TY - JOUR
T1 - Influence of processing pipeline on cortical thickness measurement
AU - Masouleh, Shahrzad Kharabian
AU - Eickhoff, Simon B.
AU - Zeighami, Yashar
AU - Lewis, Lindsay B.
AU - Dahnke, Robert
AU - Gaser, Christian
AU - Chouinard-Decorte, Francois
AU - Lepage, Claude
AU - Scholtens, Lianne H.
AU - Hoffstaedter, Felix
AU - Glahn, David C.
AU - Blangero, John
AU - Evans, Alan C.
AU - Genon, Sarah
AU - Valk, Sofie L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the Compute Canada (https://www.compute canada.ca) and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (https://www. fz-juelich.de/ias/jsc/) for the usage of the computing facilities in the development of this work. Data were provided [in part] by the HCP, WU-Minn Consortium (Principal Investigators: David Van Essen and Kamil Ugurbil; 1U54MH091657) funded by the 16 NIH Institutes and Centers that support the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research; and by the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience at Washington University.
Funding Information:
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, GE 2835/1-1 and EI 816/4-1), the Helmholtz Portfolio Theme “Supercomputing and Modelling for the Human Brain,” and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 720270 (HBP SGA1) and Grant Agreement No. 785907 (HBP SGA2).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - In recent years, replicability of neuroscientific findings, specifically those concerning correlates of morphological properties of gray matter (GM), have been subject of major scrutiny. Use of different processing pipelines and differences in their estimates of the macroscale GM may play an important role in this context. To address this issue, here, we investigated the cortical thickness estimates of three widely used pipelines. Based on analyses in two independent large-scale cohorts, we report high levels of within-pipeline reliability of the absolute cortical thickness-estimates and comparable spatial patterns of cortical thickness-estimates across all pipelines.Within each individual, absolute regional thickness differed between pipelines, indicating that in-vivo thickness measurements are only a proxy of actual thickness of the cortex, which shall only be compared within the same software package and thickness estimation technique. However, at group level, cortical thickness-estimates correlated strongly between pipelines, in most brain regions. The smallest between-pipeline correlations were observed in para-limbic areas and insula. These regions also demonstrated the highest interindividual variability and the lowest reliability of cortical thickness-estimates within each pipeline, suggesting that structural variations within these regions should be interpreted with caution.
AB - In recent years, replicability of neuroscientific findings, specifically those concerning correlates of morphological properties of gray matter (GM), have been subject of major scrutiny. Use of different processing pipelines and differences in their estimates of the macroscale GM may play an important role in this context. To address this issue, here, we investigated the cortical thickness estimates of three widely used pipelines. Based on analyses in two independent large-scale cohorts, we report high levels of within-pipeline reliability of the absolute cortical thickness-estimates and comparable spatial patterns of cortical thickness-estimates across all pipelines.Within each individual, absolute regional thickness differed between pipelines, indicating that in-vivo thickness measurements are only a proxy of actual thickness of the cortex, which shall only be compared within the same software package and thickness estimation technique. However, at group level, cortical thickness-estimates correlated strongly between pipelines, in most brain regions. The smallest between-pipeline correlations were observed in para-limbic areas and insula. These regions also demonstrated the highest interindividual variability and the lowest reliability of cortical thickness-estimates within each pipeline, suggesting that structural variations within these regions should be interpreted with caution.
KW - In-vivo cortical thickness
KW - Interindividual variability
KW - Reliability
KW - Replicability
KW - Software comparison
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U2 - 10.1093/cercor/bhaa097
DO - 10.1093/cercor/bhaa097
M3 - Article
C2 - 32377664
AN - SCOPUS:85087025968
VL - 30
SP - 5014
EP - 5027
JO - Cerebral Cortex
JF - Cerebral Cortex
SN - 1047-3211
IS - 9
ER -