Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI provides an increasingly attractive research tool to investigate cognitive processes with high temporal and spatial resolution. However, artifacts in EEG data introduced by the MR-scanner still remain a major obstacle. This study employing commonly used artifact correction step...

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Main Authors: Fellner, M.-C., Volberg, G., Mullinger, K.J., Goldhacker, M., Wimber, M., Greenlee, M.W., Hanslmayr, S.
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32369/
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author Fellner, M.-C.
Volberg, G.
Mullinger, K.J.
Goldhacker, M.
Wimber, M.
Greenlee, M.W.
Hanslmayr, S.
author_facet Fellner, M.-C.
Volberg, G.
Mullinger, K.J.
Goldhacker, M.
Wimber, M.
Greenlee, M.W.
Hanslmayr, S.
author_sort Fellner, M.-C.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Simultaneous EEG-fMRI provides an increasingly attractive research tool to investigate cognitive processes with high temporal and spatial resolution. However, artifacts in EEG data introduced by the MR-scanner still remain a major obstacle. This study employing commonly used artifact correction steps shows that head motion, one overlooked major source of artifacts in EEG-fMRI data, can cause plausible EEG effects and EEG-BOLD correlations. Specifically, low frequency EEG (<20 Hz) is strongly correlated with in-scanner movement. Accordingly, minor head motion (<0.2 mm) induces spurious effects in a twofold manner: Small differences in task-correlated motion elicit spurious low frequency effects, and, as motion concurrently influences fMRI data, EEG-BOLD correlations closely match motion-fMRI correlations. We demonstrate these effects in a memory encoding experiment showing that obtained theta power (~3-7 Hz) effects and channel-level theta-BOLD correlations reflect motion in the scanner. These findings highlight an important caveat that needs to be addressed by future EEG-fMRI studies. Keywords:
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publishDate 2016
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spelling nottingham-323692024-08-15T15:19:30Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32369/ Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement Fellner, M.-C. Volberg, G. Mullinger, K.J. Goldhacker, M. Wimber, M. Greenlee, M.W. Hanslmayr, S. Simultaneous EEG-fMRI provides an increasingly attractive research tool to investigate cognitive processes with high temporal and spatial resolution. However, artifacts in EEG data introduced by the MR-scanner still remain a major obstacle. This study employing commonly used artifact correction steps shows that head motion, one overlooked major source of artifacts in EEG-fMRI data, can cause plausible EEG effects and EEG-BOLD correlations. Specifically, low frequency EEG (<20 Hz) is strongly correlated with in-scanner movement. Accordingly, minor head motion (<0.2 mm) induces spurious effects in a twofold manner: Small differences in task-correlated motion elicit spurious low frequency effects, and, as motion concurrently influences fMRI data, EEG-BOLD correlations closely match motion-fMRI correlations. We demonstrate these effects in a memory encoding experiment showing that obtained theta power (~3-7 Hz) effects and channel-level theta-BOLD correlations reflect motion in the scanner. These findings highlight an important caveat that needs to be addressed by future EEG-fMRI studies. Keywords: Elsevier 2016-06-02 Article PeerReviewed Fellner, M.-C., Volberg, G., Mullinger, K.J., Goldhacker, M., Wimber, M., Greenlee, M.W. and Hanslmayr, S. (2016) Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement. NeuroImage, 133 . pp. 354-366. ISSN 1053-8119 Brain oscillations EEG-BOLD correlations motion artifacts simultaneous EEG-fMRI theta oscillations http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811916002366 doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.03.031 doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.03.031
spellingShingle Brain oscillations
EEG-BOLD correlations
motion artifacts
simultaneous EEG-fMRI
theta oscillations
Fellner, M.-C.
Volberg, G.
Mullinger, K.J.
Goldhacker, M.
Wimber, M.
Greenlee, M.W.
Hanslmayr, S.
Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title_full Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title_fullStr Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title_full_unstemmed Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title_short Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement
title_sort spurious correlations in simultaneous eeg-fmri driven by in-scanner movement
topic Brain oscillations
EEG-BOLD correlations
motion artifacts
simultaneous EEG-fMRI
theta oscillations
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32369/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32369/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32369/