TR(Acking) Individuals Down: Exploring the Effect of Temporal Resolution in Resting‐State Functional MRI Fingerprinting

• Published in: Human brain mapping Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. e70125 - n/a
• Main Authors: Cassone, Barbara, Saviola, Francesca, Tambalo, Stefano, Amico, Enrico, Hübner, Sebastian, Sarubbo, Silvio, Van De Ville, Dimitri, Jovicich, Jorge
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.02.2025
• Subjects: Adult; Biomarkers; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; brain fingerprinting; Brain mapping; brain networks; Brain research; Connectome - methods; Connectome - standards; DNA fingerprinting; Female; Fingerprinting; functional connectivity; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - standards; Male; Medical imaging; Nerve Net - diagnostic imaging; Nerve Net - physiology; Network reliability; Neural networks; Neuroimaging; Noise; Physiological effects; Population studies; Precision medicine; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Rest; resting‐state fMRI; Temporal resolution; Time Factors; Young Adult; functional connectivity; brain fingerprinting; brain networks; temporal resolution; resting‐state fMRI
• ISSN: 1065-9471; 1097-0193; 1097-0193
• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.70125

ABSTRACT Functional brain fingerprinting has emerged as an influential tool to quantify reliability in neuroimaging studies and to identify cognitive biomarkers in both healthy and clinical populations. Recent studies have revealed that brain fingerprints reside in the timescale‐specific functional connectivity of particular brain regions. However, the impact of the acquisition's temporal resolution on fingerprinting remains unclear. In this study, we examine for the first time the reliability of functional fingerprinting derived from resting‐state functional MRI (rs‐fMRI) with different whole‐brain temporal resolutions (TR = 0.5, 0.7, 1, 2, and 3 s) in a cohort of 20 healthy volunteers. Our findings indicate that subject identifiability within a fixed TR is successful across different temporal resolutions, with the highest identifiability observed at TR 0.5 and 3 s (TR(s)/identifiability(%): 0.5/64; 0.7/47; 1/44; 2/44; 3/56). We discuss this observation in terms of protocol‐specific effects of physiological noise aliasing. We further show that, irrespective of TR, associative brain areas make an higher contribution to subject identifiability (functional connections with highest mean ICC: within subcortical network [SUB; ICC = 0.0387], within default mode network [DMN; ICC = 0.0058]; between DMN and somato‐motor [SM] network [ICC = 0.0013]; between ventral attention network [VA] and DMN [ICC = 0.0008]; between VA and SM [ICC = 0.0007]), whereas sensory‐motor regions become more influential when integrating data from different TRs (functional connections with highest mean ICC: within fronto‐parietal network [ICC = 0.382], within dorsal attention network [DA; ICC = 0.373]; within SUB [ICC = 0.367]; between visual network [VIS] and DA [ICC = 0.362]; within VIS [ICC = 0.358]). We conclude that functional connectivity fingerprinting derived from rs‐fMRI holds significant potential for multicentric studies also employing protocols with different temporal resolutions. However, it remains crucial to consider fMRI signal's sampling rate differences in subject identifiability between data samples, in order to improve reliability and generalizability of both whole‐brain and specific functional networks' results. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the practical application of functional connectivity fingerprinting, and its implications for future neuroimaging research. We investigated temporal resolution's impact on functional fingerprints in resting‐state fMRI of healthy individuals. Subject identifiability remains strong across resolutions, peaking at TR 0.5 and 3 s. Associative brain areas mostly contribute to subject identifiability regardless of TR, while sensory‐motor regions are more sensible to differences in temporal resolution.