Sensitivity and specificity considerations for fMRI encoding, decoding, and mapping of auditory cortex at ultra-high field

Michelle Moerel, Federico De Martino, Valentin G. Kemper, Sebastian Schmitter, An T. Vu, Kâmil Ugurbil, Elia Formisano, Essa Yacoub

Abstract: Highlights•At ultra-high fields tradeoffs between sensitivity, specificity, and coverage exist.•We compared a T2*w (GE-EPI) to a T2w (3D GRASE) fMRI dataset across analyses.•Encoding and decoding analyses profited from the coverage and sensitivity of GE-EPI.•Comparisons across encoding models may salvage the GE-EPI laminar interpretability.•The 3D GRASE dataset achieved higher specificity in topographic maps.