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Activation network mapping for integration of heterogeneous fMRI findings

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1417–1429 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Functional neuroimaging techniques have been widely used to probe the neural substrates of facial emotion processing in healthy people. However, findings are largely inconsistent across studies. Here, we introduce a new technique termed activation network mapping to examine whether heterogeneous functional magnetic resonance imaging findings localize to a common network for emotion processing. First, using the existing method of activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis, we showed that individual-brain-based reproducibility was low across studies. Second, using activation network mapping, we found that network-based reproducibility across these same studies was higher. Validation analysis indicated that the activation network mapping-localized network aligned with stimulation sites, structural abnormalities and brain lesions that disrupt facial emotion processing. Finally, we verified the generality of the activation network mapping technique by applying it to another cognitive process, that is, rumination. Activation network mapping may potentially be broadly applicable to localize brain networks of cognitive functions.

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Fig. 1: ANM technique.
Fig. 2: Network localization partly explains the poor reproducibility of functional neuroimaging studies of facial emotion processing.
Fig. 3: ALE and ANM results of emotion-general expression processing.
Fig. 4: The network derived from brain activations during facial emotion processing aligns well with TMS stimulations disrupting facial emotion processing.
Fig. 5: Relevance to structural abnormalities in alexithymia.
Fig. 6: Relevance to lesions that disrupt facial emotion processing.
Fig. 7: Heterogeneous neuroimaging findings of rumination are part of a common network.

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Data availability

The normative connectome datasets are publicly available from the Human Connectome Project (HCP, https://www.humanconnectome.org) and the Genome Superstruct Project (GSP); The coordinate information for both the facial emotion processing and non-emotional processing, as well as the raw images for all figures in the main text and Supplementary Information, are publicly available at https://github.com/sailingpeng/2021_ActivationNetworkMapping.git.

Code availability

Custom codes for ANM analysis are publicly available on GitHub (https://github.com/sailingpeng/2021_ActivationNetworkMapping.git).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 82172016 and 82021004 to G.G.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We thank M.D. Fox for valuable comments on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Shaoling Peng, Yaya Jiang & Gaolang Gong

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Shaoling Peng, Yaya Jiang & Gaolang Gong

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (BNU), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Pengfei Xu

  4. Center for Emotion and Brain, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China

    Pengfei Xu

  5. Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China

    Gaolang Gong

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  1. Shaoling Peng
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Contributions

S.P. and G.G. conceived the analysis. S.P. designed the study. S.P. collected the data and performed the analyses. Y.J. preprocessed the HCP and GSP datasets. S.P. wrote the manuscript. S.P., G.G. and P.X. reviewed and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gaolang Gong.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks Nils Kohn, Alexander Cohen and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Supplementary Methods 1–6, Figs. 1–15, Tables 1–5 and references.

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Peng, S., Xu, P., Jiang, Y. et al. Activation network mapping for integration of heterogeneous fMRI findings. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1417–1429 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01371-1

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