Küppers Vincent, Cieslik Edna C, Frahm Lennart, Hoffstaedter Felix, Eickhoff Simon B, Langner Robert, Müller Veronika I
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain and Behaviour (INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital and Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Imaging Neurosci (Camb). 2024 Nov 8;2. doi: 10.1162/imag_a_00358. eCollection 2024.
Meta-analytic contrasts are a promising aspect of coordinate-based meta-analyses in neuroimaging research as they facilitate the statistical comparison of two meta-analytic results. They have been used for a multitude of comparisons, such as task conditions, cognitive processes, and groups. However, it remains to be tested how the results of meta-analytic contrasts relate to those of classic meta-analyses and vice versa. Here, we present a comprehensive empirical investigation of this issue using four datasets from different cognitive domains: working memory, working memory load, cognitive interference processing, and emotional face processing. For all four datasets, we compared the results of a standard meta-analysis across prototypical contrasts (condition A > condition B) reported in individual experiments with those of a contrast between two individual meta-analyses of the same conditions (meta-analysis condition A > meta-analysis condition B). In the meta-analytic contrasts, similar brain regions as in the standard meta-analysis were found but with relatively distinct spatial activation patterns. Additionally, fewer regions were revealed in the meta-analytic contrasts, especially in areas where the conditions spatially overlapped. This can be ascribed to the loss of information on the strength of activations in meta-analytic contrasts, across which standard meta-analysis summarize. In one dataset, additional regions were found in the meta-analytic contrast, potentially due to task effects. Our results demonstrate that meta-analytic contrasts can yield similar results to standard meta-analyses but are sparser. This confirms the overall validity, but also limited ability to capture all regions found in standard meta-analyses. Notable differences observed in some cases indicate that such contrasts cannot be taken as an easy substitute for classic meta-analyses of experiment-level contrasts, warranting further research into the boundary conditions for agreement.
元分析对比是神经影像学研究中基于坐标的元分析的一个有前景的方面，因为它们有助于对两个元分析结果进行统计比较。它们已被用于多种比较，如任务条件、认知过程和组别。然而，元分析对比的结果与经典元分析的结果如何相关，反之亦然，仍有待检验。在此，我们使用来自不同认知领域的四个数据集：工作记忆、工作记忆负荷、认知干扰处理和情绪面孔处理，对这个问题进行了全面的实证研究。对于所有这四个数据集，我们将个体实验中报告的典型对比（条件A > 条件B）的标准元分析结果与相同条件的两个个体元分析之间的对比结果（元分析条件A > 元分析条件B）进行了比较。在元分析对比中，发现了与标准元分析中相似的脑区，但空间激活模式相对不同。此外，元分析对比中揭示的脑区较少，尤其是在条件在空间上重叠的区域。这可归因于元分析对比中激活强度信息的丢失，而标准元分析是对这些信息进行汇总的。在一个数据集中，元分析对比中发现了额外的脑区，可能是由于任务效应。我们的结果表明，元分析对比可以产生与标准元分析相似的结果，但更为稀疏。这证实了其整体有效性，但捕捉标准元分析中发现的所有脑区的能力也有限。在某些情况下观察到的显著差异表明，这种对比不能轻易替代实验水平对比的经典元分析，需要进一步研究达成一致的边界条件。
