Abstract
PurposeFunctional MRI is not routinely used for neurosurgical planning despite potential important advantages, due to difficulty of determining quality. We introduce a novel method for objective evaluation of fMRI scan quality, based on activation maps. A template matching analysis (TMA) is presented and tested on data from two clinical fMRI protocols, performed by healthy controls in seven clinical centers. Preliminary clinical utility is tested with data from low-grade glioma patients.MethodsData were collected from 42 healthy subjects from seven centers, with standardized finger tapping (FT) and verb generation (VG) tasks. Copies of these “typical” data were deliberately analyzed incorrectly to assess feasibility of identifying them as “atypical.” Analyses of the VG task administered to 32 tumor patients assessed sensitivity of the TMA method to anatomical abnormalities.ResultsTMA identified all atypical activity maps for both tasks, at the cost of incorrectly classifying 3.6 (VG)–6.5% (FT) of typical maps as atypical. For patients, the average TMA was significantly higher than atypical healthy scans, despite localized anatomical abnormalities caused by a tumor.ConclusionThis study supports feasibility of TMA for objective identification of atypical activation patterns for motor and verb generation fMRI protocols. TMA can facilitate the use and evaluation of clinical fMRI in hospital settings that have limited access to fMRI experts. In a clinical setting, this method could be applied to automatically flag fMRI scans showing atypical activation patterns for further investigation to determine whether atypicality is caused by poor scan data quality or abnormal functional topography.
Highlights
Functional MRI (“fMRI”) is one of the most popular and widely used brain activation measurement tools in cognitive neuroscience. fMRI is a non-invasive imaging modality with a spatial resolution that is high compared with other noninvasive functional imaging methods, such as EEG
Clinical applications of fMRI have mostly centered on presurgical use for patients with a brain tumor and patients with epilepsy
It has been shown to be helpful in providing information about brain function topography prior to surgery for brain tumor patients [3, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and epilepsy patients [17], some limitations have been described [18]
Summary
Functional MRI (“fMRI”) is one of the most popular and widely used brain activation measurement tools in cognitive neuroscience. fMRI is a non-invasive imaging modality with a spatial resolution that is high compared with other noninvasive functional imaging methods, such as EEG. FMRI is a non-invasive imaging modality with a spatial resolution that is high compared with other noninvasive functional imaging methods, such as EEG It is relatively accessible due to the wide availability of MRI. Neuroradiology (2020) 62:1677–1688 scanners, in clinical centers These characteristics are important reasons why the development of fMRI has had a strong impact on neuroscience. Clinical applications of fMRI have mostly centered on presurgical use for patients with a brain tumor and patients with epilepsy. In both fields, several reviews have concluded that fMRI can provide important information for clinical care [1,2,3,4,5]. It has been shown to be helpful in providing information about brain function topography prior to surgery for brain tumor patients [3, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and epilepsy patients [17], some limitations have been described [18]
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