Analysis methods for measuring passive auditory fNIRS responses generated by a block-design paradigm

Abstract

The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Significance: fNIRS is an increasingly popular tool in auditory research, but the range of analysis procedures employed across studies complicates interpretation of data. Aim: To assess the impact of different analysis procedures on the morphology, detection, and lateralization of auditory responses in fNIRS. Specifically, whether averaging or GLM-based analyses generate different experimental conclusions, when applied to a block-protocol design. The impact of parameter selection of GLMs on detecting auditory-evoked responses was also quantified. Approach: 17 listeners were exposed to three commonly employed auditory stimuli: noise, speech, and silence. A block design was employed, comprising sounds of 5-s duration, and 10–20 s silent intervals. Results: Both analysis procedures generated similar response morphologies and amplitude estimates, and both also indicated responses to speech to be significantly greater than to noise and silence. Neither approach indicated a significant effect of brain hemisphere on responses to speech. Methods to correct for systemic hemodynamic responses using short channels improved detection at the individual level. Conclusions: Consistent with theoretical considerations, simulations, and other experimental domains, GLM and averaging analyses generate the same group-level experimental conclusions. We release this dataset publicly for use in future development and optimization of algorithms.