Improving sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of individual brainstem activation

• DOI: 10.1007/s00429-019-01936-3
• Publication Date: 2019-08-21T18:02:36Z
• Authors: Eva Matt; Florian Ph. S. Fi...; Ahmad Amini; Simon D. Robinson; Alexandra Weber; Thomas Foki; Elke R. Gizewski; Roland Beisteiner
• Keywords: 2800 Neuroscience; Adult; Male; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Trigeminal Motor Nucleus; 150; Motor Activity; Signal-To-Noise Ratio; 2722 Histology; Physiological noise; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Humans; Brain Mapping; Reproducibility of Results; Reliability; 2702 Anatomy; Image Enhancement; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Reproducibility; Trigeminal motor nucleus; Jaw; ROC Curve; Original Article; Female; Artifacts; Brainstem

Functional imaging of the brainstem may open new avenues for clinical diagnostics. However, reliable assessments activation, further efforts improving signal quality are needed. Six healthy subjects performed four repeated functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) sessions on different days with jaw clenching as a motor task to elicit activation in trigeminal nucleus. images were acquired 7 T MR scanner using an optimized multiband EPI sequence. Activation measures nucleus and control region assessed physiological noise correction methods (aCompCor RETROICOR-based approaches variable numbers regressors) combined cerebrospinal fluid or masking. Receiver-operating characteristic analyses accounting sensitivity specificity, overlap estimate reproducibility between sessions, intraclass correlation (ICC) testing reliability used systematically compare approaches. Masking led increased target ROI resulted higher values area under curve (AUC) measure specificity. With highest AUC, overlap, ICC, most favorable method was time series one regressor). Brainstem nuclei can be reliably identified high-field fMRI acquisition processing strategies-even single-subject level. Applying specific improves encouraging future applications.