How much is "enough"? Considerations for functional connectivity reliability in pediatric naturalistic fMRI.

ABSTRACT: Reliable functional connectivity (FC) measurements are important for robust neuroimaging findings, yet pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) faces unique challenges due to head motion and bias toward shorter scans. Passive viewing conditions during fMRI offer advantages for scanning pediatric populations, but FC reliability under these conditions remains underexplored. Here, we used precision fMRI data collected across three passive viewing conditions to directly compare FC reliability profiles between 25 pre-adolescent children and 25 adults, with each participant providing over 2.8 hours of data over 4 sessions. We found that FC test-retest correlations increased asymptotically with scan length, with children requiring nearly twice the post-censored scan time (24.6 minut

SUBMITTER: Rai S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12365692 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature