Measure the synchrony of fMRI signals on group-averaged fiber architectures

Motivation: Fiber architecture-informed synchrony mapping (FAISM) has been proposed to capture task-evoked nonlinear brain activations, which involves image acquisitions of fMRI and high angular resolution diffusion image MRI (HARDI) with a long scan time and thus limits its applications. Goal(s): The aim of this study is to modify the FAISM approach to mapping brain activation without time-consuming acquisitions of the HARDI data. Approach: Hence, group-averaged fiber structures were used to replace the individual data to perform a fast FAISM. Results: This approach demonstrates a high reproducibility at an individual level, which suggests that it can be used for reliable detections of nonlinear brain activation. Impact: This approach is expected to serve as a standardized tool to measure neural activations with nonlinear hemodynamic responses.