RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A comprehensive evaluation of multiband-accelerated sequences and their effects on statistical outcome measures in fMRI JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 076307 DO 10.1101/076307 A1 Lysia Demetriou A1 Oliwia S Kowalczyk A1 Gabriella Tyson A1 Thomas Bello A1 Rexford D Newbould A1 Matthew B Wall YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/20/076307.abstract AB Accelerated functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) with ‘multiband’ sequences is now relatively widespread. These sequences can be used to dramatically reduce the repetition time (TR) and produce a time-series sampled at a higher temporal resolution. We tested the effects of higher temporal resolutions for fMRI on statistical outcome measures in a comprehensive manner on two different MRI scanner platforms. Experiment 1 tested a range of acceleration factors (1-6) against a standard EPI sequence on a single composite task that maps a number of basic sensory, motor, and cognitive networks. Experiment 2 compared the standard sequence with acceleration factors of 2 and 3 on both resting-state and two task paradigms (an N-back task, and faces/places task), with a number of different analysis approaches. Results from experiment 1 showed modest but relatively inconsistent effects of the higher sampling rate on statistical outcome measures. Experiment 2 showed strong benefits of the multiband sequences on results derived from resting-state data, but more varied effects on results from the task paradigms. Notably, the multiband sequences were superior when Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis was used to interrogate the faces/places data, but showed less benefit in conventional General Linear Model analyses of the same data. In general, ROI-derived measures of statistical effects benefitted relatively little from higher sampling resolution, with decrements even seen in one task (N-back). Across both experiments, results from the two scanner platforms were broadly comparable. The statistical benefits of high temporal resolution fMRI with multiband sequences may therefore depend on a number of factors, including the nature of the investigation (resting-state vs. task-based), the experimental design, the particular statistical outcome measure, and the type of analysis used. Higher sampling rates in fMRI are not a panacea, and it is recommended that researchers use multiband acquisition sequences conservatively.