Test-retest and between-site reliability in a multicenter fMRI study.

Authors

• Lee Friedman
• Hal Stern
• Gregory G Brown
• Daniel H Mathalon
• Jessica Turner
• Gary H Glover
• Randy L Gollub
• John Lauriello
• Kelvin O Lim
• Tyrone Cannon
• Douglas N Greve
• Henry Jeremy Bockholt
• Aysenil Belger
• Bryon Mueller
• Michael J Doty
• Jianchun He
• William Wells
• Padhraic Smyth
• Steve Pieper
• Seyoung Kim
• Marek Kubicki
• Mark Vangel
• Steven G Potkin

Publication/Presentation Date

8-1-2008

Abstract

In the present report, estimates of test-retest and between-site reliability of fMRI assessments were produced in the context of a multicenter fMRI reliability study (FBIRN Phase 1, www.nbirn.net). Five subjects were scanned on 10 MRI scanners on two occasions. The fMRI task was a simple block design sensorimotor task. The impulse response functions to the stimulation block were derived using an FIR-deconvolution analysis with FMRISTAT. Six functionally-derived ROIs covering the visual, auditory and motor cortices, created from a prior analysis, were used. Two dependent variables were compared: percent signal change and contrast-to-noise-ratio. Reliability was assessed with intraclass correlation coefficients derived from a variance components analysis. Test-retest reliability was high, but initially, between-site reliability was low, indicating a strong contribution from site and site-by-subject variance. However, a number of factors that can markedly improve between-site reliability were uncovered, including increasing the size of the ROIs, adjusting for smoothness differences, and inclusion of additional runs. By employing multiple steps, between-site reliability for 3T scanners was increased by 123%. Dropping one site at a time and assessing reliability can be a useful method of assessing the sensitivity of the results to particular sites. These findings should provide guidance toothers on the best practices for future multicenter studies.

Volume

29

Issue

8

First Page

958

Last Page

972

ISSN

1097-0193

Published In/Presented At

Friedman, L., Stern, H., Brown, G. G., Mathalon, D. H., Turner, J., Glover, G. H., Gollub, R. L., Lauriello, J., Lim, K. O., Cannon, T., Greve, D. N., Bockholt, H. J., Belger, A., Mueller, B., Doty, M. J., He, J., Wells, W., Smyth, P., Pieper, S., Kim, S., … Potkin, S. G. (2008). Test-retest and between-site reliability in a multicenter fMRI study. Human brain mapping, 29(8), 958–972. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20440

Disciplines

Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Health and Medical Administration | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods

PubMedID

17636563

Department(s)

Administration and Leadership

Document Type

Article