The Data Processing Of Resting State FMRI Signal And Statistical Analysis Software Development

Resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) has been drawing more and more attention in recent years and widely used in neuroscience research and clinical medicine research, As the application of RS-fMRI, RS-fMRI data processing method also emerge in endlessly, the requirement of data processing software is being higher, the study of neural mechanisms is becoming more and more deeply, Research paradigm is no longer confined to the Block design, the researchers put forward some new research paradigm (continuous paradigm) to explore the brain mechanism. On the basis of in-depth study RS-fMRI data processing method and fully mastering of data processing software, in this article mainly involved in two parts, in the first part we carried out an fMRI study by using a continuous paradigm, that is, continuous (8 min) feedback of finger force. Borrowing an analytic method widely used in resting-state fMRI studies, that is, regional homogeneity (ReHo), we compared the local synchronization in some subfrequency bands between real and sham feedback, and the subbands were defined as Slow-6 (0.0-0.01 Hz), Slow-5 (0.01-0.027 Hz), Slow-4 (0.027-0.073 Hz), Slow-3 (0.073-0.198 Hz), and Slow-2 (0.198-0.25 Hz). Our results revealed that the five subfrequency bands of brain activity contributed to the changes of ReHo between real and sham feedback differently, and, more importantly, the changes in basal ganglia were only manifested in Slow-6, implicating the fact that ReHo in ultraslow band may be associated with the functional significance of BG, that is, motor control; the other one is that Most neuroimaging studies only reported statistical significant (P value) but few mentioned effect size and few neuroimaging analytic toolkits support effect size calculation. We illustrated the importance of standard effect size calculation and developed a GUI MATLAB toolbox called Neuroimaging Statistical analysis and Standardized Effect Size calculator (SEStMap), which calculates and presents standardized effect size as well as t value. SEStMap supports the calculation of standardized effect size in a voxel-by-voxel manner for independent two-sample and paired comparisons and statistical analysis included two-sample and paired t-test. The current toolbox SEStMap supports not only standardized effect size calculation but also its presentation together with t value. SEStMap reports the detailed information about the clusters including peak intensity about t value and standardized effect size.