Data from: Evaluating population receptive field estimation frameworks in terms of robustness and reproducibility

Within vision research retinotopic mapping and the more general receptive field estimation approach constitute not only an active field of research in itself but also underlie a plethora of interesting applications. This necessitates not only good estimation of population receptive fields (pRFs) but also that these receptive fields are consistent across time rather than dynamically changing. It is therefore of interest to maximize the accuracy with which population receptive fields can be estimated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) setting. This, in turn, requires an adequate estimation framework providing the data for population receptive field mapping. More specifically, adequate decisions with regard to stimulus choice and mode of presentation need to be made. Additionally, it needs to be evaluated whether the stimulation protocol should entail mean luminance periods and whether it is advantageous to average the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal across stimulus cycles or not. By systematically studying the effects of these decisions on pRF estimates in an empirical as well as simulation setting we come to the conclusion that a bar stimulus presented at random positions and interspersed with mean luminance periods is generally most favorable. Finally, using this optimal estimation framework we furthermore tested the assumption of temporal consistency of population receptive fields. We show that the estimation of pRFs from two temporally separated sessions leads to highly similar pRF parameters.

在视觉研究领域中，视网膜拓扑映射（retinotopic mapping）与更具普适性的感受野估计方法，不仅本身便是活跃的研究分支，更支撑起了大量极具价值的应用场景。这意味着我们不仅需要精准估计群体感受野（population receptive fields, pRFs），还需确保这类感受野在时间维度上保持稳定，而非随时间动态变化。因此，在功能磁共振成像（functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI）环境下，最大化群体感受野的估计精度具有重要研究价值。而这反过来又需要构建完善的估计框架，为群体感受野映射提供可靠数据支撑；具体而言，需针对刺激选择与呈现模式做出合理决策。此外，还需评估刺激方案是否应包含平均亮度时段，以及跨刺激周期平均血氧水平依赖（blood oxygenation level dependent, BOLD）信号是否能带来实验增益。通过在实证与模拟场景中系统研究上述决策对pRF估计结果的影响，我们得出结论：以随机位置呈现的条形刺激，并穿插平均亮度时段的方案，通常是最优选择。最后，借助该最优估计框架，我们进一步验证了群体感受野的时间稳定性假设。实验结果表明，从两个时间分离的扫描会话中估计得到的pRF参数具有高度一致性。