Dear Karl, I (and perhaps the list) am hoping you could expand on your thoughts with respect to sources of 'global effects' in fMRI that should be adjusted with proportional scaling? My understanding of the origins of ANOVA and proportional scaling was for PET and SPECT imaging where radioactive counts could be dramatically different between successive scans - and since it was argued that noise and signal scaled proportionally - these within subject scaling procedures were employed. However, as PET camera's have become increasingly sensitive to local signal, they too have run into the local/global signal confound (as shown in Jesper Andersson's (1997), Neuroimage, 6(4), 237-44, when proportional scaling/ANCOVA models are used. I am aware of some MR scanner related artifacts (namely rf) that can lead to occasionally 'bright' or 'dark' images (i.e., global effects) - but these are typically uncorrelated with the task making them less likely to be susceptible to the problems outlined by Aguirre et al in (1998) with proportional scaling. Also, I tend to see these artifacts less and less as MR equipment matures for fMRI protocols. I am familiar with your web site's description of proportional scaling (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/doc/intro/#_E__Spatial_smoothing). In particular, the web site states that 'However, the issue of normalization-induced deactivations is better circumnavigated with experimental designs that use well-controlled conditions, which elicit differential responses in restricted brain systems' However, it is not always possible to design studies that have well-controlled conditions, such as the case of Go/No go paradigms (where the substantial motor activity from one condition (Go) is more highly correlated with the global signal than is the inhibitory activity associated with the 'No go' response. Thus, proportional scaling runs amuck in these situations. I guess my longwinded question comes down to this: If we assume we can control scanner related 'global' signal confounds, is there any reason to still use proportional scaling? (Even if the conditions in the paradigm are perfectly balanced)? Best regards, Kent -----Original Message----- From: Karl Friston [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 6:54 AM Subject: Re: Global Scaling Dear Bo, >now, another basic question. how to judge whether I should chose >"none" or "scale" in fMRI->data. how to know whether the global brain signal >was correlation with my task? I get the rd_taskcorr.m file from web which >could computer the correlation P value, rewrote it for SPM2 and test my data. >I found in same one study, some subjects could be scaled, and others could >not. what's your opinion about this question? Personally, I would usually use scaling. The reason is simple; If you are interested in regionally specific effects, then, by definition global effects are confounding (irrespective of whether you can detect them or not). I appreciate some people find it difficult to interpret models with global normalization in absolute physiological terms but these difficulties have to be seen in the context of partitioning responses into regional and global components It is perfectly OK to do a T-test (i.e. a correlation) on the global activity and an SPM{T} of regional effects. In designs with low-level baselines and widespread activation one can sometimes get a significant global effect and no regional effects. This may seem paradoxical from a physiological point of view but is quite proper in relation to the differences between global and regional effects. There are many qualifications here. For example, two regions may express a task-related response that is highly correlated with global activity. However, one of the regions expresses it with twice the amplitude. Is this a regional effect or a global effect? With very best wishes, Karl