Test-Retest Reliability of Sensorimotor Activity Measured With Spinal Cord fMRI

AI Summary

Motor activation localized to ipsilateral ventro-dorsal spinal segments C5 to T1 and medial C2 to C3, consistent with known motor neuroanatomy.
Test-retest reliability of motor activation was predominantly poor-to-fair within and between visits despite high task performance reliability and tSNR.
Increasing task runs improved group-level robustness, but low individual-level reliability limits clinical application and calls for studying within-individual variability.

AI Summary

Participants completed two identical scanning visits, each time performing the same task twice, enabling the investigation of test-retest reliability both within a single experimental visit and between visits performed on different days.

Despite highly reliable task performance (grip force) and fMRI signal quality (temporal signal-to-noise ratio), the reliability of motor activation was predominantly poor-to-fair both within and between visits, with notable variability in spatial distribution observed across task runs.

Although we demonstrated that motor-evoked activation corresponds to the known neuroanatomical organisation of motor circuits, its low test-retest reliability presents a challenge for wider applications of spinal fMRI.

Basic summary

Hum Brain Mapp. 2026 Jul;47(10):e70593. doi: 10.1002/hbm.70593.

ABSTRACT

Establishing the reliability of spinal cord functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is critical before employing it to assess experimental or clinical interventions. Previous studies have mapped human motor activity primarily to the ipsilateral ventral horn, aligning with myotomal and dermatomal projections. Despite these insights, the test-retest reliability of spinal fMRI remains under-investigated. Here we assessed spinal cord activation during a sensorimotor paradigm involving right-hand grasping and grip force estimation in 30 healthy volunteers. Participants completed two identical scanning visits, each time performing the same task twice, enabling the investigation of test-retest reliability both within a single experimental visit and between visits performed on different days. Aggregating all task runs, motor-evoked activation was observed in ipsilateral ventro-dorsal regions of spinal segmental levels C5-T1, as well as in medial regions of levels C2-C3. Despite highly reliable task performance (grip force) and fMRI signal quality (temporal signal-to-noise ratio), the reliability of motor activation was predominantly poor-to-fair both within and between visits, with notable variability in spatial distribution observed across task runs. Increasing the number of task runs per individual improved the robustness of group-level activation, as indexed by higher activated voxel count, larger cluster spatial extent, and attenuated t-statistic distribution. Although we demonstrated that motor-evoked activation corresponds to the known neuroanatomical organisation of motor circuits, its low test-retest reliability presents a challenge for wider applications of spinal fMRI. Understanding the drivers of low reliability in functional imaging is warranted, but we suggest that looking beyond measurement error is required, including careful consideration of inherent within-individual variability underpinned by neurophysiological and psychological factors.

PMID:42367071 | DOI:10.1002/hbm.70593

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