3dRSFC - 3dAmpToRSFC-3dLombScargle

Hi,

Firstly,I try to compute ALFF,fALFF and the others like mALFF. First for 3dRSFC I used your analysis that published at afni_proc.py examples, 11 I guess. At one message board answer to another user, the experts said that you cant use bandpass and fALFF because fALFF needs full spectrum and he said he is working on a new function which can compute it even after bandpass process. Now my question is that, if I use bandpass and regress_RSFC together as in your afni_proc.py examples will it compute ALFF in the frequency band of bandpass filter cutoff frequencies? Or, if I cancel bandpass process and use the parameters of bandpass for regress_RSFC parameters will it be the same result with bandpass -for the ALFF- ?

Secondly, if I compute ALFF,fALFF, etc -on the analysis which has the lines of both band passed 0.01 0.1 .and regress_RSFC- via 3dAmp and 3dLomb will it produce true results? Or, making analysis without bandpass and regress_RSFC and then computing ALFF,fALFF etc. with 3dAmp and 3dLomb is it the best way -I bet for this-?

Thanks
Abdullah

Hi, Abdullah-

Yes, if you want to calculate RSFC parameters and censor time points (and the latter really is typically recommended), then care is needed.

If estimating RSFC parameters, and censoring, then you will have to not use “-regress_RSFC …” in afni_proc.py. Instead, you will have to use the 3dLombScargle and 3dAmpToRSFC programs.

If you want to estimate fALFF or fRSFA, each of which has the amplitude of the full time series spectrum in the denominator, then you cannot perform bandpassing in processing (e.g., in afni_proc.py).

But if you only care about ALFF and RSFA, then you could theoretically perform bandpassing during processing. Note that there are a number of papers that discuss the fact that useful information still exists above 0.1 Hz (Gohel and Biswal 2015, BC; Gohel et al. 2018, HBM), so you should really have a good reason to bandpass if you are doing so. Additionally, bandpassing at the degree typically used in resting state papers removes maaaany degrees of freedom from your data-- you can see the output stats in the HTML QC output by afni_proc.py.

–pt

Hi,

   Thanks for reply.

   Briefly, I try to compute ReHo,ALFF and fALFF from the resting-state fMRI data. According to your reply, I will not use bandpass filter - 0.01 0.1 Hz- in afni_proc.py. After the processing I will compute via 3dLomb and 3dAmp. By the way, I do not have any good reason to use bandpass filter , I use it because it is in default parameters for all the other AFNI like tools *and I used them for same data CONN, SPM, DPARSFA *. Computing process without bandpassing, will it cause any problem at ReHo analysis ?  Moreover, if data has many useful information above 0.1 Hz  should I use ALFF band of 0.01-0.2 at 3dAmp 3dLomb (According to paper) or should I leave empty ?

   Is the censoring time point about movement ?  If it is so, I have only the output file named "X.nocensor.xmat.1D" should I enter this ?

   Yes I found QC at previous process it says "degree of freedom used=16 " and "degree of freedom left=132" for the analysis performed with -banpassed 0.1 0.01 and regress_RSFC at afni_proc.py

Thanks
Abdullah

Hi, Abdullah-

I wouldn’t say bandpassing is default in AFNI. We have very few defaults, leaving those choices to The Researchers.

Not bandpassing shouldn’t cause problems with ReHo calculations-- that parameter is a measure of similarity of time series in a neighborhood, and it is agnostic to the presence of bandpassing.

The “standard” range of LFFs (low frequency fluctuations) is something like 0.01-0.1 Hz. The lower bound is chosen to be a bit above zero (and away from the low/baseline drifts, which are probably more scanner related than physiological). The upper bound is probably more historical, as well as driven by considerations of leaving out typical breathing+heart rate frequencies (though those might be aliased back into the LFF range, depending on TR). For the sake of comparison with literature, I would leave the LFF range for the ALFF definition to be around the standard range.

Re. censoring-- it is typically about movement, yes (I guess scanner artifacts could occur in a single volume, but probably >99% of censoring is about subject motion).

Re. degrees of freedom (DFs): you start with 1 for every time point you have (so, for N time points, you have N DFs). Every censored time point removes 1 DF (motion events lead to censoring of 2 time points, so 2DFs). Every single frequency that is bandpassed (and they are discrete frequencies, because we have finite time series) leads to 2 DFs being removed; for a TR=2s time series, the Nyquist frequency is f_N = 1/(2*2) = 0.25 Hz, and so bandpassing 0.01-0.1 Hz would lead to a loss of 60% of DFs just from that alone (and the rate of loss is higher for shorter TRs). Every regressor added to the model (e.g., polynomial or motion regressor) removes 1 DF. All this is to say-- gather your data and choose your processing wisely, for the sake of your final statistics!

1D file to input into 3dLombScargle to point out where censoring has occurred? If so, I don’t think you need to worry with afni_proc.py output. As per this help comment on that file:


-censor_1D C1D   :single row or column of 1s (keep) and 0s (censored)
                    describing which volumes of FILE are kept in the
                    sampling and which are censored out, respectively. The
                    length of the list of numbers must be of the
                    same length as the number of volumes in FILE.
                    If not entered, then the program will look for subbricks
                    of all-zeros and assume those are censored out.

… if no censor list is input, then the program will look for fully empty volumes and assume that those have been censored. afni_proc.py will provide you those (you can verify that the text output from there points out the censored volumes).

–pt

Hi,

    Thanks for all your help and advice. I will re-consider all the steps again. The whole process is much clear now. 

Thanks
Abdullah

Great, glad that was useful.

–pt