Correlated slow fluctuations in respiration, EEG, and BOLD fMRI

Autonomic physiological coupling of the global fMRI signal

The brain is closely attuned to visceral signals from the body's internal environment, as evidenced by the numerous associations between neural, hemodynamic and peripheral physiological signals. Here we show that a major mode of these brain-body cofluctuations can be captured by a single spatiotemporal pattern. Across several independent samples, as well as single-echo and multi-echo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquisition sequences, we identify widespread cofluctuations in the low-frequency range (0.01-0.1 Hz) between resting-state global fMRI signals, electroencephalogram (EEG) activity, and a host of peripheral autonomic signals spanning cardiovascular, pulmonary, exocrine and smooth muscle systems. The same brain-body cofluctuations observed at rest are elicited by cued deep breathing and intermittent sensory stimuli, as well as spontaneous phasic EEG events during sleep. Furthermore, we show that the spatial structure of global fMRI signals is maintained under experimental suppression of end-tidal carbon dioxide variations, suggesting that respiratory-driven fluctuations in arterial CO2 accompanying arousal cannot fully explain the origin of these signals in the brain. These findings suggest that the global fMRI signal is a substantial component of the arousal response governed by the autonomic nervous system.

A tough semi-dry hydrogel electrode with anti-bacterial properties for long-term repeatable non-invasive EEG acquisition

Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (NI-BCIs) have garnered significant attention due to their safety and wide range of applications. However, developing non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes that are highly sensitive, comfortable to wear, and reusable has been challenging due to the limitations of conventional electrodes. Here, we introduce a simple method for fabricating semi-dry hydrogel EEG electrodes with antibacterial properties, enabling long-term, repeatable acquisition of EEG. By utilizing N-acryloyl glycinamide and hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride chitosan, we have prepared electrodes that not only possess good mechanical properties (compression modulus 65 kPa) and anti-fatigue properties but also exhibit superior antibacterial properties. These electrodes effectively inhibit the growth of both Gram-negative (E. coli) and Gram-positive (S. epidermidis) bacteria. Furthermore, the hydrogel maintains stable water retention properties, resulting in an average contact impedance of <400 Ω measured over 12 h, and an ionic conductivity of 0.39 mS cm-1. Cytotoxicity and skin irritation tests have confirmed the high biocompatibility of the hydrogel electrodes. In an N170 event-related potential (ERP) test on human volunteers, we successfully captured the expected ERP signal waveform and a high signal-to-noise ratio (20.02 dB), comparable to that of conventional wet electrodes. Moreover, contact impedance on the scalps remained below 100 kΩ for 12 h, while wet electrodes became unable to detect signals after 7-8 h due to dehydration. In summary, our hydrogel electrodes are capable of detecting ERPs over extended periods in an easy-to-use manner with antibacterial properties. This reduces the risk of bacterial infection associated with prolonged reuse and expands the potential of NI-BCIs in daily life.

The functional overlap between respiration and global signal and its behavioral relevance

Resting-state fMRI studies encounter the challenge of interpreting fluctuations in the global signal (GS). The GS has been linked to arousal, vigilance states, cognition, and psychiatric disorders, suggesting its functional relevance. However, GS also partially arises from physiological factors, particularly respiration. In this study, we investigate whether respiration and GS exhibit functional topographic overlap in the brain and its impact on behavior. Using resting-state fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project (N = 770), we find strong spatial consistency between GS and respiration topography with regional specificity. Furthermore, canonical correlation analysis reveals a shared pattern between the GS-behavior and respiration-behavior relationships, demonstrated as the linking between default mode network and psychiatric problems. In contrast, only GS topography correlates with cognitive performance. The reliability of respiration-GS relationships is confirmed via 10-fold cross-validated canonical correlation analysis. Additionally, this relationship is not replicated for another physiological signal, i.e., cardiac activity. Our findings underscore the functional and cognitive relevance of respiration to GS, rather than mere physiological noise. We propose the importance of considering respiration's multifaceted roles in modulating GS dynamics that underpin brain-body integration supporting mental health and cognitive function.

From Dyadic to Higher-Order Interactions: Enhanced Representation of Homotopic Functional Connectivity Through Control of Intervening Variables

Background: The brain's complex functionality emerges from network interactions that go beyond dyadic connections, with higher-order interactions significantly contributing to this complexity. Homotopic functional connectivity (HoFC) is a key neurophysiological characteristic of the human brain, reflecting synchronized activity between corresponding regions in the brain's hemispheres. Materials and Methods: Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project, we evaluate dyadic and higher-order interactions of three functional connectivity (FC) parameterizations-bivariate correlation, partial correlation, and tangent space embedding-in their effectiveness at capturing HoFC through the inter-hemispheric analogy test. Results: Higher-order feature vectors are generated through node2vec, a random walk-based node embedding technique applied to FC networks. Our results show that higher-order feature vectors derived from partial correlation most effectively represent HoFC, while tangent space embedding performs best for dyadic interactions. Discussion: These findings validate HoFC and underscore the importance of the FC construction method in capturing intrinsic characteristics of the human brain.

Alpha-frequency stimulation strengthens coupling between temporal fluctuations in alpha oscillation power and default mode network connectivity

Alpha (8-12 Hz) oscillations and default mode network (DMN) activity dominate the brain's intrinsic activity in the temporal and spatial domains, respectively. They are thought to play crucial roles in the spatiotemporal organization of the complex brain system. Relatedly, both have been implicated, often concurrently, in diverse neuropsychiatric disorders, with accruing electroencephalogram/magnetoencephalogram (EEG/MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data linking these two neural activities both at rest and during key cognitive operations. Prominent theories and extant findings thus converge to suggest a mechanistic relationship between alpha oscillations and the DMN. Here, we leveraged simultaneous EEG-fMRI data acquired before and after alpha-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation (α-tACS) and observed that α-tACS tightened the dynamic coupling between spontaneous fluctuations in alpha power and DMN connectivity (especially, in the posterior DMN, between the posterior cingulate cortex and the bilateral angular gyrus). In comparison, no significant changes were observed for temporal correlations between power in other oscillatory frequencies and connectivity in other major networks. These results thus suggest an inherent coupling between alpha and DMN activity in humans. Importantly, these findings highlight the efficacy of α-tACS in regulating the DMN, a clinically significant network that is challenging to target directly with non-invasive methods.Significance Statement Alpha (8-12 Hz) oscillations and the default mode network (DMN) represent two major intrinsic activities of the brain. Prominent theories and extant findings converge to suggest a mechanistic relationship between alpha oscillations and the DMN. Combining simultaneous electroencephalogram-functional-magnetic-resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) with alpha-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation (α-tACS), we demonstrated tightened coupling between alpha oscillations and DMN connectivity. These results lend credence to an inherent alpha-DMN link. Given DMN dysfunctions in multiple major neuropsychiatric conditions, the findings also highlight potential utility of α-tACS in clinical interventions by regulating the DMN.

Prediction of Alpha Power Using Multiple Subjective Measures and Autonomic Responses

Alpha oscillations are associated with various cognitive functions. However, the determinants of alpha power variation remain ambiguous, primarily due to its inconsistent associations with autonomic responses and subjective states under different experimental conditions. To thoroughly examine the correlations between alpha power variation and these factors, we implemented a range of experimental conditions, encompassing attentional and emotional tasks, as well as a resting-state. In addition to the electroencephalogram data, we gathered a suite of autonomic response measurements and subjective ratings. We employed multiple linear regression analysis, utilizing autonomic responses and subjective reports as predictors of alpha power. We also subtracted the aperiodic components for better estimation of the power of periodic alpha oscillations. Our results from two separately conducted experiments robustly demonstrated that the combined use of autonomic response measurements and subjective ratings effectively predicted the parietal-occipital periodic alpha power variation across a range of conditions. These predictions were supported by leave-one-participant-out cross-validation and cross-experiment validation, confirming that multiple linear relationships can be generalized to new participants. This study demonstrates the links of alpha power variations with autonomic responses and subjective states, suggesting that during investigations of the cognitive functions of alpha oscillations, it is important to consider the potential influences of autonomic responses and subjective states on alpha oscillations.

Widespread Autonomic Physiological Coupling Across the Brain-Body Axis

The brain is closely attuned to visceral signals from the body's internal environment, as evidenced by the numerous associations between neural, hemodynamic, and peripheral physiological signals. We show that these brain-body co-fluctuations can be captured by a single spatiotemporal pattern. Across several independent samples, as well as single-echo and multi-echo fMRI data acquisition sequences, we identify widespread co-fluctuations in the low-frequency range (0.01 - 0.1 Hz) between resting-state global fMRI signals, neural activity, and a host of autonomic signals spanning cardiovascular, pulmonary, exocrine and smooth muscle systems. The same brain-body co-fluctuations observed at rest are elicited by arousal induced by cued deep breathing and intermittent sensory stimuli, as well as spontaneous phasic EEG events during sleep. Further, we show that the spatial structure of global fMRI signals is maintained under experimental suppression of end-tidal carbon dioxide (PETCO2) variations, suggesting that respiratory-driven fluctuations in arterial CO2 accompanying arousal cannot explain the origin of these signals in the brain. These findings establish the global fMRI signal as a significant component of the arousal response governed by the autonomic nervous system.

Comparing data-driven physiological denoising approaches for resting-state fMRI: implications for the study of aging

Introduction

Physiological nuisance contributions by cardiac and respiratory signals have a significant impact on resting-state fMRI data quality. As these physiological signals are often not recorded, data-driven denoising methods are commonly used to estimate and remove physiological noise from fMRI data. To investigate the efficacy of these denoising methods, one of the first steps is to accurately capture the cardiac and respiratory signals, which requires acquiring fMRI data with high temporal resolution.

Methods

In this study, we used such high-temporal resolution fMRI data to evaluate the effectiveness of several data-driven denoising methods, including global-signal regression (GSR), white matter and cerebrospinal fluid regression (WM-CSF), anatomical (aCompCor) and temporal CompCor (tCompCor), ICA-AROMA. Our analysis focused on the consequence of changes in low-frequency, cardiac and respiratory signal power, as well as age-related differences in terms of functional connectivity (fcMRI).

Results

Our results confirm that the ICA-AROMA and GSR removed the most physiological noise but also more low-frequency signals. These methods are also associated with substantially lower age-related fcMRI differences. On the other hand, aCompCor and tCompCor appear to be better at removing high-frequency physiological signals but not low-frequency signal power. These methods are also associated with relatively higher age-related fcMRI differences, whether driven by neuronal signal or residual artifact. These results were reproduced in data downsampled to represent conventional fMRI sampling frequency. Lastly, methods differ in performance depending on the age group.

Discussion

While this study cautions direct comparisons of fcMRI results based on different denoising methods in the study of aging, it also enhances the understanding of different denoising methods in broader fcMRI applications.

From Lung to Brain: Respiration Modulates Neural and Mental Activity

Respiration protocols have been developed to manipulate mental states, including their use for therapeutic purposes. In this systematic review, we discuss evidence that respiration may play a fundamental role in coordinating neural activity, behavior, and emotion. The main findings are: (1) respiration affects the neural activity of a wide variety of regions in the brain; (2) respiration modulates different frequency ranges in the brain's dynamics; (3) different respiration protocols (spontaneous, hyperventilation, slow or resonance respiration) yield different neural and mental effects; and (4) the effects of respiration on the brain are related to concurrent modulation of biochemical (oxygen delivery, pH) and physiological (cerebral blood flow, heart rate variability) variables. We conclude that respiration may be an integral rhythm of the brain's neural activity. This provides an intimate connection of respiration with neuro-mental features like emotion. A respiratory-neuro-mental connection holds the promise for a brain-based therapeutic usage of respiration in mental disorders.

Neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking: a proof-of-concept study

Objective.Respiratory motion tracking techniques can provide optimal treatment accuracy for thoracoabdominal radiotherapy and robotic surgery. However, conventional imaging-based respiratory motion tracking techniques are time-lagged owing to the system latency of medical linear accelerators and surgical robots. This study aims to investigate the precursor time of respiratory-related neural signals and analyze the potential of neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking.Approach.The neural signals and respiratory motion from eighteen healthy volunteers were acquired simultaneously using a 256-channel scalp electroencephalography (EEG) system. The neural signals were preprocessed using the MNE python package to extract respiratory-related EEG neural signals. Cross-correlation analysis was performed to assess the precursor time and cross-correlation coefficient between respiratory-related EEG neural signals and respiratory motion.Main results.Respiratory-related neural signals that precede the emergence of respiratory motion are detectable via non-invasive EEG. On average, the precursor time of respiratory-related EEG neural signals was 0.68 s. The representative cross-correlation coefficients between EEG neural signals and respiratory motion of the eighteen healthy subjects varied from 0.22 to 0.87.Significance.Our findings suggest that neural signals have the potential to compensate for the system latency of medical linear accelerators and surgical robots. This indicates that neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking is a potential promising solution to respiratory motion and could be useful in thoracoabdominal radiotherapy and robotic surgery.

A model of neurovascular coupling and its application to cortical spreading depolarization

Cortical spreading depolarization (CSD) is a neuropathological condition involving propagating waves of neuronal silence, and is related to multiple diseases, such as migraine aura, traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke, and cardiac arrest, as well as poor outcome of patients. While CSDs of different severity share similar roots on the ion exchange level, they can lead to different vascular responses (namely spreading hyperemia and spreading ischemia). In this paper, we propose a mathematical model relating neuronal activities to predict vascular changes as measured with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and fMRI recordings, and apply it to the extreme case of CSD, where sustained near-complete neuronal depolarization is seen. We utilize three serially connected models (namely, ion exchange, neurovascular coupling, and hemodynamic model) which are described by differential equations. Propagating waves of ion concentrations, as well as the associated vasodynamics and hemodynamics, are simulated by solving these equations. Our proposed model predicts vasodynamics and hemodynamics that agree both qualitatively and quantitatively with experimental literature. Mathematical modeling and simulation offer a powerful tool to help understand the underlying mechanisms of CSD and help interpret the data. In addition, it helps develop novel monitoring techniques prior to data collection. Our simulated results strongly suggest that fMRI is unable to reliably distinguish between spreading hyperemia and spreading ischemia, while NIRS signals are substantially distinct in the two cases.

Vigilance associates with the low-dimensional structure of fMRI data

The human brain exhibits rich dynamics that reflect ongoing functional states. Patterns in fMRI data, detected in a data-driven manner, have uncovered recurring configurations that relate to individual and group differences in behavioral, cognitive, and clinical traits. However, resolving the neural and physiological processes that underlie such measurements is challenging, particularly without external measurements of brain state. A growing body of work points to underlying changes in vigilance as one driver of time-windowed fMRI connectivity states, calculated on the order of tens of seconds. Here we examine the degree to which the low-dimensional spatial structure of instantaneous fMRI activity is associated with vigilance levels, by testing whether vigilance-state detection can be carried out in an unsupervised manner based on individual BOLD time frames. To investigate this question, we first reduce the spatial dimensionality of fMRI data, and apply Gaussian Mixture Modeling to cluster the resulting low-dimensional data without any a priori vigilance information. Our analysis includes long-duration task and resting-state scans that are conducive to shifts in vigilance. We observe a close alignment between low-dimensional fMRI states (data-driven clusters) and measurements of vigilance derived from concurrent electroencephalography (EEG) and behavior. Whole-brain coactivation analysis revealed cortical anti-correlation patterns that resided primarily during higher behavioral- and EEG-defined levels of vigilance, while cortical activity was more often spatially uniform in states corresponding to lower vigilance. Overall, these findings indicate that vigilance states may be detected in the low-dimensional structure of fMRI data, even within individual time frames.

Beyond noise to function: reframing the global brain activity and its dynamic topography

How global and local activity interact with each other is a common question in complex systems like climate and economy. Analogously, the brain too displays 'global' activity that interacts with local-regional activity and modulates behavior. The brain's global activity, investigated as global signal in fMRI, so far, has mainly been conceived as non-neuronal noise. We here review the findings from healthy and clinical populations to demonstrate the neural basis and functions of global signal to brain and behavior. We show that global signal (i) is closely coupled with physiological signals and modulates the arousal level; and (ii) organizes an elaborated dynamic topography and coordinates the different forms of cognition. We also postulate a Dual-Layer Model including both background and surface layers. Together, the latest evidence strongly suggests the need to go beyond the view of global signal as noise by embracing a dual-layer model with background and surface layer.

An orderly sequence of autonomic and neural events at transient arousal changes

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) allows the study of functional brain connectivity based on spatially structured variations in neuronal activity. Proper evaluation of connectivity requires removal of non-neural contributions to the fMRI signal, in particular hemodynamic changes associated with autonomic variability. Regression analysis based on autonomic indicator signals has been used for this purpose, but may be inadequate if neuronal and autonomic activities covary. To investigate this potential co-variation, we performed rsfMRI experiments while concurrently acquiring electroencephalography (EEG) and autonomic indicator signals, including heart rate, respiratory depth, and peripheral vascular tone. We identified a recurrent and systematic spatiotemporal pattern of fMRI (named as fMRI cascade), which features brief signal reductions in salience and default-mode networks and the thalamus, followed by a biphasic global change with a sensory-motor dominance. This fMRI cascade, which was mostly observed during eyes-closed condition, was accompanied by large EEG and autonomic changes indicative of arousal modulations. Importantly, the removal of the fMRI cascade dynamics from rsfMRI diminished its correlations with various signals. These results suggest that the rsfMRI correlations with various physiological and neural signals are not independent but arise, at least partly, from the fMRI cascades and associated neural and physiological changes at arousal modulations.

Neural underpinning of a respiration-associated resting-state fMRI network

Respiration can induce motion and CO2 fluctuation during resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) scans, which will lead to non-neural artifacts in the rsfMRI signal. In the meantime, as a crucial physiologic process, respiration can directly drive neural activity change in the brain, and may thereby modulate the rsfMRI signal. Nonetheless, this potential neural component in the respiration-fMRI relationship is largely unexplored. To elucidate this issue, here we simultaneously recorded the electrophysiology, rsfMRI, and respiration signals in rats. Our data show that respiration is indeed associated with neural activity changes, evidenced by a phase-locking relationship between slow respiration variations and the gamma-band power of the electrophysiological signal recorded in the anterior cingulate cortex. Intriguingly, slow respiration variations are also linked to a characteristic rsfMRI network, which is mediated by gamma-band neural activity. In addition, this respiration-related brain network disappears when brain-wide neural activity is silenced at an isoelectrical state, while the respiration is maintained, further confirming the necessary role of neural activity in this network. Taken together, this study identifies a respiration-related brain network underpinned by neural activity, which represents a novel component in the respiration-rsfMRI relationship that is distinct from respiration-related rsfMRI artifacts. It opens a new avenue for investigating the interactions between respiration, neural activity, and resting-state brain networks in both healthy and diseased conditions.

fMRI studies evaluating central respiratory control in humans

A plethora of neural centers in the central nervous system control the fundamental respiratory pattern. This control is ensured by neurons that act as pacemakers, modulating activity through chemical control driven by changes in the O2/CO2 balance. Most of the respiratory neural centers are located in the brainstem, but difficult to localize on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to their small size, lack of visually-detectable borders with neighboring areas, and significant physiological noise hampering detection of its activity with functional MRI (fMRI). Yet, several approaches make it possible to study the normal response to different abnormal stimuli or conditions such as CO2 inhalation, induced hypercapnia, volitional apnea, induced hypoxia etc. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the majority of available studies on central respiratory control in humans.

Fentanyl and neostigmine delivered to mouse prefrontal cortex differentially alter breathing

Opioids impair many functions modulated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including wakefulness, cognition, and breathing. In contrast, cholinergic activity in the PFC increases wakefulness. This study tested the hypothesis that microinjecting the opioid fentanyl and the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor neostigmine into the PFC of awake C57BL/6J male mice (n = 27) alters breathing. The lateral and medial PFC were unilaterally microinjected with saline (control) and fentanyl. The medial PFC received additional microinjections of neostigmine. The results show that fentanyl caused site-specific changes in breathing. Fentanyl delivered to the lateral PFC significantly decreased minute ventilation variability, whereas fentanyl delivered to the medial PFC significantly increased tidal volume and duty cycle. Neostigmine microinjected into the medial PFC significantly increased respiratory rate, tidal volume, and minute ventilation. A final series of experiments revealed that decreased minute ventilation caused by systemic fentanyl administration was mitigated by PFC microinjection of neostigmine.

Integrating Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Treatment With 8-Week Tai Chi Chuan Practice: An Exploration of Mind-Body Intervention and Neural Mechanism

Objective

This study aims to explore the effect of integrating routine treatment with Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) intervention on the clinical symptom of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) from clinical and neurological perspectives.

Methods

Twenty patients with COPD were recruited for regular treatment combined with 8-week TCC rehabilitative practice. Clinical symptoms were evaluated by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Symptom Assessment Scale (CAT) and Modified Dyspnea Scale (mMRC) at baseline and after treatment. Resting-state MRI scan was also performed with multiline T2-weighted echo-planar imaging (EPI) to acquire their functional images before and after the treatment. TCC rehabilitation involved a total of 8 weeks of practice with 90 min per session, three times a week.

Results

After an 8-week integration routine treatment with TCC practice, the patient’s clinical symptoms improved significantly. Imaging analysis showed that COPD patients exhibited decreased Degree of Centrality (DC) in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral cingulate cortex, bilateral precuneus, and right precentral gyrus. Moreover, correlation analysis found that the decreased DC in the right IFG was positively correlated with the CAT improvements.

Conclusion

The routine treatment involving TCC rehabilitation practice could improve the clinical symptoms of patients with COPD. The right IFG might be a key brain region to contribute to the neural mechanism underlying integrative intervention on the clinical symptoms in COPD. These findings provide neurological evidence for treating COPD rehabilitation practice with mind-body practice based on Chinese culture to some extent, which also advances the understanding of the efficacy of TCC as the adjuvant technology from a neuroscience perspective.

Clinical Trial Registration:

[http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=45189], identifier [ChiCTR1900028335].

Electrophysiological resting state brain network and episodic memory in healthy aging adults

Recent studies have emphasized the changes in large-scale brain networks related to healthy aging, with the ultimate purpose to aid in differentiating normal neurocognitive aging from neurodegenerative disorders that also arise with age. Emerging evidence from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) indicates that connectivity patterns within specific brain networks, especially the Default Mode Network (DMN), distinguish those with Alzheimer's disease from healthy individuals. In addition, disruptive alterations in the large-scale brain systems that support high-level cognition are shown to accompany cognitive decline at the behavioral level, which is commonly observed in the aging populations, even in the absence of disease. Although fMRI is useful for assessing functional changes in brain networks, its high costs and limited accessibility discourage studies that need large populations. In this study, we investigated the aging-effect on large-scale networks of the human brain using high-density electroencephalography and electrophysiological source imaging, which is a less costly and more accessible alternative to fMRI. In particular, our study examined a group of healthy subjects in the age range from middle- to older-aged adults, which is an under-studied range in the literature. Employing a high-resolution computation model, our results revealed age associations in the connectivity pattern of DMN in a consistent manner with previous fMRI findings. Particularly, in combination with a standard battery of cognitive tests, our data showed that in the posterior cingulate / precuneus area of DMN higher brain connectivity was associated with lower performance on an episodic memory task. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of using electrophysiological imaging to characterize large-scale brain networks and suggest that changes in network connectivity are associated with normal aging.

Stationary EEG pattern relates to large-scale resting state networks - An EEG-fMRI study connecting brain networks across time-scales

Relating brain dynamics acting on time scales that differ by at least an order of magnitude is a fundamental issue in brain research. The same is true for the observation of stable dynamical structures in otherwise highly non-stationary signals. The present study addresses both problems by the analysis of simultaneous resting state EEG-fMRI recordings of 53 patients with epilepsy. Confirming previous findings, we observe a generic and temporally stable average correlation pattern in EEG recordings. We design a predictor for the General Linear Model describing fluctuations around the stationary EEG correlation pattern and detect resting state networks in fMRI data. The acquired statistical maps are contrasted to several surrogate tests and compared with maps derived by spatial Independent Component Analysis of the fMRI data. By means of the proposed EEG-predictor we observe core nodes of known fMRI resting state networks with high specificity in the default mode, the executive control and the salience network. Our results suggest that both, the stationary EEG pattern as well as resting state fMRI networks are different expressions of the same brain activity. This activity is interpreted as the dynamics on (or close to) a stable attractor in phase space that is necessary to maintain the brain in an efficient operational mode. We discuss that this interpretation is congruent with the theoretical framework of complex systems as well as with the brain's energy balance.

Brain network effects by continuous theta burst stimulation in mal de débarquement syndrome: simultaneous EEG and fMRI study

Objective. Heterogeneous clinical responses to treatment with non-invasive brain stimulation are commonly observed, making it necessary to determine personally optimized stimulation parameters. We investigated neuroimaging markers of effective brain targets of treatment with continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) in mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS), a balance disorder of persistent oscillating vertigo previously shown to exhibit abnormal intrinsic functional connectivity.Approach.Twenty-four right-handed, cTBS-naive individuals with MdDS received single administrations of cTBS over one of three stimulation targets in randomized order. The optimal target was determined based on the assessment of acute changes after the administration of cTBS over each target. Repetitive cTBS sessions were delivered on three consecutive days with the optimal target chosen by the participant. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded at single-administration test sessions of cTBS. Simultaneous EEG and functional MRI data were acquired at baseline and after completion of 10-12 sessions. Network connectivity changes after single and repetitive stimulations of cTBS were analyzed.Main results.Using electrophysiological source imaging and a data-driven method, we identified network-level connectivity changes in EEG that correlated with symptom responses after completion of multiple sessions of cTBS. We further determined that connectivity changes demonstrated by EEG during test sessions of single administrations of cTBS were signatures that could predict optimal targets.Significance.Our findings demonstrate the effect of cTBS on resting state brain networks and suggest an imaging-based, closed-loop stimulation paradigm that can identify optimal targets during short-term test sessions of stimulation.ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:NCT02470377.

A Bridge between the Breath and the Brain: Synchronization of Respiration, a Pupillometric Marker of the Locus Coeruleus, and an EEG Marker of Attentional Control State

Yogic and meditative traditions have long held that the fluctuations of the breath and the mind are intimately related. While respiratory modulation of cortical activity and attentional switching are established, the extent to which electrophysiological markers of attention exhibit synchronization with respiration is unknown. To this end, we examined (1) frontal midline theta-beta ratio (TBR), an indicator of attentional control state known to correlate with mind wandering episodes and functional connectivity of the executive control network; (2) pupil diameter (PD), a known proxy measure of locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic activity; and (3) respiration for evidence of phase synchronization and information transfer (multivariate Granger causality) during quiet restful breathing. Our results indicate that both TBR and PD are simultaneously synchronized with the breath, suggesting an underlying oscillation of an attentionally relevant electrophysiological index that is phase-locked to the respiratory cycle which could have the potential to bias the attentional system into switching states. We highlight the LC’s pivotal role as a coupling mechanism between respiration and TBR, and elaborate on its dual functions as both a chemosensitive respiratory nucleus and a pacemaker of the attentional system. We further suggest that an appreciation of the dynamics of this weakly coupled oscillatory system could help deepen our understanding of the traditional claim of a relationship between breathing and attention.

Prefrontal Cortex Metabolome Is Modified by Opioids, Anesthesia, and Sleep

Obtundation of wakefulness caused by opioids and loss of wakefulness caused by anesthetics and sleep significantly alter concentrations of molecules comprising the prefrontal cortex (PFC) metabolome. Quantifying state-selective changes in the PFC metabolome is essential for advancing functional metabolomics. Diverse functions of the PFC suggest the PFC metabolome as a potential therapeutic entry point for countermeasures to state-selective autonomic dysfunction.

Correcting physiological noise in whole-head functional near-infrared spectroscopy

BACKGROUND

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been increasingly employed to monitor cerebral hemodynamics in normal and diseased conditions. However, fNIRS suffers from its susceptibility to superficial activity and systemic physiological noise. The objective of the study was to establish a noise reduction method for fNIRS in a whole-head montage.

NEW METHOD

We have developed an automated denoising method for whole-head fNIRS. A high-density montage consisting of 109 long-separation channels and 8 short-separation channels was used for recording. Auxiliary sensors were also used to measure motion, respiration and pulse simultaneously. The method incorporates principal component analysis and general linear model to identify and remove a globally uniform superficial component. Our denoising method was evaluated in experimental data acquired from a group of healthy human subjects during a visually cued motor task and further compared with a minimal preprocessing method and three established denoising methods in the literature. Quantitative metrics including contrast-to-noise ratio, within-subject standard deviation and adjusted coefficient of determination were evaluated.

RESULTS

After denoising, whole-head topography of fNIRS revealed focal activations concurrently in the primary motor and visual areas.

COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS

Analysis showed that our method improves upon the four established preprocessing methods in the literature.

CONCLUSIONS

An automatic, effective and robust preprocessing pipeline was established for removing physiological noise in whole-head fNIRS recordings. Our method can enable fNIRS as a reliable tool in monitoring large-scale, network-level brain activities for clinical uses.

Reduced coupling between cerebrospinal fluid flow and global brain activity is linked to Alzheimer disease-related pathology

The glymphatic system plays an important role in clearing the amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau proteins that are closely linked to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. Glymphatic clearance, as well as Aβ accumulation, is highly dependent on sleep, but the sleep-dependent driving forces behind cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) movements essential to the glymphatic flux remain largely unclear. Recent studies have reported that widespread, high-amplitude spontaneous brain activations in the drowsy state and during sleep, which are shown as large global signal peaks in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI), are coupled with CSF movements, suggesting their potential link to glymphatic flux and metabolite clearance. By analyzing multimodal data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) project, here we showed that the coupling between the global fMRI signal and CSF influx is correlated with AD-related pathology, including various risk factors for AD, the severity of AD-related diseases, the cortical Aβ level, and cognitive decline over a 2-year follow-up. These results provide critical initial evidence for involvement of sleep-dependent global brain activity, as well as the associated physiological modulations, in the clearance of AD-related brain waste.

This study reveals strong coupling between the global fMRI signal and cerebrospinal fluid influx, finding that this is correlated with Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology, disease severity, and cognitive decline. This supports a link between spontaneous low-frequency brain dynamics and Alzheimer’s disease pathology, presumably due to their role in glymphatic clearance.

fMRI-based detection of alertness predicts behavioral response variability

Levels of alertness are closely linked with human behavior and cognition. However, while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows for investigating whole-brain dynamics during behavior and task engagement, concurrent measures of alertness (such as EEG or pupillometry) are often unavailable. Here, we extract a continuous, time-resolved marker of alertness from fMRI data alone. We demonstrate that this fMRI alertness marker, calculated in a short pre-stimulus interval, captures trial-to-trial behavioral responses to incoming sensory stimuli. In addition, we find that the prediction of both EEG and behavioral responses during the task may be accomplished using only a small fraction of fMRI voxels. Furthermore, we observe that accounting for alertness appears to increase the statistical detection of task-activated brain areas. These findings have broad implications for augmenting a large body of existing datasets with information about ongoing arousal states, enriching fMRI studies of neural variability in health and disease.

Breath-hold task induces temporal heterogeneity in electroencephalographic regional field power in healthy subjects

We demonstrated that changes in CO₂ values cause oscillations in the cortical activity in δ-and α-bands. The analysis of the regional field power (RFP) showed evidence that different cortical areas respond with different time delays to CO₂ challenges. An opposite behavior was found for the end-tidal O₂. We suppose that the different cortical time delays likely expresse specific ascending pathways to the cortex, generated by chemoreceptor nuclei in the brain stem. Although the brain stem is in charge of the automatic control of ventilation, the cortex is involved in the voluntary control of breathing but also receives inputs from the brain stem, which influences the perception of breathing, the arousal state and sleep architecture in conditions of hypoxia/hypercapnia. We evaluated in 11 healthy subjects the effects of breath hold (BH; 30 s of apneas and 30 s of normal breathing) and BH-related CO₂/O₂ changes on electroencephalogram (EEG) global field power (GFP) and RFP in nine different areas (3 rostrocaudal sections: anterior, central, and posterior; and 3 sagittal sections: left, middle, and right) in the δ- and α-bands by cross correlation analysis. No significant differences were observed in GFP or RFP when comparing free breathing (FB) with the BH task. Within the BH task, the shift from apnea to normal ventilation was accompanied by an increase in the δ-power and a decrease in the α-power. The end-tidal pressure of CO₂ ([Formula: see text]) was positively correlated with the δ-band and negatively with the α- band with a positive time shift, whereas an opposite behavior was found for the end-tidal pressure of O₂ ([Formula: see text]). Notably, the time shift between [Formula: see text] / [Formula: see text] signals and cortical activity at RFP was heterogenous and seemed to follow a hierarchical activation, with the δ-band responding earlier than the α-band. Overall, these findings suggest that the effect of BH on the cortex may follow specific ascending pathways from the brain stem and be related to chemoreflex stimulation.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We demonstrated that the end tidal CO₂ oscillation causes oscillations of delta and alpha bands. The analysis of the regional field power showed that different cortical areas respond with different time delays to CO₂ challenges. An opposite behavior was found for the end-tidal O₂. We can suppose that the different cortical time delay response likely expresses specific ascending pathways to the cortex generated by chemoreceptor nuclei in the brainstem.

The neuronal associations of respiratory-volume variability in the resting state

The desire to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of resting-state (rs-fMRI) measures has prompted substantial recent research into removing noise components. Chief among contributions to noise in rs-fMRI are physiological processes, and the neuronal implications of respiratory-volume variability (RVT), a main rs-fMRI-relevant physiological process, is incompletely understood. The potential implications of RVT in modulating and being modulated by autonomic nervous regulation, has yet to be fully understood by the rs-fMRI community. In this work, we use high-density electroencephalography (EEG) along with simultaneously acquired RVT recordings to help address this question. We hypothesize that (1) there is a significant relationship between EEG and RVT in multiple EEG bands, and (2) that this relationship varies by brain region. Our results confirm our first hypothesis, although all brain regions are shown to be equally implicated in RVT-related EEG-signal fluctuations. The lag between RVT and EEG is consistent with previously reported values. However, an interesting finding is related to the polarity of the correlation between RVT and EEG. Our results reveal potentially two main regimes of EEG-RVT association, one in which EEG leads RVT with a positive association between the two, and one in which RVT leads EEG but with a negative association between the two. We propose that these two patterns can be interpreted differently in terms of the involvement of higher cognition. These results further suggest that treating RVT simply as noise is likely a questionable practice, and that more work is needed to avoid discarding cognitively relevant information when performing physiological correction rs-fMRI.

Amplitude of fNIRS Resting-State Global Signal Is Related to EEG Vigilance Measures: A Simultaneous fNIRS and EEG Study

Recently, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been utilized to image the hemodynamic activities and connectivity in the human brain. With the advantage of economic efficiency, portability, and fewer physical constraints, fNIRS enables studying of the human brain at versatile environment and various body positions, including at bed side and during exercise, which complements the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, like fMRI, fNIRS imaging can be influenced by the presence of a strong global component. Yet, the nature of the global signal in fNIRS has not been established. In this study, we investigated the relationship between fNIRS global signal and electroencephalogram (EEG) vigilance using simultaneous recordings in resting healthy subjects in high-density and whole-head montage. In Experiment 1, data were acquired at supine, sitting, and standing positions. Results found that the factor of body positions significantly affected the amplitude of the resting-state fNIRS global signal, prominently in the frequency range of 0.05-0.1 Hz but not in the very low frequency range of less than 0.05 Hz. As a control, the task-induced fNIRS or EEG responses to auditory stimuli did not differ across body positions. However, EEG vigilance plays a modulatory role in the fNIRS signals in the frequency range of less than 0.05 Hz: resting-state sessions of low EEG vigilance measures are associated with high amplitudes of fNIRS global signals. Moreover, in Experiment 2, we further examined the epoch-to-epoch fluctuations in concurrent fNIRS and EEG data acquired from a separate group of subjects and found a negative temporal correlation between EEG vigilance measures and fNIRS global signal amplitudes. Our study for the first time revealed that vigilance as a neurophysiological factor modulates the resting-state dynamics of fNIRS, which have important implications for understanding and processing the noises in fNIRS signals.

Integration of Simultaneous Resting-State Electroencephalography, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Eye-Tracker Methods to Determine and Verify Electroencephalography Vigilance Measure

Background/Introduction: Concurrent electroencephalography and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) have been widely used for studying the (presumably) awake and alert human brain with high temporal/spatial resolution. Although rsfMRI scans are typically collected while individuals are instructed to focus their eyes on a fixated cross, objective and verified experimental measures to quantify degree of vigilance are not readily available. Electroencephalography (EEG) is the modality extensively used for estimating vigilance, especially during eyes-closed resting state. However, pupil size measured using an eye-tracker device could provide an indirect index of vigilance. Methods: Three 12-min resting scans (eyes open, fixating on the cross) were collected from 10 healthy control participants. We simultaneously collected EEG, fMRI, physiological, and eye-tracker data and investigated the correlation between EEG features, pupil size, and heart rate. Furthermore, we used pupil size and EEG features as regressors to find their correlations with blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI measures. Results: EEG frontal and occipital beta power (FOBP) correlates with pupil size changes, an indirect index for locus coeruleus activity implicated in vigilance regulation (r = 0.306, p < 0.001). Moreover, FOBP also correlated with heart rate (r = 0.255, p < 0.001), as well as several brain regions in the anticorrelated network, including the bilateral insula and inferior parietal lobule. Discussion: In this study, we investigated whether simultaneous EEG-fMRI combined with eye-tracker measurements can be used to determine EEG signal feature associated with vigilance measures during eyes-open rsfMRI. Our results support the conclusion that FOBP is an objective measure of vigilance in healthy human subjects. Impact statement We revealed an association between electroencephalography frontal and occipital beta power (FOBP) and pupil size changes during an eyes-open resting state, which supports the conclusion that FOBP could serve as an objective measure of vigilance in healthy human subjects. The results were validated by using simultaneously recorded heart rate and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Interestingly, independently verified heart rate changes can also provide an easy-to-determine measure of vigilance during resting-state fMRI. These findings have important implications for an analysis and interpretation of dynamic resting-state fMRI connectivity studies in health and disease.

Reconstruction of respiratory variation signals from fMRI data

Functional MRI signals can be heavily influenced by systemic physiological processes in addition to local neural activity. For example, widespread hemodynamic fluctuations across the brain have been found to correlate with natural, low-frequency variations in the depth and rate of breathing over time. Acquiring peripheral measures of respiration during fMRI scanning not only allows for modeling such effects in fMRI analysis, but also provides valuable information for interrogating brain-body physiology. However, physiological recordings are frequently unavailable or have insufficient quality. Here, we propose a computational technique for reconstructing continuous low-frequency respiration volume (RV) fluctuations from fMRI data alone. We evaluate the performance of this approach across different fMRI preprocessing strategies. Further, we demonstrate that the predicted RV signals can account for similar patterns of temporal variation in resting-state fMRI data compared to measured RV fluctuations. These findings indicate that fluctuations in respiration volume can be extracted from fMRI alone, in the common scenario of missing or corrupted respiration recordings. The results have implications for enriching a large volume of existing fMRI datasets through retrospective addition of respiratory variations information.

Open eyes and closed eyes elicit different temporal properties of brain functional networks

The eyes are our windows to the brain. There are differences in brain activity between people who have their eyes closed (EC) and eyes open (EO). Previous studies focused on differences in brain functional properties between these eyes conditions based on an assumption that brain activity is a static phenomenon. However, the dynamic nature of the brain activity in different eyes conditions is still unclear. In this study, we collected resting-state fMRI data from 21 healthy subjects in the EC and EO conditions. Using a sliding time window approach and a k-means clustering algorithm, we calculated the temporal properties of dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) states in the eyes conditions. We also used graph theory to estimate the dynamic topological properties of functional networks in the two conditions. We detected two dFC states, a hyper-connected State 1 and a hypo-connected State 2. We showed the following results: (i) subjects in the EC condition stayed longer in the hyper-connected State 1 than those in the EO; (ii) subjects in the EO condition stayed longer in the hypo-connected State 2 than those in the EC; and (iii) the dFC state transformed into the other state more frequently during EC than during EO. We also found the variance of the characteristic path length was higher during EC than during EO in the hyper-connected State 1. These results indicate that brain activity may be more active and unstable during EC than during EO. Our findings may provide insights into the dynamic nature of the resting-state brain and could be a useful reference for future rs-fMRI studies.

Altered relation of resting-state alpha rhythm with blood oxygen level dependent signal in healthy aging: Evidence by EEG-fMRI fusion analysis

OBJECTIVE

The goal of this study is to explore the changes of spatial correlates of alpha rhythm in the aged adults.

METHODS

Electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were simultaneously recorded from 27 young and 19 elderly adults at resting state with their eyes closed. Alpha rhythm power fluctuation was extracted from EEG signal of parietal-occipital region and was fused with fMRI data by correlating alpha rhythm with blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal using general linear models.

RESULTS

For both young adults and the elderly, the regions correlated with alpha rhythm power were widely distributed in cortical and subcortical regions. However, compared to young adults, correlations between alpha rhythm and the activity of thalamus and frontal regions were significantly reduced in the elderly. In addition, an increased correlation with alpha rhythm was found in frontal, insula and cingulate gyrus regions in the elderly.

CONCLUSIONS

Changes in the roles of the above brain regions may be present in the generation or modulation of alpha rhythm due to age advancing.

SIGNIFICANCE

This study provides novel insight into the alteration of the spatial correlates of alpha rhythm in the elderly by using simultaneous EEG-fMRI data fusion analysis.

Resting-state "physiological networks"

Slow changes in systemic brain physiology can elicit large fluctuations in fMRI time series, which manifest as structured spatial patterns of temporal correlations between distant brain regions. Here, we investigated whether such "physiological networks"-sets of segregated brain regions that exhibit similar responses following slow changes in systemic physiology-resemble patterns associated with large-scale networks typically attributed to remotely synchronized neuronal activity. By analyzing a large group of subjects from the 3T Human Connectome Project (HCP) database, we demonstrate brain-wide and noticeably heterogenous dynamics tightly coupled to either respiratory variation or heart rate changes. We show, using synthesized data generated from physiological recordings across subjects, that these physiologically-coupled fluctuations alone can produce networks that strongly resemble previously reported resting-state networks, suggesting that, in some cases, the "physiological networks" seem to mimic the neuronal networks. Further, we show that such physiologically-relevant connectivity estimates appear to dominate the overall connectivity observations in multiple HCP subjects, and that this apparent "physiological connectivity" cannot be removed by the use of a single nuisance regressor for the entire brain (such as global signal regression) due to the clear regional heterogeneity of the physiologically-coupled responses. Our results challenge previous notions that physiological confounds are either localized to large veins or globally coherent across the cortex, therefore emphasizing the necessity to consider potential physiological contributions in fMRI-based functional connectivity studies. The rich spatiotemporal patterns carried by such "physiological" dynamics also suggest great potential for clinical biomarkers that are complementary to large-scale neuronal networks.

Transient Arousal Modulations Contribute to Resting-State Functional Connectivity Changes Associated with Head Motion Parameters

Correlations of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) signals are being widely used for assessing the functional brain connectivity in health and disease. However, an association was recently observed between rsfMRI connectivity modulations and the head motion parameters and regarded as a causal relationship, which has raised serious concerns about the validity of many rsfMRI findings. Here, we studied the origin of this rsfMRI-motion association and its relationship to arousal modulations. By using a template-matching method to locate arousal-related fMRI changes, we showed that the effects of high motion time points on rsfMRI connectivity are largely due to their significant overlap with arousal-affected time points. The finding suggests that the association between rsfMRI connectivity and the head motion parameters arises from their comodulations at transient arousal modulations, and this information is critical not only for proper interpretation of motion-associated rsfMRI connectivity changes, but also for controlling the potential confounding effects of arousal modulation on rsfMRI metrics.

Vigilance Effects in Resting-State fMRI

Measures of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) activity have been shown to be sensitive to cognitive function and disease state. However, there is growing evidence that variations in vigilance can lead to pronounced and spatially widespread differences in resting-state brain activity. Unless properly accounted for, differences in vigilance can give rise to changes in resting-state activity that can be misinterpreted as primary cognitive or disease-related effects. In this paper, we examine in detail the link between vigilance and rsfMRI measures, such as signal variance and functional connectivity. We consider how state changes due to factors such as caffeine and sleep deprivation affect both vigilance and rsfMRI measures and review emerging approaches and methodological challenges for the estimation and interpretation of vigilance effects.

Physiological changes in sleep that affect fMRI inference

fMRI relies on a localized cerebral blood flow (CBF) response to changes in cortical neuronal activity. An underappreciated aspect however is its sensitivity to contributions from autonomic physiology that may affect CBF through changes in vascular resistance and blood pressure. As is reviewed here, this is crucial to consider in fMRI studies of sleep, given the close linkage between the regulation of arousal state and autonomic physiology. Typical methods for separating these effects are based on the use of reference signals that may include physiological parameters such as heart rate and respiration; however, the use of time-invariant models may not be adequate due to the possibly changing relationship between reference and fMRI signals with arousal state. In addition, recent research indicates that additional physiological reference signals may be needed to accurately describe changes in systemic physiology, including sympathetic indicators such as finger skin vascular tone and blood pressure.

Sympathetic activity contributes to the fMRI signal

The interpretation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of brain activity is often hampered by the presence of brain-wide signal variations that may arise from a variety of neuronal and non-neuronal sources. Recent work suggests a contribution from the sympathetic vascular innervation, which may affect the fMRI signal through its putative and poorly understood role in cerebral blood flow (CBF) regulation. By analyzing fMRI and (electro-) physiological signals concurrently acquired during sleep, we found that widespread fMRI signal changes often co-occur with electroencephalography (EEG) K-complexes, signatures of sub-cortical arousal, and episodic drops in finger skin vascular tone; phenomena that have been associated with intermittent sympathetic activity. These findings support the notion that the extrinsic sympathetic innervation of the cerebral vasculature contributes to CBF regulation and the fMRI signal. Accounting for this mechanism could help separate systemic from local signal contributions and improve interpretation of fMRI studies.

Arousal Contributions to Resting-State fMRI Connectivity and Dynamics

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) is being widely used for charting brain connectivity and dynamics in healthy and diseased brains. However, the resting state paradigm allows an unconstrained fluctuation of brain arousal, which may have profound effects on resting-state fMRI signals and associated connectivity/dynamic metrics. Here, we review current understandings of the relationship between resting-state fMRI and brain arousal, in particular the effect of a recently discovered event of arousal modulation on resting-state fMRI. We further discuss potential implications of arousal-related fMRI modulation with a focus on its potential role in mediating spurious correlations between resting-state connectivity/dynamics with physiology and behavior. Multiple hypotheses are formulated based on existing evidence and remain to be tested by future studies.

Characteristics of respiratory measures in young adults scanned at rest, including systematic changes and "missed" deep breaths

Breathing rate and depth influence the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood, altering cerebral blood flow and thus functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals. Such respiratory fluctuations can have substantial influence in studies of fMRI signal covariance in subjects at rest, the so-called "resting state functional connectivity" technique. If respiration is monitored during fMRI scanning, it is typically done using a belt about the subject's abdomen to record abdominal circumference. Several measures have been derived from these belt records, including the windowed envelope of the waveform (ENV), the windowed variance in the waveform (respiration variation, RV), and a measure of the amplitude of each breath divided by the cycle time of the breath (respiration volume per time, RVT). Any attempt to gauge respiratory contributions to fMRI signals requires a respiratory measure, but little is known about how these measures compare to each other, or how they perform beyond the small studies in which they were initially proposed. Here, we examine the properties of these measures in hundreds of healthy young adults scanned for an hour each at rest, a subset of the Human Connectome Project chosen for having high-quality physiological records. We find: 1) ENV, RV, and RVT are all correlated, and ENV and RV are more highly correlated to each other than to RVT; 2) respiratory events like deep breaths exhibit characteristic heart rate elevations, fMRI signal changes, head motions, and image quality abnormalities time-locked to large deflections in the belt traces; 3) all measures can "miss" deep breaths; 4) RVT "misses" deep breaths more than ENV or RV; 5) all respiratory measures change systematically over the course of a 14.4-min scan. We discuss the implications of these findings for the literature and ways to move forward in modeling respiratory influences on fMRI scans.

Twitches, Blinks, and Fidgets: Important Generators of Ongoing Neural Activity

Animals and humans continuously engage in small, spontaneous motor actions, such as blinking, whisking, and postural adjustments ("fidgeting"). These movements are accompanied by changes in neural activity in sensory and motor regions of the brain. The frequency of these motions varies in time, is affected by sensory stimuli, arousal levels, and pathology. These fidgeting behaviors can be entrained by sensory stimuli. Fidgeting behaviors will cause distributed, bilateral functional activation in the 0.01 to 0.1 Hz frequency range that will show up in functional magnetic resonance imaging and wide-field calcium neuroimaging studies, and will contribute to the observed functional connectivity among brain regions. However, despite the large potential of these behaviors to drive brain-wide activity, these fidget-like behaviors are rarely monitored. We argue that studies of spontaneous and evoked brain dynamics in awake animals and humans should closely monitor these fidgeting behaviors. Differences in these fidgeting behaviors due to arousal or pathology will "contaminate" ongoing neural activity, and lead to apparent differences in functional connectivity. Monitoring and accounting for the brain-wide activations by these behaviors is essential during experiments to differentiate fidget-driven activity from internally driven neural dynamics.

Superficial Fluctuations in Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive optical functional neuroimaging that has seen rapid development and increasing use in studying human brain under normal and diseased conditions. Compared with blood-oxygenation-level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD fMRI), fNIRS offers advantages including its low cost, portability and compatibility with implanted medical devices. Thus, fNIRS can be used to monitor brain activity particularly in infants, elders and patients who are unable to undergo routine fMRI scans. However, fNIRS suffers from its susceptibility to scalp and to systemic physiological noises. Fluctuations originated from heartbeat, respiration and low-frequency oscillations lead to contamination of cerebral activity. In order to tap the full potential of fNIRS, it is essential to eliminate these confounding noises from fNIRS measurements. Therefore, the present study aims to understand the underlying relationship between superficial signals and the compound signals respectively measured by short channels and long channels of fNIRS optodes in a whole head configuration. Our results reveal that: 1) 49.56% of total variances in long-channel data are contributed by a global component shared across all long channels; 2) this global component is significantly correlated with the superficial fluctuations extracted from short-channel data. Finally, our findings indicate that compound signals measured by long channels of fNIRS are contaminated by superficial fluctuations and that careful removal of these fluctuations from long-channel data is critical in obtaining accurate images of cerebral activity with fNIRS.

DC Shifts-fMRI: A Supplement to Event-Related fMRI

Event-related fMRI have been widely used in locating brain regions which respond to specific tasks. However, activities of brain regions which modulate or indirectly participate in the response to a specific task are not event-related. Event-related fMRI can't locate these regulatory regions, detrimental to the integrity of the result that event-related fMRI revealed. Direct-current EEG shifts (DC shifts) have been found linked to the inner brain activity, a fusion DC shifts-fMRI method may have the ability to reveal a more complete response of the brain. In this study, we used DC shifts-fMRI to verify that even when responding to a very simple task, (1) The response of the brain is more complicated than event-related fMRI generally revealed and (2) DC shifts-fMRI have the ability of revealing brain regions whose responses are not in event-related way. We used a classical and simple paradigm which is often used in auditory cortex tonotopic mapping. Data were recorded from 50 subjects (25 male, 25 female) who were presented with randomly presented pure tone sequences with six different frequencies (200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400 Hz). Our traditional fMRI results are consistent with previous findings that the activations are concentrated on the auditory cortex. Our DC shifts-fMRI results showed that the cingulate-caudate-thalamus network which underpins sustained attention is positively activated while the dorsal attention network and the right middle frontal gyrus which underpin attention orientation are negatively activated. The regional-specific correlations between DC shifts and brain networks indicate the complexity of the response of the brain even to a simple task and that the DC shifts can effectively reflect these non-event-related inner brain activities.

Effect of Body Positions on EEG signals in Mal de Debarquement Syndrome

Multimodal neuroimaging, such as combined electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), are being increasingly used to investigate the human brain in healthy and diseased conditions. However, certain neuroimaging data are typically acquired in different body positions, e.g., supine fMRI and upright EEG, overlooking the effect of body position on signal characteristics. In the current study we examined EEG signals in three different positions, i.e., supine, standing and sitting, in patients with a balance disorder called mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS). Individuals with MdDS experience a chronic illusion of self-motion triggered by prolonged exposure to passive motion, such as from sea or air travel. The degree of perception of rocking dizziness is modulated by body position, suggesting a physiological effect related to body positions. In the present study, EEG features were quantified as peak frequency, peak amplitude, and average amplitude of the alpha band due to its strongest signal characteristics compared to other frequencies. The effect of body position was examined in EEG features from data acquired before and after the individuals received treatment with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. Our results indicate a significant effect of body positions on the EEG signals in MdDS.

Resting State Functional Connectivity Signature of Treatment Effects of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Mal de Debarquement Syndrome

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been used in experimental protocols to treat mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS), a neurological condition that represents a maladaptive brain state resulting from entrainment to external oscillating motion. Medical treatments and biomarkers for MdDS remain limited but neuromodulation with rTMS has shown evidence for therapeutic effects. This study took a neuroimaging approach to examine the neuromodulatory effect of rTMS on MdDS. Twenty individuals with MdDS underwent five daily treatments of rTMS over bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Participants received 1 Hz over right DLPFC (1200 pulses) followed by 10 Hz over left DLPFC (2000 pulses). Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging was acquired before and after treatments to determine functional connectivity changes associated with a positive treatment effect. A single-subject-based analysis protocol was developed to capture the degree of resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) between the rTMS target and the entorhinal cortex (EC), an area previously shown to be hypermetabolic in MdDS. Our results showed that rocking motion perception in subjects was modulated by rTMS over the DLPFC. Improvements in symptoms correlated most strongly with a post-rTMS reduction in functional connectivity between the left EC and the precuneus, right inferior parietal lobule, and the contralateral EC, which are part of the posterior default mode network. Positive response to rTMS correlated with higher baseline RSFC between the DLPFC and the EC. Our findings suggest that baseline prefrontal-limbic functional connectivity may serve as a predictor of treatment response to prefrontal stimulation in MdDS and that RSFC may serve as a dynamic biomarker of symptom status.

An Autonomic Network: Synchrony Between Slow Rhythms of Pulse and Brain Resting State Is Associated with Personality and Emotions

The sympathetic system's role in modulating vasculature and its influence on emotions and personality led us to test the hypothesis that interactions between brain resting-state networks (RSNs) and pulse amplitude (indexing sympathetic activity) would be associated with emotions and personality. In 203 participants, we characterized RSN spatiotemporal characteristics, and phase-amplitude associations of RSN fluctuations with pulse and respiratory recordings. We found that RSNs are spatially reproducible within participants and were temporally associated with low frequencies (LFs < 0.1 Hz) in physiological signals. LF fluctuations in pulse amplitude were not related to cardiac electrical activity and preceded LF fluctuations in RSNs, while LF respiratory amplitude fluctuations followed LF fluctuations in RSNs. LF phase dispersion (PD) (lack of synchrony) between RSNs and pulse (PDpulse) (not respiratory) correlated with the common variability in measures of personality and emotions, with more synchrony being associated with more positive temperamental characteristics. Voxel-level PDpulse mapping revealed an "autonomic brain network," including sensory cortices and dorsal attention stream, with significant interactions with peripheral signals. Here, we uncover associations between pulse signal amplitude (presumably of sympathetic origin) and brain resting state, suggesting that interactions between central and autonomic nervous systems are important for characterizing personality and emotions.

Electrophysiological Signatures of Intrinsic Functional Connectivity Related to rTMS Treatment for Mal de Debarquement Syndrome

To determine intrinsic functional connectivity (IFC) related to symptom changes induced by rTMS in mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS), a motion perceptual disorder induced by entrainment to oscillating motion. Twenty right-handed women (mean age: 52.9 ± 12.6 years; mean duration illness: 35.2 ± 24.2 months) with MdDS received five sessions of rTMS (1 Hz right DLPFC, 10 Hz left DLPFC) over consecutive days. High-density (128-channel) resting-state EEG were recorded prior to and following treatment sessions and analyzed using a group-level independent component (IC) analysis. IFC between 19 ICs was quantified by inter-IC phase coherence (ICPC) in six frequency bands (delta, theta, low alpha, high alpha, beta, gamma). Correlational analyses between IFCs and symptoms were performed. Symptom improvement after rTMS was significantly correlated with (1) an increase in low alpha band (8–10 Hz) IFC but a decrease of IFC in all other bands, and (2) high baseline IFC in the high alpha (11–13 Hz) and beta bands (14–30 Hz). Most treatment related IFC changes occurred between frontal and parietal regions with a linear association between the degree of symptom improvement and the number of coherent IFC changes. Frequency band and region specific IFC changes correlate with and can predict symptom changes induced by rTMS over DLPFC in MdDS. MdDS symptom response correlates with high baseline IFC in most frequency bands. Treatment induced increase in long-range low alpha IFC and decreases in IFC in other bands as well as the proportion of coherent IFC changes correlate with symptom reduction.