To smooth or not to smooth? ROC analysis of perfusion fMRI data

Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast has been widely used for visualizing regional neural activation. Temporal filtering and parameter estimation algorithms are generally used to account for the intrinsic temporal autocorrelation present in BOLD data. Arterial spin labeling perfusion imaging is an emerging methodology for visualizing regional brain function both at rest and during activation. Perfusion contrast manifests different noise properties compared with BOLD contrast, represented by the even distribution of noise power and spatial coherence across the frequency spectrum. Consequently, different strategies are expected to be employed in the statistical analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data based on perfusion contrast. In this study, the effect of different analysis methods upon signal detection efficacy, as assessed by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) measures, was examined for perfusion fMRI data. Simulated foci of neural activity of varying amplitude and spatial extent were added to resting perfusion data, and the accuracy of each analysis was evaluated by comparing the results with the known distribution of pseudo-activation. In contrast to the BOLD fMRI, temporal smoothing or filtering reduces the power of perfusion fMRI data analyses whereas spatial smoothing is beneficial to the efficacy of analyses.