Assoz. Prof. Roberto Viviani, PhD, MD

Senior Research Associate

Telefon: 0731 500-61543
Telefax: 0731 500-61542

E-Mail: roberto.viviani@uni-ulm.de

 

Statistical analysis of neuroimaging data

Databases of MRI and DNA

Perfusion imaging

Emotion regulation and psychotherapy research (in collaboration with the Institute of Psychology of the University of Innsbruck (Anna Buchheim))

Pharmacology and neuroimaging (in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology of the University of Ulm)

 

Translational neuroimaging may require rethinking the way we analyse data and develop specific statistical approaches (as opposed to applying techniques developed to localize functional activations). It will be important to combine evidence from different modalities, taking into account problems from each; to be able to draw inference on individual differences between groups, and on single individuals, with respect to reference datasets; to identify regional effects, instead of the sparse, small activations of neuropsychological models. These questions call for innovation in the statistical analysis of neuroimaging data, such as more aggressive use of resampling techniques and of reference imaging databases, the identification of typical sources of variance in the population, and the further development of sophisticated multivariate approaches.

A digital atlas of brain vascular density is available here.

Further information on my research may be found on the Clinical Neuroimaging webpage.

 

R. Viviani, I. Messina, M. Walter 2011. ‘Resting state functional connectivity in perfusion imaging: Correlation maps with BOLD connectivity and resting state perfusion’, PLoS One, 6:e27050.

S. Bachmann, S. Haffer, P. Beschoner, R. Viviani 2011. ‘Imputation techniques for the detection of microstructural changes in schizophrenia, with an application to magnetization transfer imaging’, Schizophrenia Research, 132:92-96.

Roberto Viviani 2011. ‘Effects of large-scale nonstationarity on parametric maps. A study of rest perfusion CASL data’, NeuroImage, 54:2066-2078.

J. Kirchheiner, A. Seeringer, A. L. Godoy, C. Maier, P. Beschoner, E. J. Sim, R. Viviani 2011. ‘CYP2D6 in the brain: Genotype effects on resting brain perfusion’, Molecular Psychiatry, 16:333-341.

J. C. Stingl, R. Viviani 2011. ‘CYP2D6 in the brain. Impact on sucidality risk?’, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 89:352-353

J. Kirchheiner, A. Seeringer, R. Viviani 2010. ‘Pharmacogenetics in psychiatry. A useful clinical tool or wishful thinking for the future?’, Current Pharmaceutical Design, 16:136-144

R. Viviani, H. Lo, E. J. Sim, P. Beschoner, J. C. Stingl, A. B. Horn 2010. ‘The neural substrate of positive bias in spontaneous emotional processing’, PLoS One, 5:e15454.

R. Viviani, E. J. Sim, H. Lo, P. Beschoner, N. Osterfeld, C. Maier, A. Seeringer, A. Godoy, A. Rosa, D. Comas, J. Kirchheiner 2010. ‘Baseline brain perfusion and the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism’, Biological Psychiatry, 67:317-322.

Roberto Viviani 2010. ‘Unbiased ROI selection in neuroimaging studies of individual differences’, NeuroImage, 50:184-189.

R. Viviani, P. Beschoner, H. Lo, S. Richter, S. Haffer, N. Osterfeld, J. Thöne, E. J. Sim 2010. ‘Components of acquisition-to-acquisition variance in continuous arterial spin labelling (CASL) imaging’, BMC Neuroscience, 11:30.

R. Viviani, E. J. Sim, H. Lo, S. Richter, S. Haffer, N. Osterfeld, J. Thöne, P. Beschoner 2009. ‘Components of variance in brain perfusion and the design of studies of individual differences: The baseline study’, NeuroImage, 46:12-22.

B. Abler, C. Hofer, R. Viviani 2008. ‘Habitual emotion regulation strategies and baseline brain perfusion’, NeuroReport, 19:21-24

P. Beschoner, S. Richter, H. Lo, E. J. Sim, K. Baron, N. Osterfeld, A. B. Horn, R. Viviani 2008. ‘Baseline brain perfusion and working memory capacity: A neuroimaging study’, NeuroReport, 19:1803-1807.

R. Viviani, P. Beschoner, T. Jaeckle, P. Hipp, J. Kassubek, B. Schmitz 2007. ‘The bootstrap and cross-validation in neuroimaging applications: Estimation of the distribution of extrema of random fields for single volume tests, with an application to ADC maps’, Human Brain Mapping, 28:1075-1088.

R. Viviani, P. Beschoner, K. Ehrhard, B. Schmitz, J. Thöne 2007. ‘Non-normality and transformations of random fields, with an application to voxel-based morphometry’, NeuroImage, 35:121-130.

R. Viviani, G. Grön, M. Spitzer 2005. ‘Functional principal component analysis of fMRI data’, Human Brain Mapping, 24:109-129.