Effects of Various Cognitive Processes on Quasi-Periodic Patterns

Abstract

Quasi Periodic Patterns are a way of finding reoccurring patterns in brain imaging data. In this experiment, researchers were interested in examining how similar QPPs were in various cognitive processes. In order to execute this, researchers put participants in an fMRI scanner and obtain functional brain images as they conducted a 0-back task, a 2-back task, flanker task, and a resting state scan. It was hypothesized that 0-back and 2-back brain activity would be most similar, then flanker brain activity will be similar to these, and the resting state scan would not be similar to any of the tasks. In addition, it was hypothesized that the 2-back QPP will have greater correlation strength and frequency than the 0-back QPP. A cluster analysis was executed to obtain an average template for each of the conditions which was compared between each other to obtain an index of similarity. Future work should include different tasks that are dependent on other cognitive processes to see the effects on their QPPs.