An information-theoretic analysis of resting-state versus task fMRI

Julia Tuominen; Karsten Specht; Liucija Vaisvilaite; Peter Zeidman

doi:10.1162/netn_a_00302

An information-theoretic analysis of resting-state versus task fMRI

Netw Neurosci. 2023 Jun 30;7(2):769-786. doi: 10.1162/netn_a_00302. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Julia Tuominen^{1

2}, Karsten Specht^{1

3

4}, Liucija Vaisvilaite^{1

3}, Peter Zeidman⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
² Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
³ Mohn Medical Imaging and Visualization Centre, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
⁴ Department of Education, The Arctic University of Norway UiT, Tromsø, Norway.
⁵ Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Resting-state fMRI is an increasingly popular alternative to task-based fMRI. However, a formal quantification of the amount of information provided by resting-state fMRI as opposed to active task conditions about neural responses is lacking. We conducted a systematic comparison of the quality of inferences derived from a resting-state and a task fMRI paradigm by means of Bayesian Data Comparison. In this framework, data quality is formally quantified in information-theoretic terms as the precision and amount of information provided by the data on the parameters of interest. Parameters of effective connectivity, estimated from the cross-spectral densities of resting-state- and task time series by means of dynamic causal modelling (DCM), were subjected to the analysis. Data from 50 individuals undergoing resting-state and a Theory-of-Mind task were compared, both datasets provided by the Human Connectome Project. A threshold of very strong evidence was reached in favour of the Theory-of-Mind task (>10 bits or natural units) regarding information gain, which could be attributed to the active task condition eliciting stronger effective connectivity. Extending these analyses to other tasks and cognitive systems will reveal whether the superior informative value of task-based fMRI observed here is case specific or a more general trend.

Keywords: Bayesian data comparison; Data quality; Effective connectivity; Resting-state; Task fMRI.