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Updated: Aug 28, 2025
fMRI Validation of fNIRS Measurements During a Naturalistic Task
Published on: June 15, 2015
Effect of surgical mask on fMRI signals during task and rest
Benjamin Klugah-Brown1, Yue Yu2, Peng Hu2
1The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No.2006, Xiyuan Avenue, West Hi-Tech Zone, Chengdu, Sichuan, 611731, China. bklugah@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Wearing a face mask has become essential to contain the spread of COVID-19 and has become mandatory when collecting fMRI data at most research institutions. Here, we investigate the effects of wearing a surgical mask on fMRI data in n = 37 healthy participants. Activations during finger tapping, emotional face matching, working memory tasks, and rest were examined. Preliminary fMRI analyses show that despite the different mask states, resting-state signals and task activations were relatively similar. Resting-state functional connectivity showed negligible attenuation patterns in mask-on compared with mask-off. Task-based ROI analysis also demonstrated no significant difference between the two mask states under each contrast investigated. Notwithstanding the overall insignificant effects, these results indicate that wearing a face mask during fMRI has little to no significant effect on resting-state and task activations.
