Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Modified Test Statistics By Inter-Voxel Variance Shrinkage With An Application To Fmri, Shu-Chih Su, Brian Caffo, Elizabeth Garrett-Mayer, Susan Bassett

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive technique which is commonly used to quantify changes in blood oxygenation and flow coupled to neuronal activation. One of the primary goals of fMRI studies is to identify localized brain regions where neuronal activation levels vary between groups. Single voxel t-tests have been commonly used to determine whether activation related to the protocol differs across groups. Due to the generally limited number of subjects within each study, accurate estimation of variance at each voxel is difficult. Thus, combining information across voxels in the statistical analysis of fMRI data is desirable in order …