No abstract

SummaryData analysis workflows in many scientific domains have become increasingly complex and flexible. To assess the impact of this flexibility on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results, the same dataset was independently analyzed by 70 teams, testing nine ex-ante hypotheses. The flexibility of analytic approaches is exemplified by the fact that no two teams chose identical workflows to analyze the data. This flexibility resulted in sizeable variation in hypothesis test results, even for teams whose statistical maps were highly correlated at intermediate stages of their analysis pipeline. Variation in reported results was related to several aspects of analysis methodology. Importantly, meta-analytic approaches that aggregated information across teams yielded significant consensus in activated regions across teams. Furthermore, prediction markets of researchers in the field revealed an overestimation of the likelihood of significant findings, even by researchers with direct knowledge of the dataset. Our findings show that analytic flexibility can have substantial effects on scientific conclusions, and demonstrate factors related to variability in fMRI. The results emphasize the importance of validating and sharing complex analysis workflows, and demonstrate the need for multiple analyses of the same data. Potential approaches to mitigate issues related to analytical variability are discussed.

Every day, humans make countless decisions that require the integration of information about potential benefits (i.e. rewards) with other decision features (i.e. effort required, probability of an outcome or time delays). Here, we examine the overlap and dissociation of behavioral preferences and neural representations of subjective value in the context of three different decision features (physical effort, probability and time delays) in a healthy adult life span sample. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants (N = 75) made incentive compatible choices between a smaller monetary reward with lower physical effort, higher probability, or a shorter time delay versus a larger monetary reward with higher physical effort, lower probability, or a longer time delay. Behavioral preferences were estimated from observed choices, and subjective values were computed using individual hyperbolic discount functions. We found that discount rates were uncorrelated across tasks. Despite this apparent behavioral dissociation between preferences, we found overlapping subjective value-related activity in the medial prefrontal cortex across all three tasks. We found no consistent evidence for age differences in either preferences or the neural representations of subjective value across adulthood. These results suggest that while the tolerance of decision features is behaviorally dissociable, subjective value signals share a common representation across adulthood.

Objective The dopamine D2/3 receptor subtypes (DRD2/3) are the most widely studied neurotransmitter biomarker in research on obesity, but results to date have been inconsistent, have typically involved small samples, and have rarely accounted for subjects’ ages despite the large impact of age on DRD2/3 levels. We aimed to clarify the relation between DRD2/3 availability and BMI by examining this association in a large sample of subjects with BMI spanning the continuum from underweight to extremely obese. Subjects 130 healthy subjects between 18 and 81 years old underwent PET with [18F]falllypride, a high affinity DRD2/3 ligand. Results As expected, DRD2/3 availability declined with age. Critically, age significantly interacted with DRD2/3 availability in predicting BMI in the midbrain and striatal regions (caudate, putamen, and ventral striatum). Among subjects under 30 years old, BMI was not associated with DRD2/3 availability. By contrast, among subjects over 30 years old, BMI was positively associated with DRD2/3 availability in the midbrain, putamen, and ventral striatum. Conclusion The present results are incompatible with the prominent dopaminergic hypofunction hypothesis that proposes that a reduction in DRD2/3 availability is associated with increased BMI, and highlights the importance of age in assessing correlates of DRD2/3 function.

Spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR) has been proposed as a noninvasive, inexpensive marker of dopamine functioning. Support for a relation between EBR and dopamine function comes from observations that EBR is altered in populations with dopamine dysfunction and EBR changes under a dopaminergic manipulation. However, the evidence across the literature is inconsistent and incomplete. A direct correlation between EBR and dopamine function has so far been observed only in nonhuman animals. Given significant interest in using EBR as a proxy for dopamine function, this study aimed to verify a direct association in healthy, human adults. Here we measured EBR in healthy human subjects whose dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) availability was assessed with positron emission tomography (PET)-[18F]fallypride to examine the predictive power of EBR for DRD2 availability. Effects of the dopamine agonist bromocriptine on EBR also were examined to determine the responsiveness of EBR to dopaminergic stimulation and, in light of the hypothesized inverted-U profile of dopamine effects, the role of DRD2 availability in EBR responsivity to bromocriptine. Results from 20 subjects (age 33.6 ± 7.6 years, 9F) showed no relation between EBR and DRD2 availability. EBR also was not responsive to dopaminergic stimulation by bromocriptine, and individual differences in DRD2 availability did not modulate EBR responsivity to bromocriptine. Given that EBR is hypothesized to be particularly sensitive to DRD2 function, these findings suggest caution in using EBR as a proxy for dopamine function in healthy humans.