Regression of the BOLD “global signal” in human rs-fMRI studies to reduce widespread noise is a controversial practice since the signal may also contain neural activity. Rodent rs-fMRI studies offer an opportunity to better disentangle the neural and nonneural contributors to the global signal. However, global signal in rodents has been relatively little studied. We performed a voxel-wise analysis to examine the global signal’s spatial distribution. We found that, as in humans, global signal contributions vary spatially within the rat brain and that certain attributes of this signal are unique to the brain when compared to nonneural sources of noise.
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