COMPARISON OF TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL ICA IN FMRI DATA ANALYSIS
Silke Dodel, J. Michael Herrmann, Theo Geisel
Independent Component Analysis (ICA) has recently
drawn attention also in analyzing data from functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). fMRI is a promis
ing method to determine noninvasively the spatial dis
tribution of brain activity in a given situation, e.g. in
response to a given stimulus. ICA reflects the underly
ing statistically independent processes of the activity.
We compare the results of applying both, temporal
and spatial ICA, on the data of a motor task experi
ment. It turns out that none of the two ways is a priori
superior over the other, so in order to get fuller insight
into the activity distribution both should be applied
and their implications be determined from the features
of interest in the results.