The link between steady-state EEG and rs-fMRI metrics in healthy young adults: The effect of macrovascular correction

To improve the clinical utility of resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI), enhancing its interpretability is paramount. Establishing links with electrophysiological activities remains the benchmark for understanding the neuronal basis of rs-fMRI signals. Existing research, while informative, suffers from inconsistencies and a limited scope of rs-fMRI metrics (e.g., seed-based functional connectivity). Phenotypic variables like sex and age are suspected to obscure reliable fMRI-electroencephalography (EEG) associations. A major contributing factor to these inconsistencies may be the neglect of macrovascular correction in rs-fMRI metrics. Given that macrovascular contributions can inflate rs-fMRI connectivity and power, they may lead to misleading fMRI-EEG associations that do not reflect genuine neuronal underpinnings. In this study, we addressed this by applying macrovascular correction and performing a systematic, inter-participant analysis of multiple rs-fMRI and EEG metrics. Our key findings are: (1) macrovascular correction enhances the relationship between EEG and rs-fMRI metrics and improves model fit in many instances; (2) sex significantly modulates EEG-fMRI associations; and (3) EEG complexity is significantly associated with resting-state functional activity (RSFA). This research provides crucial insights into the interplay between rs-fMRI and EEG, ultimately improving the interpretability of rs-fMRI measurements and building upon our prior work linking fMRI and metabolism.