Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Sep 2015)
Quantitative assessment of visual cortex function with fMRI at 7 Tesla – test-retest variability
Abstract
fMRI-based retinotopic mapping was used to assess systematic variations in activated cortical surface area, amplitude, and coherence across sessions. Seven healthy subjects were scanned at 7 T in three separate sessions with intervals of 51.4 ± 5.4 days (Session 1 and Session 2) and 167.9 ± 24.4 days (Session 2 and Session 3). We found a reduction between Sessions 1 and 2 for activated cortical surface area, between Sessions 1 and Session 3 for amplitude, and between Session 1 and Sessions 2/3 for coherence. The results do not support head motion as a major cause of the observed effect seen in Session 1, suggesting that cognitive effects were the underlying cause of change. The phase correlation for eccentricity and polar angle mapping were highly correlated between sessions, demonstrating the stability of the maps. Furthermore, the sensitivity in determining inter-session changes of cortical surface area, response amplitude, and coherence were, at a 5% significance level, estimated to be 1.5%, 6%, and 5%, respectively. Any future longitudinal fMRI study should carefully evaluate activation across sessions to determine the eligibility of inclusion of all time points. This experimental design provides guidance in methodological issues of clinical longitudinal fMRI-studies, specifically regarding effects of subject experience.
Keywords
