Dataset Information

Evaluating the Reliability of Human Brain White Matter Tractometry.

ABSTRACT: The validity of research results depends on the reliability of analysis methods. In recent years, there have been concerns about the validity of research that uses diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) to understand human brain white matter connections in vivo, in part based on the reliability of analysis methods used in this field. We defined and assessed three dimensions of reliability in dMRI-based tractometry, an analysis technique that assesses the physical properties of white matter pathways: (1) reproducibility, (2) test-retest reliability, and (3) robustness. To facilitate reproducibility, we provide software that automates tractometry (https://yeatmanlab.github.io/pyAFQ). In measurements from the Human Connectome Project, as well as clinical-grade measurements, we find that tractometry has high test-retest reliability that is comparable to most standardized clinical assessment tools. We find that tractometry is also robust: showing high reliability with different choices of analysis algorithms. Taken together, our results suggest that tractometry is a reliable approach to analysis of white matter connections. The overall approach taken here both demonstrates the specific trustworthiness of tractometry analysis and outlines what researchers can do to establish the reliability of computational analysis pipelines in neuroimaging.

SUBMITTER: Kruper J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8785971 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evaluating the Reliability of Human Brain White Matter Tractometry.

Kruper John J Yeatman Jason D JD Richie-Halford Adam A Bloom David D Grotheer Mareike M Caffarra Sendy S Kiar Gregory G Karipidis Iliana I II Roy Ethan E Chandio Bramsh Q BQ Garyfallidis Eleftherios E Rokem Ariel A

Aperture neuro 20211117 1

The validity of research results depends on the reliability of analysis methods. In recent years, there have been concerns about the validity of research that uses diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) to understand human brain white matter connections <i>in vivo</i>, in part based on the reliability of analysis methods used in this field. We defined and assessed three dimensions of reliability in dMRI-based tractometry, an analysis technique that assesses the physical properties of white matter pathway ...[more]

PMID: 35079748

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Project description:Anatomical organization of the primate cortex varies as a function of total brain size, where possession of a larger brain is accompanied by disproportionate expansion of associative cortices alongside a relative contraction of sensorimotor systems. However, equivalent scaling maps are not yet available for regional white matter anatomy. Here, we use three large-scale neuroimaging datasets to examine how regional white matter volume (WMV) scales with interindividual variation in brain volume among typically developing humans (combined N = 2391: 1247 females, 1144 males). We show that WMV scaling is regionally heterogeneous: larger brains have relatively greater WMV in anterior and posterior regions of cortical white matter, as well as the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum, but relatively less WMV in most subcortical regions. Furthermore, regions of positive WMV scaling tend to connect previously-defined regions of positive gray matter scaling in the cortex, revealing a coordinated coupling of regional gray and white matter organization with naturally occurring variations in human brain size. However, we also show that two commonly studied measures of white matter microstructure, fractional anisotropy (FA) and magnetization transfer (MT), scale negatively with brain size, and do so in a manner that is spatially unlike WMV scaling. Collectively, these findings provide a more complete view of anatomic scaling in the human brain, and offer new contexts for the interpretation of regional white matter variation in health and disease.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recent work has shown that, in humans, regional cortical and subcortical anatomy show systematic changes as a function of brain size variation. Here, we show that regional white matter structures also show brain-size related changes in humans. Specifically, white matter regions connecting higher-order cortical systems are relatively expanded in larger human brains, while subcortical and cerebellar white matter tracts responsible for unimodal sensory or motor functions are relatively contracted. This regional scaling of white matter volume (WMV) is coordinated with regional scaling of cortical anatomy, but is distinct from scaling of white matter microstructure. These findings provide a more complete view of anatomic scaling of the human brain, with relevance for evolutionary, basic, and clinical neuroscience.

Dataset Information

Evaluating the Reliability of Human Brain White Matter Tractometry.

Publications

Evaluating the Reliability of Human Brain White Matter Tractometry.

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