Quantification of head motion in children during various fMRI language tasks.
OBJECTIVE
Head motion during functional MRI scanning can lead to signal artifact, a problem often more severe with children. However, the documentation for the characteristics of head motion in children during various language functional tasks is very limited in the current literature. This report characterizes head motion in children during fMRI as a function of age, sex, and task.


METHODS
Head motion during four different fMRI language tasks was investigated in a group of 323 healthy children between the age of 5 and 18 years. A repeated measures ANOVA analysis was used to study the impact of age, sex, task, and the interaction of these factors on the motion.


RESULTS
Pediatric subjects demonstrated significantly different amounts of head motion during fMRI when different language tasks were used. Word-Picture Matching, the only task that involved visual engagement, suffered the least amount of motion, which was significantly less than in any of the other three tasks; the latter were not significantly different from each other. Further examination revealed that the main effect of language task on motion was significantly affected by age, sex, and their interaction.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that age, sex, and task are all associated with the degree of head motion in children during fMRI experiments. Investigators working with pediatric patients may increase their success by using task components associated with less motion (e.g., visual stimuli), or by using this large scale dataset to estimate the effects of sex and age on motion for planning purposes.
Yuan
Weihong
W
Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45229, USA. weihong.yuan@cchmc.org
Altaye
Mekibib
M
Ret
Jen
J
Schmithorst
Vincent
V
Byars
Anna W
AW
Plante
Elena
E
Holland
Scott K
SK
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019416:Head Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009038:Motion; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors
D010100:Oxygen