Jaakko Paasonen1, Raimo A Salo1, Joanna K Huttunen1, and Olli Gröhn1
Anesthesia is a major confounding
factor in fMRI studies, because it directly affects brain function. As recent
evidence suggests that functional connectivity (FC) changes with anesthetic
depth, we investigated whether FC could be used to measure anesthetic depth in
preclinical fMRI studies and subsequently predict fMRI responses under five
anesthetics. The FC was able to predict the magnitude of fMRI responses under
different anesthetics. The FC also changed during 1-h interval with injectable
anesthetics. Therefore, we conclude that FC analysis of baseline fMRI data can
provide simple way to control one of the key confounding factors in preclinical
fMRI studies.