title: Accounting for Dynamic Fluctuations across Time when Examining fMRI Test-Retest Reliability: Analysis of a Reward Paradigm in the EMBARC Study.
abstract: Longitudinal investigation of the neural correlates of reward processing in depression may represent an important step in defining effective biomarkers for antidepressant treatment outcome prediction, but the reliability of reward-related activation is not well understood. Thirty-seven healthy control participants were scanned using fMRI while performing a reward-related guessing task on two occasions, approximately one week apart. Two main contrasts were examined: right ventral striatum (VS) activation fMRI BOLD signal related to signed prediction errors (PE) and reward expectancy (RE). We also examined bilateral visual cortex activation coupled to outcome anticipation. Significant VS PE-related activity was observed at the first testing session, but at the second testing session, VS PE-related activation was significantly reduced. Conversely, significant VS RE-related activity was observed at time 2 but not time 1. Increases in VS RE-related activity from time 1 to time 2 were significantly associated with decreases in VS PE-related activity from time 1 to time 2 across participants. Intraclass correlations (ICCs) in VS were very low. By contrast, visual cortex activation had much larger ICCs, particularly in individuals with high quality data. Dynamic changes in brain activation are widely predicted, and failure to account for these changes could lead to inaccurate evaluations of the reliability of functional MRI signals. Conventional measures of reliability cannot distinguish between changes specified by algorithmic models of neural function and noisy signal. Here, we provide evidence for the former possibility: reward-related VS activations follow the pattern predicted by temporal difference models of reward learning but have low ICCs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Henry W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Chase
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jay C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Fournier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Tsafrir
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Greenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jorge R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Richelle
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stiffler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Carlos R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Zevallos
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Haris
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aslam
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Crystal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thilo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deckersbach
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Weyandt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Marisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toups
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Carmody
authors.affiliation: NY State Psychiatric Institute, Therapeutics Depression Evaluation Service, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Maria A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Oquendo
authors.affiliation: Functional MRI Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peltier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fava
authors.affiliation: NY State Psychiatric Institute, Therapeutics Depression Evaluation Service, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: McGrath
authors.affiliation: NY State Psychiatric Institute, Therapeutics Depression Evaluation Service, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Myrna
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weissman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America; Department of Radiology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ramin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Parsey
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
authors.forename: Melvin G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: McInnis
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Benji
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kurian
authors.affiliation: UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Madhukar H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Trivedi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mary L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Phillips
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results