In this paper, we have investigated local spatial couplings in the human brain by applying nonlinear dynamical techniques on fMRI data. We have recorded BOLD-contrast echo-planar fMRI data along with high-resolution T1-weighted anatomical images from the resting brain of healthy human subjects and performed physiological correction on the functional data. The corrected data from resting subjects is spatially embedded into its phase space and the largest Lyapunov exponent of the resulting attractor is calculated and whole slice maps are obtained. In addition, we segment the high-resolution anatomical image and obtain a down sampled mask corresponding to gray and white matter, which is used to obtain mean indices of the exponents for both the tissues separately. The results show the existence of local couplings, its tissue specificity (more local coupling in gray matter than white matter) and dependence on the size of the neighborhood (larger the neighborhood, lesser the coupling). We believe that these techniques capture the information of a nonlinear and evolving system like the brain that may not be evident from static linear methods. The results show that there is evidence of spatio-temporal chaos in the brain, which is a significant finding hitherto not reported in literature to the best of our knowledge. We try to interpret our results from healthy resting subjects based on our knowledge of the native low frequency fluctuations in the resting brain and obtain a better understanding of the local spatial behavior of fMRI. This exploratory study has demonstrated the utility of nonlinear dynamical techniques like spatial embedding in analyzing fMRI data to gain meaningful insights into the working of human brain.
Synchronized oscillations in resting state timecourses have been detected in recent fMRI studies. These oscillations are low frequency in nature (< 0.08 Hz), and seem to be a property of symmetric cortices. These fluctuations are important as a potential signal of interest, which could indicate connectivity between functionally related areas of the brain. It has also been shown that the synchronized oscillations decrease in some spontaneous pathological states. Thus, detection of these functional connectivity patterns may help to serve as a gauge of normal brain activity. The cognitive effects of muscle fatigue are not well characterized. Sustained fatigue has the potential to dynamically alter activity in brain networks. In this work, we examined the interhemispheric correlations in the left and right primary motor cortices and how they change with muscle fatigue. Resting-state functional MRI imaging was done before and after a repetitive unilateral fatigue task. We find that the number of significant correlations in the bilateral motor network decreases with fatigue. These results suggest that resting-state interhemispheric motor cortex functional connectivity is affected by muscle fatigue.
KEYWORDS: Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Brain, Physiology, Nonlinear dynamics, Signal to noise ratio, Brain mapping, Dynamical systems, Time metrology, Magnetic resonance imaging, Neuroimaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique that is sensitive to correlates of neuronal activity. The application of fMRI to measure functional connectivity of related brain regions across hemispheres (e.g. left and right motor cortices) has great potential for revealing fundamental physiological brain processes. Primarily, functional connectivity has been characterized by linear correlations in resting-state data, which may not provide a complete description of its temporal properties. In this work, we broaden the measure of functional connectivity to study not only linear correlations, but also those arising from deterministic, non-linear dynamics. Here the delta-epsilon approach is extended and applied to fMRI time series. The method of delays is used to reconstruct the joint system defined by a reference pixel and a candidate pixel. The crux of this technique relies on determining whether the candidate pixel provides additional information concerning the time evolution of the reference. As in many correlation-based connectivity studies, we fix the reference pixel. Every brain location is then used as a candidate pixel to estimate the spatial pattern of deterministic coupling with the reference. Our results indicate that measured connectivity is often emphasized in the motor cortex contra-lateral to the reference pixel, demonstrating the suitability of this approach for functional connectivity studies. In addition, discrepancies with traditional correlation analysis provide initial evidence for non-linear dynamical properties of resting-state fMRI data. Consequently, the non-linear characterization provided from our approach may provide a more complete description of the underlying physiology and brain function measured by this type of data.
KEYWORDS: Independent component analysis, Denoising, Data modeling, Magnetic resonance imaging, Interference (communication), Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Data acquisition, Brain, Principal component analysis, Signal to noise ratio
Resting state oscillations have been detected in functional MRI studies, and appear to be synchronized between functionally related areas. It has also been shown that these synchronized oscillations decrease in some pathological states. Thus, these fluctuations are important as a potential signal of interest, which could indicate connectivity between functionally related areas of the brain. A current challenge is to detect these patterns without using an external reference. ICA analysis is a promising model-free technique that finds the independent components in a data set. A drawback to using ICA is the possibility of convergence problems in the presence of noise, and signal mixing across components. This work utilizes a recently developed denoising method as a preprocessing step to condition task and resting state functional MRI data for ICA analysis. The advantages of this approach include increased reliability of ICA results and allowing region specific signal patterns to be separated using a model-free analysis.
KEYWORDS: Linear filtering, Magnetic resonance imaging, Brain, Statistical analysis, Data acquisition, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Algorithm development, Scanners, Medical imaging, Physiology
Synchronized oscillations in resting state timecourses have been detected in recent fMRI studies. These oscillations are low frequency in nature (<0.08 Hz), and seem to be a property of symmetric cortices. These fluctuations are important as a pontential signal of interest, which could indicate connectivity between functionally related areas of the brain. It has also been shown that the synchronized oscillations decrease in some spontaneous pathological states (such as cocaine injection). Thus, detection of these functional connectivity patterns may help to serve as a guage of normal brain activity. Currently, functional connectivity detection is applied only in offline post-processing analysis. Online detection methods have been applied to detect task activation in functional MRI. This allows real-time analysis of fMRI results, and could be important in detecting short-term changes in functional states. In this work, we develop an outline algorithm to detect low frequency resting state functional connectivity in real time. This will extend connectivity analysis to allow online detection of changes in "resting state" brain networks.
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