Introduction to resting-state fMRI

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has gained much attention in the fMRI community since its first use. Since 1995, the number of publications with the keywords “resting-state fMRI” has increased exponentially. It is now used in many different fields of neuropsychiatric research, allowing us to study the brain in an unconstrained state. Initial recordings of fMRI data during the “resting-state” were discarded as noise; however, this “noise” appeared to be correlated. This would later be known as resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), in which distinct areas of the brain are correlated across time. A brief introduction to resting-state fMRI is given here, and various aspects of resting-state fMRI are provided in this chapter, including experimental design, analysis methods, limitations, and future directions. These aspects will be covered in detail in the subsequent chapters of this book.