TY - JOUR
T1 - Reproducibility of amygdala activation in facial emotion processing at 7T
AU - Geissberger, Nicole
AU - Tik, Martin
AU - Sladky, Ronald
AU - Woletz, Michael
AU - Schuler, Anna-Lisa
AU - Willinger, David
AU - Windischberger, Christian
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is supported by the CREAM project that has been funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement no 612022 (FP7 ICT 2013-10) . This publication reflects the views only of the authors, the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - Despite its importance as the prime method for non-invasive assessment of human brain function, functional MRI (fMRI) was repeatedly challenged with regards to the validity of the fMRI-derived brain activation maps. Amygdala fMRI was particularly targeted, as the amygdala's anatomical position in the ventral brain combined with strong magnetic field inhomogeneities and proximity to large vessels pose considerable obstacles for robust activation mapping. In this high-resolution study performed at ultra-high field (7T) fMRI, we aimed at (1) investigating systematic replicability of amygdala group-level activation in response to an established emotion processing task by varying task instruction and acquisition parameters and (2) testing for intra- and intersession reliability. At group-level, our results show statistically significant activation in bilateral amygdala and fusiform gyrus for each of the runs acquired. In addition, while fusiform gyrus activations are consistent across runs and sessions, amygdala activation levels show habituation effects across runs. This amygdala habituation effect is replicated in a session repeated two weeks later. Varying task instruction between matching emotions and matching persons does not change amygdala activation strength. Also, comparing two acquisition protocols with repetition times of either 700 ms or 1400 ms did not result in statistically significant differences of activation levels. Regarding within-subject reliability of amygdala activation, despite considerable variance in individual habituation patterns, we report fair to good inter-session reliability for the first run and excellent reliability for averages over runs. We conclude that high-resolution fMRI at 7T allows for robust mapping of amygdala activation in a broad range of variations. Our results of amygdala 7T fMRI are suitable to inform methodology and may encourage future studies to continue using emotion discrimination paradigms in clinical and non-clinical applications.
AB - Despite its importance as the prime method for non-invasive assessment of human brain function, functional MRI (fMRI) was repeatedly challenged with regards to the validity of the fMRI-derived brain activation maps. Amygdala fMRI was particularly targeted, as the amygdala's anatomical position in the ventral brain combined with strong magnetic field inhomogeneities and proximity to large vessels pose considerable obstacles for robust activation mapping. In this high-resolution study performed at ultra-high field (7T) fMRI, we aimed at (1) investigating systematic replicability of amygdala group-level activation in response to an established emotion processing task by varying task instruction and acquisition parameters and (2) testing for intra- and intersession reliability. At group-level, our results show statistically significant activation in bilateral amygdala and fusiform gyrus for each of the runs acquired. In addition, while fusiform gyrus activations are consistent across runs and sessions, amygdala activation levels show habituation effects across runs. This amygdala habituation effect is replicated in a session repeated two weeks later. Varying task instruction between matching emotions and matching persons does not change amygdala activation strength. Also, comparing two acquisition protocols with repetition times of either 700 ms or 1400 ms did not result in statistically significant differences of activation levels. Regarding within-subject reliability of amygdala activation, despite considerable variance in individual habituation patterns, we report fair to good inter-session reliability for the first run and excellent reliability for averages over runs. We conclude that high-resolution fMRI at 7T allows for robust mapping of amygdala activation in a broad range of variations. Our results of amygdala 7T fMRI are suitable to inform methodology and may encourage future studies to continue using emotion discrimination paradigms in clinical and non-clinical applications.
KW - Adult
KW - Amygdala/diagnostic imaging
KW - Brain Mapping/standards
KW - Emotions/physiology
KW - Facial Expression
KW - Facial Recognition/physiology
KW - Female
KW - Follow-Up Studies
KW - Habituation, Psychophysiologic/physiology
KW - Humans
KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging/standards
KW - Male
KW - Reproducibility of Results
KW - Young Adult
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85079346302&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116585
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116585
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31996330
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 211
SP - 116585
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
M1 - 116585
ER -