Reliability of a functional magnetic resonance imaging task of emotional conflict in healthy participants

Abstract

Task‐based functional neuroimaging methods are increasingly being used to identify biomarkers of treatment response in psychiatric disorders. To facilitate meaningful interpretation of neural correlates of tasks and their potential changes with treatment over time, understanding the reliability of the blood‐oxygen‐level dependent (BOLD) signal of such tasks is essential. We assessed test–retest reliability of an emotional conflict task in healthy participants collected as part of the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression. Data for 36 participants, scanned at three time points (weeks 0, 2, and 8) were analyzed, and intra‐class correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to quantify reliability. We observed moderate reliability (median ICC values between 0.5 and 0.6), within occipital, parietal, and temporal regions, specifically for conditions of lower cognitive complexity, that is, face, congruent or incongruent trials. For these conditions, activation was also observed within frontal and sub‐cortical regions, however, their reliability was poor (median ICC < 0.2). Clinically relevant prognostic markers based on task‐based fMRI require high predictive accuracy at an individual level. For this to be achieved, reliability of BOLD responses needs to be high. We have shown that reliability of the BOLD response to an emotional conflict task in healthy individuals is moderate. Implications of these findings to further inform studies of treatment effects and biomarker discovery are discussed.

Test–retest reliability of approach‐avoidance conflict decision‐making during functional magnetic resonance imaging in healthy adults

“…given that prior work examining the test-retest reliability of amygdala activation during passive viewing of affective stimuli report poor to fair ICCs (Hassel et al, 2020;Lois et al, 2018;McDermott et al, 2020). It is possible that the active processing of these stimuli within a decision-making context might require more engagement of participants, which could therefore lead to more robust and reliable neural activity.…”

“…McDermott, Kirlic, & Aupperle, 2018) or identifying specific neural regions or patterns of activation that have at least fair reliability in existing fMRI tasks (Hassel et al, 2020;Lois, Kirsch, Sandner, Plichta, & Wessa, 2018;McDermott et al, 2020). Moreover, reliability analyses of behavioral measurements, including metrics such as accuracy and reaction time, have also demonstrated poor reliability for many tasks, particularly when contrasting between multiple task conditions (Enkavi et al, 2019).…”

“…Our hypotheses for replication analyses in this study were that: (1) approach behavior would be modulated by task condition, that is, reduced approach behavior during conflict and greater approach behavior with increasing levels of potential reward, (2) dACC, right dlPFC, anterior insula, and striatum ROIs would show increased activation during conflict processing compared to nonconflict processing, (3) amygdala, bilateral dlPFC, anterior insula, and striatum ROIs would show increased activation during negative stimulus outcomes compared to positive stimulus outcomes, and (4) striatum and bilateral dlPFC ROIs would show increased activation during reward compared no reward processing. As this is the first study to examine the test-retest reliability of this task, hypotheses were based on prior test-retest reliability analyses of similar conflict or affect-focused tasks performed during fMRI (Hassel et al, 2020;Lois et al, 2018;McDermott et al, 2020). Our hypotheses for testretest reliability analyses were that: (1) behavioral measures would show at least fair reliability, and (2) neuroimaging analyses would identify a subset of ROIs with fair or good reliability.…”

Examining the reliability of the emotional conflict resolution and adaptation effects in the emotional conflict task via secondary data analysis, systematic review, and meta-analysis.

“…In summary, the emotional conflict task has been used in a wide variety of settings and there are multiple emerging hypotheses surrounding how emotional conflict processing arises and how it is regulated on cognitive, biological, and neurobiological levels (see the online supplemental materials for full details of this work). By comparison, relatively few studies have tested the emotional conflict resolution or adaptation effects-with adaptation more widely reported-and there is disagreement in the literature about whether these can be replicated consistently using behavioral and neurobiological measures (Hassel et al, 2020) as well as what underlying processes may drive them. Finally, of the 94 studies using the emotional conflict task, two interpreted their results in line with emotional conflict resolution despite not performing a conflict resolution analysis (Hoyer et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2016).…”

Neurocognitive Effects of Preceding Facial Expressions on Perception of Subsequent Emotions

“…Additional studies have addressed the detection and resolution of emotional conflict with respect to emotional information presented simultaneously (Ahmed and Sebastian, 2020;Hassel et al, 2020). Fewer studies have investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms of emotional conflict elicited by preceding stimuli that are emotionally incongruent with subsequent stimuli (Werheid et al, 2005;Rohr et al, 2012).…”