title: Regional homogeneity approach to fMRI data analysis.
abstract: Kendall's coefficient concordance (KCC) can measure the similarity of a number of time series. It has been used for purifying a given cluster in functional MRI (fMRI). In the present study, a new method was developed based on the regional homogeneity (ReHo), in which KCC was used to measure the similarity of the time series of a given voxel to those of its nearest neighbors in a voxel-wise way. Six healthy subjects performed left and right finger movement tasks in event-related design; five of them were additionally scanned in a rest condition. KCC was compared among the three conditions (left finger movement, right finger movement, and the rest). Results show that bilateral primary motor cortex (M1) had higher KCC in either left or right finger movement condition than in rest condition. Contrary to prediction and to activation pattern, KCC of ipsilateral M1 is significantly higher than contralateral M1 in unilateral finger movement conditions. These results support the previous electrophysiologic findings of increasing ipsilateral M1 excitation during unilateral movement. ReHo can consider as a complementary method to model-driven method, and it could help reveal the complexity of the human brain function. More work is needed to understand the neural mechanism underlying ReHo.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, PR China. yfzang@nlpr.ia.ac.cn
authors.forename: Yufeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zang
authors.forename: Tianzi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yingli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Lixia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology