Kessler Foundation researchers study impact of head movement on fMRI data

Head movement during fMRI may bias sampling toward subjects with lower cognitive ability

2014-02-19

(Press-News.org) West Orange, NJ. February 19, 2014. Kessler Foundation researchers have shown that discarding data from subjects with multiple sclerosis (MS) who exhibit head movement during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may bias sampling away from subjects with lower cognitive ability. The study was published in the January issue of Human Brain Mapping. (Wylie GR, Genova H, DeLuca J, Chiaravalloti N, Sumowski JF. Functional MRI movers and shakers: Does subject-movement cause sampling bias.) Glenn Wylie, DPhil, is associate director of Neuroscience in Neuropsychology & Neuroscience Research at Kessler Foundation. He is also associate director of the Neuroimaging Center at Kessler Foundation, and an associate professor at Rutgers - New Jersey Medical School.

Because head movement during fMRI degrades data quality, data associated with severe movement is frequently discarded as a source of random error. Kessler Foundation scientists tested this assumption in 34 persons with MS by examining whether head movement was related to task difficulty and cognitive status. Cognitive status was assessed by combining performance on a working memory and processing speed task.

"We found an interaction between task difficulty and cognitive status," explained Dr. Wylie. "As task difficulty increased, there was a linear increase in movement that was larger among subjects with lower cognitive ability." Healthy controls showed similar, though far smaller, effects. This finding indicates that discarding data with severe movement artifact may bias MS samples such that only subjects with less-severe cognitive impairment are included in the analyses. However, even if such data are not discarded outright, subjects who move more will contribute less to the group-level results because of the poor quality of their data.

It is important for researchers to be aware of this potential bias. "Some newer scanners can correct for motion," noted Dr. Wylie. "Another approach is to monitor each subject's motion parameters and ensure that an adequate number of subjects with low cognition are included. Recruiting a large number of subjects may ensure inclusion of a sufficient number of people with low cognition/low movement. It is however, a costly option."

INFORMATION: Funded by the National MS Society (RG3330A1/3; PP1364); NIH (HD060765-01); Kessler Foundation

About MS Research at Kessler Foundation Kessler Foundation's cognitive rehabilitation research in MS is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National MS Society, NJ Commission of Brain Injury Research, Consortium of MS Centers, and Kessler Foundation. Under the leadership of John DeLuca, PhD, senior VP for Research & Training, and Nancy Chiaravalloti, PhD, director of Neuropsychology & Neuroscience Research, scientists have made important contributions to the knowledge of cognitive decline in MS. Clinical studies span new learning, memory, executive function, attention and processing speed, emotional processing, employment and cognitive fatigue. Research tools include innovative applications of neuroimaging, iPADs, and virtual reality. Among recent findings are the benefits of cognitive reserve and aerobic exercise; correlation between cognitive performance and outdoor temperatures; efficacy of short-term cognitive rehabilitation using modified story technique; factors related to risk for unemployment, and the correlation between memory improvement and cerebral activation on fMRI. Foundation research scientists have faculty appointments at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. The opening of the Neuroimaging Center at Kessler Foundation in 2013 has greatly expanded the Foundation's capability for neuroscience research.

About Kessler Foundation Kessler Foundation, a major nonprofit organization in the field of disability, is a global leader in rehabilitation research that seeks to improve cognition, mobility and long-term outcomes, including employment, for people with neurological disabilities caused by diseases and injuries of the brain and spinal cord. Kessler Foundation leads the nation in funding innovative programs that expand opportunities for employment for people with disabilities. For more information, visit KesslerFoundation.org. facebook.com/KesslerFoundation http://twitter.com/KesslerFdn

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Clouds seen circling supermassive black holes

2014-02-19

Astronomers see huge clouds of gas orbiting supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Once thought to be a relatively uniform, fog-like ring, the accreting matter instead forms clumps dense enough to intermittently dim the intense radiation blazing forth as these enormous objects condense and consume matter, they report in a paper to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, available online now. Video depicting the swirling clouds is posted to YouTube http://youtu.be/QA8nzRkjOEw Evidence for the clouds comes from records collected ...

Better cache management could improve chip performance, cut energy use

2014-02-19

Computer chips keep getting faster because transistors keep getting smaller. But the chips themselves are as big as ever, so data moving around the chip, and between chips and main memory, has to travel just as far. As transistors get faster, the cost of moving data becomes, proportionally, a more severe limitation. So far, chip designers have circumvented that limitation through the use of "caches" — small memory banks close to processors that store frequently used data. But the number of processors — or "cores" — per chip is also increasing, which makes cache management ...

When faced with a hard decision, people tend to blame fate

2014-02-19

Life is full of decisions. Some, like what to eat for breakfast, are relatively easy. Others, like whether to move cities for a new job, are quite a bit more difficult. Difficult decisions tend to make us feel stressed and uncomfortable – we don't want to feel responsible if the outcome is less than desirable. New research suggests that we deal with such difficult decisions by shifting responsibility for the decision to fate. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Fate is a ubiquitous supernatural ...

UK failing to harness its bioenergy potential

2014-02-19

The UK could generate almost half its energy needs from biomass sources, including household waste, agricultural residues and home-grown biofuels by 2050, new research suggests. Scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at The University of Manchester found that the UK could produce up to 44% of its energy by these means without the need to import. The study, published in Energy Policy journal, highlights the country's potential abundance of biomass resources that are currently underutilised and totally overlooked by the bioenergy sector. Instead, ...

Making nanoelectronics last longer for medical devices, 'cyborgs'

2014-02-19

The debut of cyborgs who are part human and part machine may be a long way off, but researchers say they now may be getting closer. In a study published in ACS' journal Nano Letters, they report development of a coating that makes nanoelectronics much more stable in conditions mimicking those in the human body. The advance could also aid in the development of very small implanted medical devices for monitoring health and disease. Charles Lieber and colleagues note that nanoelectronic devices with nanowire components have unique abilities to probe and interface with living ...

Gecko-inspired adhesion: Self-cleaning and reliable

2014-02-19

This news release is available in German. Geckos outclass adhesive tapes in one respect: Even after repeated contact with dirt and dust do their feet perfectly adhere to smooth surfaces. Researchers of the KIT and the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, have now developed the first adhesive tape that does not only adhere to a surface as reliably as the toes of a gecko, but also possesses similar self-cleaning properties. Using such a tape, food packagings or bandages might be opened and closed several times. The results are published in the "Interface" journal of ...

Chemical leak in W.Va. shows gaps in research, policy

2014-02-19

The chemical leak that contaminated drinking water in the Charleston, W.Va., area last month put in sharp relief the shortcomings of the policies and research that apply to thousands of chemicals in use today. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society, delves into the details of the accident that forced 300,000 residents to live on bottled water for days. A team of C&EN reporters and editors note that the main chemical that leaked into the water supply is an obscure one called 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or ...

Advance in energy storage could speed up development of next-gen electronics

2014-02-19

Electronics are getting smaller all the time, but there's a limit to how tiny they can get with today's materials. Researchers now say, however, that they have developed a way to shrink capacitors — key components that store energy — even further, which could accelerate the development of more compact, high-performance next-gen devices. The study appears in the journal ACS Nano. Takayoshi Sasaki and colleagues point out that many recent improvements have already downsized capacitors significantly. But current technology has almost reached its limit in terms of materials ...

Genetics linked to children viewing high amounts of violent media

2014-02-19

Washington, DC (February 19 2014) – The lifelong debate of nature versus nurture continues—this time in what your children watch. A recent paper published in the Journal of Communication found that a specific variation of the serotonin-transporter gene was linked to children who engaged in increased viewing of violent TV and playing of violent video games. Sanne Nikkelen, Helen Vossen, and Patti Valkenburg of the University of Amsterdam's School of Communication Research, in collaboration with researchers at the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, analyzed ...

Special air filter blocks small particles called UFPs from getting inside cars

2014-02-19

While taking in the scenery during long road trips, passengers also may be taking in potentially harmful ultrafine particles (UFPs) that come into the car through outdoor air vents. Closing the vents reduces UFPs, but causes exhaled carbon dioxide to build up. Now, scientists report in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology that installing a newly developed high-efficiency cabin air filter (HECA) could reduce UFP exposure by 93 percent and keep carbon dioxide levels low. Yifang Zhu and Eon Lee explain that most modern cars come with cabin air filters, but ...

Wiley advances Knowitall Solutions with new trendfinder application for user-friendly chemometric analysis and additional enhancements to analytical workflows

Kessler Foundation researchers study impact of head movement on fMRI data

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: