Journal Article

Reliable intrinsic connectivity networks: Test–retest evaluation using ICA and dual regression approach

Milham, Michael P., Castellanos, F. Xavier, Adelstein, Jonathan S., Klein, Donald F., Zuo, Xi-Nian, Kelly, Clare

2010

Overview

Functional connectivity analyses of resting-state fMRI data are rapidly emerging as highly efficient and powerful tools for in vivo mapping of functional networks in the brain, referred to as intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs). Despite a burgeoning literature, researchers continue to struggle with the challenge of defining computationally efficient and reliable approaches for identifying and characterizing ICNs. Independent component analysis (ICA) has emerged as a powerful tool for exploring ICNs in both healthy and clinical populations. In particular, temporal concatenation group ICA (TC-GICA) coupled with a back-reconstruction step produces participant-level resting state functional connectivity maps for each group-level component. The present work systematically evaluated the test–retest reliability of TC-GICA derived RSFC measures over the short-term (<45 min) and long-term (5–16 months). Additionally, to investigate the degree to which the components revealed by TC-GICA are detectable via single-session ICA, we investigated the reproducibility of TC-GICA findings. First, we found moderate-to-high short- and long-term test–retest reliability for ICNs derived by combining TC-GICA and dual regression. Exceptions to this finding were limited to physiological- and imaging-related artifacts. Second, our reproducibility analyses revealed notable limitations for template matching procedures to accurately detect TC-GICA based components at the individual scan level. Third, we found that TC-GICA component's reliability and reproducibility ranks are highly consistent. In summary, TC-GICA combined with dual regression is an effective and reliable approach to exploratory analyses of resting state fMRI data.

• Publisher: Elsevier Inc,Elsevier Limited
• Subject: Brain - physiology / Brain Mapping - methods / Dual regression / Female / Humans / ICA / Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods / Intrinsic connectivity network / Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Male / Medical imaging / Neural Pathways - physiology / Noise / Principal Component Analysis / Principal components analysis / Reproducibility of Results / Resting state / Signal processing / Studies / Test–retest reliability / Trees / Young Adult