Dissociations Between Behavioral and fMRI Measures in Brain Injury

Dissociations between behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging-based evaluations of cognitive function after brain injury

Jonathan C. Bardin, Joseph J. Fins, Douglas I. Katz, Jennifer Hersh, Linda A. Heier, Karsten Tabelow, Jonathan P. Dyke, Douglas J. Ballon, Nicholas D. Schiff, and Henning U. Voss

Brain 134, 769-782 (2011)

Abstract

Functional neuroimaging methods hold promise for the identification of cognitive function and communication capacity in some severely brain-injured patients who may not retain sufficient motor function to demonstrate their abilities.We studied seven severely brain-injured patients and a control group of 14 subjects using a novel hierarchical functional magnetic resonance imaging assessment utilizing mental imagery responses. Whereas the control group showed consistent and accurate (for communication) blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses without exception, the brain-injured subjects showed a wide variation in the correlation of blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses and overt behavioural responses. Specifically, the brain-injured subjects dissociated bedside and functional magnetic resonance imaging-based command following and communication capabilities. These observations reveal significant challenges in developing validated functional magnetic resonance imaging-based methods for clinical use and raise interesting questions about underlying brain function assayed using these methods in brain-injured subjects.


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