title: Comparison of Functional Connectivity Estimated from Concatenated Task-State Data from Block-Design Paradigm with That of Continuous Task.
abstract: Functional connectivity (FC) analysis with data collected as continuous tasks and activation analysis using data from block-design paradigms are two main methods to investigate the task-induced brain activation. If the concatenated data of task blocks extracted from the block-design paradigm could provide equivalent FC information to that derived from continuous task data, it would shorten the data collection time and simplify experimental procedures, and the already collected data of block-design paradigms could be reanalyzed from the perspective of FC. Despite being used in many studies, such a hypothesis of equivalence has not yet been tested from multiple perspectives. In this study, we collected fMRI blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals from 24 healthy subjects during a continuous task session as well as in block-design task sessions. We compared concatenated task blocks and continuous task data in terms of region of interest- (ROI-) based FC, seed-based FC, and brain network topology during a short motor task. According to our results, the concatenated data was not significantly different from the continuous data in multiple aspects, indicating the potential of using concatenated data to estimate task-state FC in short motor tasks. However, even under appropriate experimental conditions, the interpretation of FC results based on concatenated data should be cautious and take the influence due to inherent information loss during concatenation into account.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Shanghai Second People's Hospital, Shanghai 200011, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China; School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China.
authors.forename: Naying
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Shanghai Second People's Hospital, Shanghai 200011, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China.
authors.forename: Huawei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5514-2741
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ayaz
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China.
authors.forename: Shanbao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China.
authors.forename: Junfeng
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7614-7127
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology & Institute of Neurology, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8717-1571
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008490:Medical Informatics; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D012016:Reference Values; D012107:Research Design; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen