A Pilot Project to Investigate Continuous Performance fMRI in Normal Humans

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，范·霍恩博士将花一年时间开发和验证所需的方法和工具，以检查在通过功能磁共振成像(FMRI)监测大脑活动的情况下执行的连续运动感觉任务。目前在心理任务中通过功能磁共振成像监测大脑活动的实验框架主要依赖于离散呈现的刺激时期或事件。这些方法是研究基于感知的认知过程的理想方法，但许多真实世界的行为(如运动行为)本质上是连续的，这表明需要设计新的方法学框架来使用功能磁共振成像。本项目中设计和应用的统计方法将用于将持续绩效框架扩展为一种新的功能磁共振范式。该项目涉及为MR环境定制设计和制造专门的刺激输入设备，以允许连续采样响应域。此外，它涉及计算密集的数据统计建模，因为范例需要测量并发的性能变量、潜在的混杂变量(例如心率、呼吸、眼球运动等)和功能磁共振成像采集参数，以便将这些包括在实验设计中。为了检验连续任务方法的有效性，将研究各种任务。本项目中开发的技术将有助于开发新的方法来研究功能磁共振的脑激活范例。这些新方法强调大脑-行为关系的动态方面。这个项目的工作将促进持续进行的心理过程的计算模型的发展。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Van Horn will spend a year developing and validating methods and tools needed for examining continuous motor-sensory tasks performed while brain activity is monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Current experimental frameworks for monitoring brain activity via fMRI during psychological tasks rely principally upon discretely presented stimulus periods or events. Such approaches are ideal for the study of perception-based cognitive processes, yet many real-world behaviors (such as motor acts) are continuous in nature, suggesting a need for new methodological frameworks designed for use with fMRI. The statistical approaches designed and applied in this project will be used to extend the continuous performance framework into a new class of fMRI paradigm. This project involves the custom design and fabrication of specialized stimulus input devices for the MR environment that will permit a continuously sampled response domain. Moreover, it involves computationally intense statistical modeling of data because the paradigms require measuring concurrent performance variables, potentially confounding variables (e.g. heart rate, respiration, eye-movements, etc.), and fMRI acquisition parameters, in order to include these in the experimental design. To examine the validity of the continuous task methodology, a variety of tasks will be studied.The techniques developed in this project will assist in developing new approaches to studying brain activation paradigms for fMRI. These new approaches emphasize dynamic aspects of brain-behavior relationships. The work in this project will facilitate the development of computational models of continuously performed psychological processes.