Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 16;3(4):101673.
doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101673. Epub 2022 Sep 13.

Protocol to examine the neural basis of symbolic and non-symbolic quantity processing in human brain with fMRI

Affiliations

Protocol to examine the neural basis of symbolic and non-symbolic quantity processing in human brain with fMRI

Simge Altınok et al. STAR Protoc. .

Abstract

Number perception is among the basic cognitive abilities necessary to understand our environment. Here, we present a protocol to examine the neural underpinnings of numerosity comparison regarding symbolic and non-symbolic stimuli using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This protocol gives instructions for screening participants, followed by steps to perform an event-related fMRI experiment and data analysis with SPM12. This protocol will be informative for investigating numerical cognition in various groups including children with dyscalculia or people at different developmental stages. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Üstün et al. (2021) and Vatansever et al. (2020).

Keywords: Behavior; Clinical Protocol; Cognitive Neuroscience; Neuroscience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Summary of numerosity and difficulty conditions Figure adapted with permission from (Üstün et al., 2021).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Numerosity comparison paradigm depicting non-symbolic and symbolic conditions Figure adapted with permission from (Vatansever et al., 2020).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Example view of the batch editor for DICOM import
Figure 4
Figure 4
Example view of the batch editor for preprocessing
Figure 5
Figure 5
Example view of the batch editor for first-level analysis
Figure 6
Figure 6
Example view of the design matrix
Figure 7
Figure 7
Example view of the batch editor for second-level analysis

References

    1. Brett M., Anton J.L., Valabregue R., Poline J.B. Region of interest analysis using the MarsBar toolbox for SPM 99. Neuroimage. 2002;16:497–498.
    1. Nichols T.E., Das S., Eickhoff S.B., Evans A.C., Glatard T., Hanke M., Kriegeskorte N., Milham M.P., Poldrack R.A., Poline J.B., et al. Best practices in data analysis and sharing in neuroimaging using MRI. Nat. Neurosci. 2017;20:299–303. doi: 10.1038/nn.4500. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Slotnick S.D. Cluster success: fMRI inferences for spatial extent have acceptable false-positive rates’, Cogn Neurosci. Cogn. Neurosci. 2017;8:150–155. doi: 10.1080/17588928.2017.1319350. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Talairach J., Tournoux P. Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc.; 1988. Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain.
    1. Üstün S., Ayyıldız N., Kale E.H., Mançe Çalışır Ö., Uran P., Öner Ö., Olkun S., Çiçek M. Children with dyscalculia show hippocampal hyperactivity during symbolic number perception. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2021;15:687476–687513. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.687476. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types