Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
Contradictory Results

Estimations of the weather effects on brain functions using functional MRI – a cautionary tale

View ORCID ProfileXin Di, Marie Wolfer, Simone Kühn, Zhiguo Zhang, Bharat B. Biswal
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/646695
Xin Di
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA
2School of Life Sciences and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Xin Di
Marie Wolfer
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA
3Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory (CANLAB), Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany
4Department for Behavioral Neurology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Simone Kühn
5Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
6Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Zhiguo Zhang
7School of Biomedical Engineering, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
8Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Bharat B. Biswal
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA
2School of Life Sciences and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: bbiswal@yahoo.com
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The influences of environmental factors such as weather on human brain are still largely unknown. A few neuroimaging studies have demonstrated seasonal effects, but were limited by their cross-sectional design or sample sizes. Most importantly, the stability of MRI scanner hasn’t been taken into account, which may also be affected by environments. In the current study, we analyzed longitudinal resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data from eight individuals, where the participants were scanned over months to years. We applied machine learning regression to use different resting-state parameters, including amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and functional connectivity matrix, to predict different weather and environmental parameters. For a careful control, the raw EPI and the anatomical images were also used in the prediction analysis. We first found that daylight length and temperatures could be reliability predicted using cross-validation using resting-state parameters. However, similar prediction accuracies could also achieved by using one frame of EPI image, and even higher accuracies could be achieved by using segmented or even the raw anatomical images. Finally, we verified that the signals outside of the brain in the anatomical images and signals in phantom scans could also achieve higher prediction accuracies, suggesting that the predictability may be due to the baseline signals of the MRI scanner. After all, we did not identify detectable influences of weather on brain functions other than the influences on the stability of MRI scanners. The results highlight the difficulty of studying long term effects on brain using MRI.

Footnotes

  • Minor edits: Line 324: "Figure 5B" to "Figure 4B" Line 326: "Figure 5C" to "Figure 4C"

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted June 18, 2019.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Estimations of the weather effects on brain functions using functional MRI – a cautionary tale
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Estimations of the weather effects on brain functions using functional MRI – a cautionary tale
Xin Di, Marie Wolfer, Simone Kühn, Zhiguo Zhang, Bharat B. Biswal
bioRxiv 646695; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/646695
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Estimations of the weather effects on brain functions using functional MRI – a cautionary tale
Xin Di, Marie Wolfer, Simone Kühn, Zhiguo Zhang, Bharat B. Biswal
bioRxiv 646695; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/646695

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2653)
  • Biochemistry (5291)
  • Bioengineering (3701)
  • Bioinformatics (15840)
  • Biophysics (7289)
  • Cancer Biology (5650)
  • Cell Biology (8131)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4791)
  • Ecology (7563)
  • Epidemiology (2059)
  • Evolutionary Biology (10621)
  • Genetics (7752)
  • Genomics (10175)
  • Immunology (5233)
  • Microbiology (13977)
  • Molecular Biology (5403)
  • Neuroscience (30911)
  • Paleontology (217)
  • Pathology (886)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1527)
  • Physiology (2263)
  • Plant Biology (5043)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1045)
  • Synthetic Biology (1401)
  • Systems Biology (4162)
  • Zoology (815)