TY  - JOUR
A1  - Akhrif, Atae
A1  - Romanos, Marcel
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
A1  - Schmitt-Boehrer, Angelika
A1  - Neufang, Susanne
T1  - Fractal Analysis of BOLD Time Series in a Network Associated With Waiting Impulsivity
JF  - Frontiers in Physiology
N2  - Fractal phenomena can be found in numerous scientific areas including neuroscience. Fractals are structures, in which the whole has the same shape as its parts. A specific structure known as pink noise (also called fractal or 1/f noise) is one key fractal manifestation, exhibits both stability and adaptability, and can be addressed via the Hurst exponent (H). FMRI studies using H on regional fMRI time courses used fractality as an important characteristic to unravel neural networks from artificial noise. In this fMRI-study, we examined 103 healthy male students at rest and while performing the 5-choice serial reaction time task. We addressed fractality in a network associated with waiting impulsivity using the adaptive fractal analysis (AFA) approach to determine H. We revealed the fractal nature of the impulsivity network. Furthermore, fractality was influenced by individual impulsivity in terms of decreasing fractality with higher impulsivity in regions of top-down control (left middle frontal gyrus) as well as reward processing (nucleus accumbens and anterior cingulate cortex). We conclude that fractality as determined via H is a promising marker to quantify deviations in network functions at an early stage and, thus, to be able to inform preventive interventions before the manifestation of a disorder.
KW  - fMRI
KW  - Hurst Exponent
KW  - frontal cortex
KW  - nucleus accumbens
KW  - biomarker
KW  - impulse control disorders
Y1  - 2018
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189191
SN  - 1664-042X
VL  - 9
ER  -