Quality assurance of human functional magnetic resonance imaging: a literature review
- PMID: 31367569
- PMCID: PMC6629553
- DOI: 10.21037/qims.2019.04.18
Quality assurance of human functional magnetic resonance imaging: a literature review
Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been a popular approach in brain research over the past 20 years. It offers a noninvasive method to probe the brain and uses blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal changes to access brain function. However, the BOLD signal only represents a small fraction of the total MR signal. System instability and various noise have a strong impact on the BOLD signal. Additionally, fMRI applies fast imaging technique to record brain cognitive process over time, requiring high temporal stability of MR scanners. Furthermore, data acquisition, image quality, processing, and statistical analysis methods also have a great effect on the results of fMRI studies. Quality assurance (QA) programs for fMRI can test the stability of MR scanners, evaluate the quality of fMRI and help to find errors during fMRI scanning, thereby greatly enhancing the success rate of fMRI. In this review, we focus on previous studies which developed QA programs and methods in SCI/SCIE citation peer-reviewed publications over the last 20 years, including topics on existing fMRI QA programs, QA phantoms, image QA metrics, quality evaluation of existing preprocessing pipelines and fMRI statistical analysis methods. The summarized studies were classified into four categories: QA of fMRI systems, QA of fMRI data, quality evaluation of data processing pipelines and statistical methods and QA of task-related fMRI. Summary tables and figures of QA programs and metrics have been developed based on the comprehensive review of the literature.
Keywords: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); phantom; quality assurance (QA); quality check.
Conflict of interest statement
Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Figures


Similar articles
-
Design of a fused phantom for quantitative evaluation of brain metabolites and enhanced quality assurance testing for magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.J Neurosci Methods. 2015 Nov 30;255:75-84. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2015.08.005. Epub 2015 Aug 13. J Neurosci Methods. 2015. PMID: 26277420
-
The Marburg-Münster Affective Disorders Cohort Study (MACS): A quality assurance protocol for MR neuroimaging data.Neuroimage. 2018 May 15;172:450-460. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.01.079. Epub 2018 Feb 1. Neuroimage. 2018. PMID: 29410079
-
Resting state fMRI scanner instabilities revealed by longitudinal phantom scans in a multi-center study.Neuroimage. 2021 Aug 15;237:118197. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118197. Epub 2021 May 21. Neuroimage. 2021. PMID: 34029737
-
Report on a multicenter fMRI quality assurance protocol.J Magn Reson Imaging. 2006 Jun;23(6):827-39. doi: 10.1002/jmri.20583. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2006. PMID: 16649196 Review.
-
Functional magnetic resonance imaging: the basics of blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) imaging.Can Assoc Radiol J. 1998 Oct;49(5):320-9. Can Assoc Radiol J. 1998. PMID: 9803232 Review.
Cited by
-
A Brief Survey on No-Reference Image Quality Assessment Methods for Magnetic Resonance Images.J Imaging. 2022 Jun 4;8(6):160. doi: 10.3390/jimaging8060160. J Imaging. 2022. PMID: 35735959 Free PMC article.
-
Interindividual Variability In Memory Performance Is Related To Cortico-Thalamic Networks During Memory Encoding And Retrieval.J Neurosci. 2025 Mar 27;45(19):e0975242025. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0975-24.2025. Online ahead of print. J Neurosci. 2025. PMID: 40147936
-
Efficacy and Central Mechanism of Acupuncture Treatment for Subacute Nonspecific Low Back Pain: A Clinical Neuroimaging Protocol.J Pain Res. 2025 Jun 30;18:3299-3308. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S529456. eCollection 2025. J Pain Res. 2025. PMID: 40620578 Free PMC article.
-
Aberrant modulations of static functional connectivity and dynamic functional network connectivity in chronic migraine.Quant Imaging Med Surg. 2021 Jun;11(6):2253-2264. doi: 10.21037/qims-20-588. Quant Imaging Med Surg. 2021. PMID: 34079699 Free PMC article.
-
The Status of the Quality Control in Neuroimaging Studies of Acupuncture Analgesia.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Sep 21;2020:8502530. doi: 10.1155/2020/8502530. eCollection 2020. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020. PMID: 33014115 Free PMC article. Review.
References
Publication types
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Miscellaneous