Investigation and validation of intersite fMRI studies using the same imaging hardware

Autor: Bradley P. Sutton, Joshua O. Goh, Robert C. Welsh, Denise C. Park, Andrew Hebrank, Michael W. L. Chee
Rok vydání: 2008
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 28:21-28
ISSN: 1522-2586
1053-1807
Popis: Purpose: To provide a between-site comparison of functional MRI (fMRI) signal reproducibility in two laboratories equipped with identical imaging hardware and software. Many studies have looked at within-subject reliability and more recent efforts have begun to calibrate responses across sites, magnetic field strengths, and software. By comparing identical imaging hardware and software, we provide a benchmark for future multisite comparisons. Materials and Methods: We evaluated system compatibility based on noise and stability properties of phantom scans and contrast estimates from repeated runs of a blocked motor and visual task on the same four subjects at both sites. Results: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and region of interest (ROI) analysis confirmed that site did not play a significant role in explaining variance in our large fMRI dataset. Effect size analysis shows that between-subject differences account for nearly 10 times more variance than site effects. Conclusion: We show that quantitative comparisons of contrast estimates derived from cognitive experiments can reliably be compared across two sites. This allows us to establish an effective platform for comparing group differences between two sites using fMRI when group effects are potentially confounded with site, as in the study of neurocultural differences between countries or multicenter clinical trials. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2008;28:21–28. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. SINCE THE INTRODUCTION of functional MRI (fMRI), many studies have been conducted to explore human cognition. The use of fMRI technology is both costly and time-consuming, resulting in relatively small numbers of subjects in treatment conditions— commonly between 10 and 20 subjects per condition. As research has become more sophisticated, there is increasing demand that larger numbers of subjects or patients be included in studies, allowing researchers to investigate both intergroup differences and interindividual differences within groups. As it may be difficult to recruit adequate numbers of volunteers or patients from any given site, and because it is almost impossible to describe population characteristics adequately at a single site, multicenter studies are becoming an increasingly
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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