False Positives and False Negatives in Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy: Issues, Challenges, and the Way Forward

Overview

Journal Neurophotonics

Date 2016 Apr 8

PMID 27054143

Citations 290

Authors

Ilias Tachtsidis

Felix Scholkmann

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We highlight a significant problem that needs to be considered and addressed when performing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) studies, namely the possibility of inadvertently measuring fNIRS hemodynamic responses that are not due to neurovascular coupling. These can be misinterpreted as brain activity, i.e., "false positives" (errors caused by wrongly assigning a detected hemodynamic response to functional brain activity), or mask brain activity, i.e., "false negatives" (errors caused by wrongly assigning a not observed hemodynamic response in the presence of functional brain activity). Here, we summarize the possible physiological origins of these issues and suggest ways to avoid and remove them.

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