TE-dependent spatial and spectral specificity of functional connectivity |
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Authors: | Wu Changwei W Gu Hong Zou Qihong Lu Hanbing Stein Elliot A Yang Yihong |
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Affiliation: | a Neuroimaging Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USAb Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwanc MRI Research Center and Beijing City Key Lab for Medical Physics and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China |
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Abstract: | Previous studies suggest that spontaneous fluctuations in the resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) signal may reflect fluctuations in transverse relaxation time (T2?) rather than spin density (S0). However, such S0 and T2? features have not been well characterized. In this study, spatial and spectral characteristics of functional connectivity on sensorimotor, default-mode, dorsal attention, and primary visual systems were examined using a multiple gradient-echo sequence at 3 T. In the spatial domain, we found broad, local correlations at short echo times (TE ≤ 14 ms) due to dominant S0 contribution, whereas long-range connections mediated by T2? became explicit at TEs longer than 22 ms. In the frequency domain, compared with the flat spectrum of S0, spectral power of the T2?-weighted signal elevated significantly with increasing TE, particularly in the frequency ranges of 0.008-0.023 Hz and 0.037-0.043 Hz. Using the S0 spectrum as a reference, we propose two indices to measure spectral signal change (SSC) and spectral contrast-to-noise ratio (SCNR), respectively, for quantifying the RS-fMRI signal. These indices demonstrated TE dependency of connectivity-related fluctuation strength, resembling functional contrasts in activation-based fMRI. These findings further confirm that large-scale functional circuit connectivity based on BOLD contrast may be constrained within specific frequency ranges in every brain network, and the spectral features of S0 and T2? could be valuable for interpreting and quantifying RS-fMRI data. |
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Keywords: | fMRI Spontaneous fluctuations Functional connectivity Echo time Frequency |
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