Abstract
Animal whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a non-invasive window into brain activity. A collection of associated methods aims to replicate observations made in humans and to identify the mechanisms underlying the distributed neuronal activity in the healthy and disordered brain. Animal fMRI studies have developed rapidly over the past years, fueled by the development of resting-state fMRI connectivity and genetically encoded neuromodulatory tools. Yet, comparisons between sites remain hampered by lack of standardization. Recently, we highlighted that mouse resting-state functional connectivity converges across centers, although large discrepancies in sensitivity and specificity remained. Here, we explore past and present trends within the animal fMRI community and highlight critical aspects in study design, data acquisition, and post-processing operations, that may affect the results and influence the comparability between studies. We also suggest practices aimed to promote the adoption of standards within the community and improve between-lab reproducibility. The implementation of standardized animal neuroimaging protocols will facilitate animal population imaging efforts as well as meta-analysis and replication studies, the gold standards in evidence-based science.
Highlights
A detailed understanding of the mammalian brain structure and function is one of the greatest challenges of modern neuroscience
We recorded animals species, including strain, gender, number of animals used, animal preparation, anesthetic used for maintenance during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), field strength, fMRI sequence and contrast, pre-processing softwares, and noted if the datasets were made available by the authors or in online repositories
Animal fMRI presents the opportunity for new and creative directions in study design, but care must be taken to ensure that experimental changes in the fMRI signal are sufficiently robust
Summary
A detailed understanding of the mammalian brain structure and function is one of the greatest challenges of modern neuroscience. In addition to providing an important baseline of healthy cohorts, these initiatives are complemented with population imaging dedicated to specific psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (Petersen et al, 2010; Weiner et al, 2012), the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (Di Martino et al, 2014), or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (HD-200 Consortium, 2012). These resources have significantly advanced our understanding of neuro- and psychopathologies, as well as providing an understanding of disorder spectrums at a population level
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