Biology subjects

Petersen, S. E.

Publications and source records attributed to Petersen, S. E..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

A set of functionally-defined brain regions with improved representation of the subcortex and cerebellum

An important aspect of network-based analysis is robust node definition. This issue is critical for functional brain network analyses, as poor node choice can lead to spurious findings and misleading inferences about functional brain organization. Two sets of functional brain nodes from our group are well represented in the literature: (1) 264 volumetric regions of interest (ROIs) reported in Power et al., 2011 and (2) 333 cortical surface parcels reported in Gordon et al., 2016. However, subcortical and cerebellar structures are either incompletely captured or missing from these ROI sets. Therefore, properties of functional network organization involving the subcortex and cerebellum may be underappreciated thus far. Here, we apply a winner-take-all partitioning method to resting-state fMRI data to generate novel functionally-constrained ROIs in the thalamus, basal ganglia, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. We validate these ROIs in three datasets using several criteria, including agreement with existing literature and anatomical atlases. Further, we demonstrate that combining these ROIs with established cortical ROIs recapitulates and extends previously described functional network organization. This new set of ROIs is made publicly available for general use, including a full list of MNI coordinates and functional network labels.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Correction of respiratory artifacts in MRI head motion estimates

Head motion represents one of the greatest technical obstacles for brain MRI. Accurate detection of artifacts induced by head motion requires precise estimation of movement. However, this estimation may be corrupted by factitious effects owing to main field fluctuations generated by body motion. In the current report, we examine head motion estimation in multiband resting state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and a comparison single-shot dataset from Oregon Health & Science University. We show unequivocally that respirations contaminate movement estimates in functional MRI and that respiration generates apparent head motion not associated with degraded quality of functional MRI. We have developed a novel approach using a band-stop filter that accurately removes these respiratory effects. Subsequently, we demonstrate that utilizing this filter improves post-processing data quality. Lastly, we demonstrate the real-time implementation of motion estimate filtering in our FIRMM (Framewise Integrated Real-Time MRI Monitoring) software package.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Reward-related regions form a preferentially coupled system at rest

Neuroimaging studies have implicated a set of striatal and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) regions that are commonly activated during reward processing tasks. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) studies have demonstrated that the human brain is organized into several functional systems that show strong temporal coherence even in the absence of goal-directed tasks. Here we use seed-based and graph-theory RSFC approaches to characterize the systems-level organization of putative reward regions of at rest. Peaks of connectivity from seed-based RSFC patterns for the nucleus accumbens (NAcc, anatomically defined) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC, functionally defined) were used to identify candidate reward regions which were merged with a previously used set of regions (Power et al., 2011). Graph-theory was then used to determine system-level membership for all regions. Several regions previously implicated in reward-processing (NAcc, lateral and medial OFC, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) comprised a distinct, preferentially coupled system. This RSFC system is stable across a range of connectivity thresholds and shares strong overlap with meta-analyses of task-based reward studies. This reward system shares between-system connectivity with systems implicated in cognitive control and self-regulation, including the fronto-parietal, cingulo-opercular, and default systems. Further, differences may exist in the pathways through which control systems interact with key regions of this reward system. Whereas NAcc regions of the reward system are functionally connected to cingulo-opercular and default systems, OFC regions of the reward system show stronger connectivity with the fronto-parietal system. We propose that future work may be able to interrogate group or individual differences in connectivity profiles using the regions delineated in the current work to explore potential relationships to appetitive behaviors, self-regulation failure, and addiction.

neuroscience↗