Preprint FZJ-2024-07519

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Voxel-wise or Region-wise Nuisance Regression for Functional Connectivity Analyses: Does it matter?

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2024

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Abstract: Removal of nuisance signals (such as motion) from the BOLD time series is an important aspect of preprocessing to obtain meaningful resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC). The nuisance signals are commonly removed using denoising procedures at the finest resolution, i.e. the voxel time series. Typically the voxel-wise time series are then aggregated into predefined regions or parcels to obtain a rs-FC matrix as the correlation between pairs of regional time series. Computational efficiency can be improved by denoising the aggregated regional time series instead of the voxel time series. However, a comprehensive comparison of the effects of denoising on these two resolutions is missing.In this study, we systematically investigate the effects of denoising at different time series resolutions (voxel- and region-level) in 370 unrelated subjects from the 1HCP-YA dataset. Alongside the time series resolution, we considered additional factors such as aggregation method (Mean and first eigenvariate [EV]) and parcellation granularity (100, 400, and 1,000 regions). To assess the effect of those choices on the utility of the resulting whole-brain rs-FC, we evaluated the individual specificity (fingerprinting) and the capacity to predict age and three cognitive scores.Our findings show generally equal or better performance for region-level denoising with notable differences depending on the aggregation method. Using mean aggregation yielded equal individual specificity and prediction performance for voxel- and region-level denoising. When EV was employed for aggregation, the individual specificity of voxel-level denoising was reduced compared to region-level denoising. Increasing parcellation granularity generally improved individual specificity. For the prediction of age and cognitive test scores, only fluid intelligence indicated worse performance for voxel-level denoising in the case of aggregating with the EV.Based on these results, we recommend the adoption of region-level denoising for brain-behavior investigations when using mean aggregation. This approach offers equal individual specificity and prediction capacity with reduced computational resources for the analysis of rs-FC patterns.


Contributing Institute(s):
  1. Gehirn & Verhalten (INM-7)
Research Program(s):
  1. 5251 - Multilevel Brain Organization and Variability (POF4-525) (POF4-525)
  2. 5253 - Neuroimaging (POF4-525) (POF4-525)

Appears in the scientific report 2024
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 Record created 2024-12-19, last modified 2025-02-03


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