ArticleHuman brain mapping2021
Influence of sample size and analytic approach on stability and interpretation of brain-behavior correlations in task-related fMRI data.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06606925 (Determining Which Regions of the Brain Are Active During Flight Simulation at Separate Timepoints During Training), which is not on this map. Cited by 96 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Determining Which Regions of the Brain Are Active During Flight Simulation at Separate Timepoints During Training
Who cites it
96 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
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- Semantic Dimensions Support the Cortical Representation of Object Memorability.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
- Effects of Quercetin on Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Food science & nutrition · 2025Review
- Dissociable sensory, motor, and visuomotor predictive functions.NPJ science of learning · 2025Article
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- The role of amygdala reactivity in affective fluctuations across social contexts.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Savoring Satiety: An Exploratory Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Sensory-Specific Satiety.Nutrients · 2025Article
- The neural bases of language processing during social and non-social contexts: a fNIRS study of autistic and neurotypical preschool-aged children.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Exposure to unpredictable childhood environments is associated with amygdala activation during early extinction in adulthood.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
36 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Limited statistical power due to small sample sizes is a problem in fMRI research. Most of the work to date has examined the impact of sample size on task-related activation, with less attention paid to the influence of sample size on brain-behavior correlations, especially in actual experimental fMRI data. We addressed this issue using two large data sets (a working memory task, N = 171, and a relational processing task, N = 865) and both univariate and multivariate approaches to voxel-wise correlations. We created subsamples of different sizes and calculated correlations between task-related activity at each voxel and task performance. Across both data sets the magnitude of the brain-behavior correlations decreased and similarity across spatial maps increased with larger sample sizes. The multivariate technique identified more extensive correlated areas and more similarity across spatial maps, suggesting that a multivariate approach would provide a consistent advantage over univariate approaches in the stability of brain-behavior correlations. In addition, the multivariate analyses showed that a sample size of roughly 80 or more participants would be needed for stable estimates of correlation magnitude in these data sets. Importantly, a number of additional factors would likely influence the choice of sample size for assessing such correlations in any given experiment, including the cognitive task of interest and the amount of data collected per participant. Our results provide novel experimental evidence in two independent data sets that the sample size commonly used in fMRI studies of 20-30 participants is very unlikely to be sufficient for obtaining reproducible brain-behavior correlations, regardless of analytic approach.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.