Institute of Medical Research, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2022 Mar;43(4):1463-1476. doi: 10.1002/hbm.25736. Epub 2021 Dec 6.
Dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) has been increasingly used to characterize the brain transient temporal functional patterns and their alterations in diseased brains. Meanwhile, naturalistic neuroimaging paradigms have been an emerging approach for cognitive neuroscience with high ecological validity. However, the test-retest reliability of dFC in naturalistic paradigm neuroimaging is largely unknown. To address this issue, we examined the test-retest reliability of dFC in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) under natural viewing condition. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) of four dFC statistics including standard deviation (Std), coefficient of variation (COV), amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF), and excursion (Excursion) were used to measure the test-retest reliability. The test-retest reliability of dFC in naturalistic viewing condition was then compared with that under resting state. Our experimental results showed that: (a) Global test-retest reliability of dFC was much lower than that of static functional connectivity (sFC) in both resting-state and naturalistic viewing conditions; (b) Both global and local (including visual, limbic and default mode networks) test-retest reliability of dFC could be significantly improved in naturalistic viewing condition compared to that in resting state; (c) There existed strong negative correlation between sFC and dFC, weak negative correlation between dFC and dFC-ICC (i.e., ICC of dFC), as well as weak positive correlation between dFC-ICC and sFC-ICC (i.e., ICC of sFC). The present study provides novel evidence for the promotion of naturalistic paradigm fMRI in functional brain network studies.
动态功能连接（dFC）已被越来越多地用于描述大脑的瞬态时间功能模式及其在病变大脑中的变化。同时，自然神经影像学范式已成为具有高度生态有效性的认知神经科学的新兴方法。然而，自然范式神经影像学中 dFC 的测试 - 重测可靠性在很大程度上是未知的。为了解决这个问题，我们研究了在自然观察条件下功能磁共振成像（fMRI）中 dFC 的测试 - 重测可靠性。使用四个 dFC 统计量的组内相关系数（ICC），包括标准偏差（Std）、变异系数（COV）、低频波动幅度（ALFF）和振幅（Excursion），来测量测试 - 重测可靠性。然后将自然观察条件下 dFC 的测试 - 重测可靠性与静息状态下的测试 - 重测可靠性进行比较。我们的实验结果表明：（a）自然观察条件下 dFC 的全局测试 - 重测可靠性远低于静息状态下的静态功能连接（sFC）；（b）与静息状态相比，自然观察条件下 dFC 的全局和局部（包括视觉、边缘和默认模式网络）测试 - 重测可靠性均有显著提高；（c）sFC 与 dFC 之间存在强烈的负相关，dFC 与 dFC-ICC（即 dFC 的 ICC）之间存在较弱的负相关，以及 dFC-ICC 与 sFC-ICC（即 sFC 的 ICC）之间存在较弱的正相关。本研究为促进自然范式 fMRI 在功能脑网络研究中的应用提供了新的证据。
