Breath Hold Task Significantly Correlates with Cognition Across Run and Visit

Jerod Michael Rasmussen¹, Sumiko Abe¹, Liv C. McMillan¹, Josef Pfeuffer², Jessica Turner¹, Function BIRN³

The hypercapnic breath hold task is a non-invasive measurement of Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) and has been shown to reduce variance across subjects through calibration. Subject wise correlations between breath hold activity and working memory are calculated across visit and run. Correlations were found to be positive and strong demonstrating the physiological coupling between CBF and the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signal. These results suggest confounds of run and visit can be accounted for in a calibrated model.