Test-retest reliability of functional MRI food receipt, anticipated receipt, and picture tasks

Abstract

Background: Functional MRI (fMRI) tasks are increasingly being used to advance knowledge of the etiology and maintenance of obesity and eating disorders. Thus, understanding the test-retest reliability of BOLD signal contrasts from these tasks is important.

Objectives: To evaluate test-retest reliability of responses in reward-related brain regions to food receipt paradigms (palatable tastes, anticipated palatable tastes), food picture paradigms (high-calorie food pictures), a monetary reward paradigm (winning money and anticipating winning money), and a thin female model picture paradigm (thin female model pictures).

Method: We conducted secondary univariate contrast-based analyses in data drawn from 4 repeated-measures fMRI studies. Participants (Study 1: N = 60, mean [M] age = 15.2 ± 1.1 y; Study 2: N = 109, M age = 15.1 ± 0.9 y; Study 3: N = 39, M age = 21.2 ± 3.7 y; Study 4: N = 62, M age = 29.7 ± 6.2 y) completed the same tasks over 3-wk to 3-y test-retest intervals. Studies 3 and 4 included participants with eating disorders and obesity, respectively.

Results: Test-retest reliability of the food receipt and food picture paradigms was poor, with average ICC values ranging from 0.07 to 0.20. The monetary reward paradigm and the thin female model picture paradigm also showed poor test-retest reliability: average ICC values 0.21 and 0.12, respectively. Although several regions demonstrated moderate to good test-retest reliability, these results did not replicate across studies using similar paradigms. In Studies 3 and 4, but not Study 1, test-retest reliability in visual processing regions was moderate to good when contrasting single conditions with a low-level baseline.

Conclusions: Results underscore the importance of examining the temporal reliability of fMRI tasks and call for the development and use of well-validated standardized fMRI tasks in eating- and obesity-related studies that can provide more reliable measures of neural activation. The trials were registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02084836, NCT01949636, NCT03261050, and NCT03375853.

Keywords: food picture; food taste; model; monetary reward; repeated-measures fMRI; reward; test-retest reliability.

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Nutrition.

Figures

FIGURE 1

(A) Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) frequency distributions across all regions (16 anatomical regions and 1 functional reference region per contrast) for the food receipt paradigm in Study 1 (n = 60; number [N] of ICC coefficients = 34). (B) Distribution of parameter estimates in Study 1 (n = 60) for the left thalamus in response to the contrast milkshake receipt >tasteless solution receipt (food receipt paradigm). When excluding 2 outliers in the left thalamus response (i.e. parameter estimates exceeding 3 SDs from the mean parameter estimate), the ICC was lower but still in the moderate range: ICC = 0.43, P = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.04, 0.66. (C) ICC frequency distributions across all regions (16 anatomical regions and 1 functional reference region per contrast) for the monetary reward paradigm in Study 1 (N ICC coefficients = 34). (D) Distribution of parameter estimates in Study 1 (n = 60) for the left putamen in response to the contrast winning money >reward neutral coin display (monetary reward paradigm). When excluding 2 outliers in left putamen response, the test-retest reliability remained in the moderate range: ICC = 0.46, P = 0.01, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.68. ROI, region of interest.

FIGURE 2

Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) frequency distributions across all regions (16 anatomical regions and 1 functional reference region per contrast for (A) the food receipt paradigm (N ICC coefficients = 68) and (B) the food picture paradigm (N ICC coefficients = 34) in Study 2 (n = 109). ROI, region of interest.

FIGURE 3

Average intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) across all regions for the food receipt paradigm and food picture paradigm in Study 2 (n = 109) across 2 (baseline and 1-y follow-up), 3 (baseline, 1-y follow-up, and 2-y follow-up), and 4 timepoints (baseline, 1-y follow-up, 2-y follow-up, and 3-y follow-up).

FIGURE 4

Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) frequency distributions across all regions 16 anatomical and 1 functional reference region per contrast) for (A) the food picture paradigm (N ICC coefficients = 17) and (B) the model picture paradigm (N ICC coefficients = 17) in Study 3 (n = 39). ROI, region of interest.

FIGURE 5

Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) frequency distributions across all regions 16 anatomical and 1 functional reference region per contrast) for (A) the food picture paradigm in Study 4 (n = 62; N ICC coefficients = 34). (B) Distribution of parameter estimates in Study 4 (n = 62) for the right middle occipital gyrus in response to the contrast appetizing high-calorie food >appetizing low-calorie food (food picture paradigm). ROI, region of interest.