Abstract
Effectively minimizing head motion continues to be a challenge for the collection of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. The use of individual-specific custom molded headcases is a promising solution to this issue, but there has been limited work to date. In the present work, we examine the efficacy of headcases in a larger group of participants engaged in naturalistic scanning paradigms including: long movie-watching scans (~20 to 45min) and a recall task that involved talking aloud inside the MRI. Unlike previous work, we find that headcases do not reliably reduce motion during movie viewing compared to alternative methods such as foam pillows or foam pillows plus medical tape. Surprisingly, we also find that motion is worse when participants talk aloud while wearing headcases. These differences appear to be driven by large, brief rotations of the head as well as translations in the z-plane as participants speak. Smaller, constant head movements appear equivalent with or without headcases. The largest reductions in head motion are observable when participants were situated with both foam pillows and medical tape. Altogether, this work suggests that in a healthy adult population, custom-molded headcases may provide limited efficacy in reducing head motion beyond existing tools available to researchers. We hope this work can help improve the quality of custom headcases, motivate the investigation of additional solutions, and provide additional information about head motion in naturalistic contexts.
Highlights
Head motion is an ongoing problem in functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging
While viewing the same stimulus, collected on the same scanner, at the same site, with the same acquisition parameters, we found no significant difference in FDMean (Fig 1 top row, left column, blue and pink bars)
Using three functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI) datasets, we tested the efficacy of custom-molded headcases in reducing head motion during longer naturalistic tasks
Summary
Head motion is an ongoing problem in functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI)research and has been estimated to account for 30-90% of the total signal variance (Friston et al, 1996). Head motion is an ongoing problem in functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI). 2012; Satterthwaite et al, 2013; Van Dijk et al, 2012). Head motion is often exacerbated in developmental and clinical populations (Satterthwaite et al, 2012; Vanderwal et al, 2015) and makes it difficult to estimate task-specific activations when motion is correlated with stimulus onsets (Bullmore et al, 1999). Functional connectivity analyses (fcMRI) are susceptible to head motion, which introduces spurious but systematic correlations across brain regions 2012; Van Dijk et al, 2012; Yan et al, 2013). Spurious correlations demonstrate regional variability and are often more pronounced in prefrontal areas including the default-mode and prefrontal networks (Van Dijk et al, 2012; Yan et al, 2013)
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