Test–retest reliability of a finger‐tapping fMRI task in a healthy population

Abstract

Measuring brain activity during functional MRI (fMRI) tasks is one of the main tools to identify brain biomarkers of disease or neural substrates associated with specific symptoms. However, identifying correct biomarkers relies on reliable measures. Recently, poor reliability was reported for task-based fMRI measures. The present study aimed to demonstrate the reliability of a finger-tapping fMRI task across two sessions in healthy participants. Thirtyone right-handed healthy participants aged 18-60 years took part in two MRI sessions 3 weeks apart during which we acquired finger-tapping task-fMRI.We examined the overlap of activations between sessions using Dice similarity coefficients, assessing their location and extent. Then, we compared amplitudes calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) in three sets of regions of interest (ROIs) in the motor network: literature-based ROIs (10-mm-radius spheres centred on peaks of an activation likelihood estimation), anatomical ROIs (regions as defined in an atlas) and ROIs based on conjunction analyses (superthreshold voxels in both sessions). Finger tapping consistently activated expected regions, for example, left primary sensorimotor cortices, premotor area and right cerebellum. We found good-to-excellent overlap of activations for most contrasts (Dice coefficients: .54-.82). Across time, ICCs showed large variability in all ROI sets (.04-.91). However, ICCs in most ROIs indicated fair-to-good reliability (mean = .52). The least specific contrast consistently yielded the best reliability. Overall, the finger-tapping task showed good spatial overlap and fair reliability of amplitudes on group level.

Females exhibit smaller volumes of brain activation and lower inter-subject variability during motor tasks

“…Only large differences in movement characteristics (e.g., 25% and 75% MVC) result in significant activation changes. Additionally, work by Wüthrich et al 88 recently observed good fMRI activation overlap and reliability between sessions with a finger tapping task, even between conditions where pacing was fast unpaced or paced. Regardless we believe such differences are unlikely to occur in this study, as participants were instructed to perform the movements at a comfortable self-selected pace, without any additional resistance.…”

Women and men with distressing low sexual desire exhibit sexually dimorphic brain processing

“…Dice coefficients were then calculated to quantify the overlap in each contrast: activation (sexual > control) = 0.601, deactivation (control > sexual) = 0.643. As stated by Wüthrich et al 12 , there is a lack of consensus regarding the interpretation of Dice coefficients. However, as proposed by Wüthrich 12 , we followed the guidelines set out by Cicchetti 13 .…”

“…As stated by Wüthrich et al 12 , there is a lack of consensus regarding the interpretation of Dice coefficients. However, as proposed by Wüthrich 12 , we followed the guidelines set out by Cicchetti 13 . Coefficients below 0.40 are considered poor; between 0.40 and 0.59, fair; between 0.60 and 0.74, good, and > 0.75, excellent.…”

The mediating role of childhood motor skills on the association between error correction and social pragmatic communication in adulthood

“…Participants' error correction ability was assessed with a finger tapping task (Fig. 2a) Vishne et al, 2021;Wüthrich et al, 2022). Finger tapping shows good behavioral robustness, test-retest reliability, and consistent activation of error correction networks in the brain, such as the cerebellum, the supplementary motor area, and the prefrontal cortex (Carey, Abbott, Egan, Tochon-Danguy, & Donnan, 2000;Edagawa & Kawasaki, 2017;Wüthrich et al, 2022).…”