task-fMRI reliability.
鉴定疾病风险的大脑生物标志物是神经科学的一个日益重要的优先事项。识别有意义的生物标志物的能力受到测量可靠性的限制；不可靠的测量方法不适合预测临床结果。使用任务功能磁共振成像（fMRI）测量大脑活动是生物标志物开发的主要重点；然而，任务 fMRI 的可靠性尚未得到系统评估。我们提供了一致的证据，证明任务 fMRI 测量的可靠性较差。首先，对 90 项实验（= 1008）的荟萃分析显示，整体可靠性较差-平均组内相关系数（ICC）=.397。其次，人类连接组计划（= 45）和达尼丁研究（= 20）收集的 11 项常见 fMRI 任务中先验感兴趣区的活动的测试-重测可靠性较差（ICC =.067-.485）。总的来说，这些发现表明，常见的任务 fMRI 测量目前不适合大脑生物标志物的发现或个体差异研究。我们回顾了这种情况是如何形成的，并强调了提高任务 fMRI 可靠性的途径。
