Introduction: Neuroimaging studies of intellectual disability (ID) have been published over the last three decades, but the findings are often inconsistent, and therefore, the neural correlates of ID remain elusive. This article aims to study the different publications in task-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and different ID populations to make a qualitative and quantitative analysis on this field. Methods: After duplicates were removed, only 10 studies matching our inclusion criteria were incorporated. Moreover, a quality assessment of the included studies was done. Qualitative results of the different articles were analyzed, separated by type of task and type of ID. Seed-based d mapping (SDM) software was used. Results: The right temporal gyrus was more activated in control subjects than in ID. Concretely, the right temporal gyrus is implicated in many cognitive domains as semantic memory processing and language. Moreover, it can be highly influenced by the type of task used in every study. Heterogeneity was not detected. A jackknife sensitivity analysis was also estimated to improve the analysis reliability, and both results were confirmed. Conclusions: More task-fMRI studies on ID must be published to add larger samples to address the pathophysiological questions more directly. Impact statement In this article, the state-of-the-art in the field of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and intellectual disability (ID) is reviewed. Moreover, we perform a meta-analysis of every article's results to summarize the principal outcomes in the field. It is very relevant because it has become the first meta-analytic study to overcome all the principal studies published in fMRI and ID to find the principal neurological substrates while the subjects are performing a task.
Keywords: cognitive task; fMRI; intellectual disability; meta-analysis.