All that glitters is not BOLD: inconsistencies in functional MRI

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© 2014 Nature Publishing Group. This is the accepted version of the following article: Renvall, Ville & Nangini, Cathy & Hari, Riitta. 2014. All that glitters is not BOLD: inconsistencies in functional MRI. Scientific Reports. Volume 4. 3920/1-8. ISSN 2045-2322 (printed). DOI: 10.1038/srep03920, which has been published in final form at http://www.nature.com/articles/srep03920.

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Journal Title

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Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2014

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

3920/1-8

Series

Scientific Reports, Volume 4

Abstract

The blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal is a widely-accepted marker of brain activity. The acquisition parameters (APs) of fMRI aim at maximizing the signals related to neuronal activity while minimizing unrelated signal fluctuations. Currently, a diverse set of APs is used to acquire BOLD fMRI data. Here we demonstrate that some fMRI responses are alarmingly inconsistent across APs, ranging from positive to negative, or disappearing entirely, under identical stimulus conditions. These discrepancies, resulting from non-BOLD effects masquerading as BOLD signals, have remained largely unnoticed because studies rarely employ more than one set of APs. We identified and characterized non-BOLD responses in several brain areas, including posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus, as well as AP-dependence of both the signal time courses and of seed-based functional networks, noticing that AP manipulation can inform about the origin of the measured signals.

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Keywords

blood oxygenation level dependent, functional magnetic resonance imaging

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Citation

Renvall, Ville & Nangini, Cathy & Hari, Riitta. 2014. All that glitters is not BOLD: inconsistencies in functional MRI. Scientific Reports. Volume 4. 3920/1-8. ISSN 2045-2322 (printed). DOI: 10.1038/srep03920.