Wavelet-based fMRI statistical analysis and spatial interpretation: a unifying approach

Wavelet-based statistical analysis methods for fMRI are able to detect brain activity without smoothing the data. Typically, the statistical inference is performed in the wavelet domain by testing the t-values of each wavelet coefficient; subsequently, an activity map is reconstructed from the significant coefficients. The limitation of this approach is that there is no direct statistical interpretation of the reconstructed map. In this paper, we propose a new methodology that takes advantage of wavelet processing but keeps the statistical meaning in the spatial domain. We derive a spatial threshold with a proper nonstationary component and determine optimal threshold values by minimizing an approximation error. The sensitivity of our method is comparable to SPM´s (Statistical Parametric Mapping).