title: Resting State fMRI in the moving fetus: a robust framework for motion, bias field and spin history correction.
abstract: There is growing interest in exploring fetal functional brain development, particularly with Resting State fMRI. However, during a typical fMRI acquisition, the womb moves due to maternal respiration and the fetus may perform large-scale and unpredictable movements. Conventional fMRI processing pipelines, which assume that brain movements are infrequent or at least small, are not suitable. Previous published studies have tackled this problem by adopting conventional methods and discarding as much as 40% or more of the acquired data. In this work, we developed and tested a processing framework for fetal Resting State fMRI, capable of correcting gross motion. The method comprises bias field and spin history corrections in the scanner frame of reference, combined with slice to volume registration and scattered data interpolation to place all data into a consistent anatomical space. The aim is to recover an ordered set of samples suitable for further analysis using standard tools such as Group Independent Component Analysis (Group ICA). We have tested the approach using simulations and in vivo data acquired at 1.5 T. After full motion correction, Group ICA performed on a population of 8 fetuses extracted 20 networks, 6 of which were identified as matching those previously observed in preterm babies.
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK. Electronic address: giulio.ferrazzi@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Giulio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferrazzi
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuklisova Murgasova
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors.forename: Tomoki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Arichi
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Malamateniou
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Antonios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Makropoulos
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Allsop
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rutherford
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Shaihan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Aljabar
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK.
authors.forename: Joseph V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Hajnal
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000196:embryology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus / Q000502:physiology*; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D009038:Motion; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011263:Pregnancy Trimester, Third; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis
keywords: Bias field correction; Fetal fMRI; Resting State Networks; Scattered interpolation; Slice to volume registration; Spin history correction