Back

Systemic physiological noise in fMRI has clinical relevance

Welsh, J. C.; Korponay, C.; Zhai, T.; Hill, J. A.; Salmeron, B. J.; Frederick, B. d.; Janes, A. C.

2025-08-24 psychiatry and clinical psychology
10.1101/2025.08.19.25333215 medRxiv
Show abstract

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is central to studying neurobiological mechanisms, yet fMRI has limited clinical utility, highlighting the need for novel approaches. We show that a component of the fMRI signal--the systemic low-frequency oscillation (sLFO), linked to blood flow and physiological measures of arousal--indexes trait- and state-level drug use phenotypes. In individuals who chronically use nicotine, sLFO amplitude increased during abstinence and correlated with heightened dependence severity and cue-induced craving. In healthy participants, acute methylphenidate--but not nicotine--reduced sLFO amplitude in a manner that corresponded with improved behavioral performance. These findings demonstrate that the sLFO, typically treated as noise, carries biologically meaningful information. Evaluating the sLFO offers a complementary perspective to traditional fMRI analyses, thus enhancing clinical relevance. Broadly, the sensitivity of sLFO signals to drug administration, cues, and abstinence underscores the need to account for this signals contribution when interpreting fMRI responses across experimental conditions.

Matching journals

The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.