The Significance and Limited Influence of Cerebrovascular Reactivity on Age and Sex Effects in Task- and Resting-State Brain Activity

Figures

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  Figure 1. Top row, group averaged activation maps for the breath-holding (BH) task, checkerboard task, and resting-state task (represented as low-frequency-fluctuations (ALFF) and regional homogeneity (ReHo)). Only positive values were shown in each map, with the display range adjusted by each map’s own value range. Bottom row, voxel-wise correlations between BH cerebrovascular reactivity, and checkerboard activations and resting-state parameters of ALFF and ReHo. All the correlation maps were displayed within the consistent range of r values from 0.2 to 0.6.

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  Figure 2. Top row, voxel-wise correlations of breath-holding (BH) cerebrovascular reactivity with checkerboard activations, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), and regional homogeneity (ReHo). Middle row, age effects (F contrast of linear and quadratic effects) for the four maps. Bottom row, sex effects of the four maps (F contrast of sex effects). For illustration purposes, the age and sex effect maps were thresholded using the same threshold previously used of uncorrected p < 0.001.

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  Figure 3. A, overlaps between the ALFF/BH correlation map, sex effects on ALFF, and sex effects on BH. The correlation map was thresholded at r > 0.2, and the activation maps were thresholded at voxel-level family wise error p < 0.05. B, distributions of ALFF values in males and females before and after BH adjustments. C, scatter plot of ALFF against breath holding cerebrovascular reactivity (r = 0.2024, p<0.001).

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  Figure 4. A, overlaps between the ReHo/BH correlation map, sex effects on ReHo, and sex effects on BH. The correlation map was thresholed at r > 0.2, the age effects on breath holding activations were thresholed at voxel-level family wise error p < 0.05, and the age effects on ReHo was thresholded at F > 100 to show the most significant regions. B, scatter plots of ReHo values against age before and after BH adjustments. C, scatter plot of ReHo against BH cerebrovascular reactivity (r = 0.1665, p < 0.001).