FUNCTIONAL VOLUMES MODELING - THEORY AND PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

A construct for metanalytic modeling of the functional organization of the human brain, termed functional volumes modeling (FVM), is present ed and preliminarily tested. FVM uses the published literature to mode l brain functional areas as spatial probability distributions. The FVM statistical model estimates population variance (i.e., among individu als) from the variance observed among group-mean studies, these being the most prevalent type of study in the functional imaging literature. The FVM modeling strategy is tested by: (1) constructing an FVM of th e mouth region of primary motor cortex using published, group-mean, fu nctional imaging reports as input, and (2) comparing the confidence bo unds predicted by that FVM with those observed in 10 normal subjects p erforming overt-speech tasks. The FVM model correctly predicted the me an location and spatial distribution of per-subject functional respons es. FVM has a wide range of applications, including hypothesis testing for statistical parametric images. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.