title: Mixed-effects and fMRI studies.
abstract: This note concerns mixed-effect (MFX) analyses in multisession functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. It clarifies the relationship between mixed-effect analyses and the two-stage "summary statistics" procedure (Holmes, A.P., Friston, K.J., 1998. Generalisability, random effects and population inference. NeuroImage 7, S754) that has been adopted widely for analyses of fMRI data at the group level. We describe a simple procedure, based on restricted maximum likelihood (ReML) estimates of covariance components, that enables full mixed-effects analyses in the context of statistical parametric mapping. Using this procedure, we compare the results of a full mixed-effects analysis with those obtained from the simpler two-stage procedure and comment on the situations when the two approaches may give different results.
authors.affiliation: The Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Friston
authors.forename: K E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Stephan
authors.forename: T E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Lund
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Morcom
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kiebel
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*