Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA.
Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA.
J Neuroimaging. 2019 May;29(3):344-347. doi: 10.1111/jon.12603. Epub 2019 Jan 31.
Graph theory analysis of brain connectivity data is a promising tool for studying the function of the healthy and diseased brain. The consistency of resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) connectivity measures across multiple scanner types is an important factor in designing multi-institutional research studies and has important implications for the potential use of this technique in a heterogeneous clinical setting. We sought to quantitatively study the interscanner variability of rsfMRI graph theory metrics obtained from healthy volunteers scanned on three different scanner platforms.
In this prospective Institutional Review Board approved study, 9 healthy volunteers were enrolled for brain MRI on three 3T scanners (Magnetom Prisma, Skyra, and Trio, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) in three separate scan sessions within approximately 1 week. Standard preprocessing of rsfMRI was performed with SPM12. Subject scans were normalized to Montreal Neurologic Institute (MNI) space, and connectivity of 116 regions-of-interests based on the automated anatomic labeling (AAL) atlas was calculated using Conn toolbox. Whole-network graph theory metrics were calculated using Brain Connectivity Toolbox, and intraclass correlation (ICC) across three scan sessions was assessed.
A total of 25 rsfMRI exams were completed in 9 subjects with a median-intersession time of 3 days. Among all three sessions, there was good to excellent agreement in characteristic path length and global efficiency (ICC: .79, .79) and good agreement in the transitivity, local efficiency, and clustering coefficient (ICC = .72, .69, .62).
There was high consistency of graph theory metrics of rsfMRI connectivity networks among healthy volunteers scanned on three different generation 3T MRI scanners.
脑连接数据的图论分析是研究健康和患病大脑功能的一种很有前途的工具。在多个扫描仪类型之间，静息态功能磁共振成像（rsfMRI）连接测量的一致性是设计多机构研究的一个重要因素，并且对该技术在异质临床环境中的潜在应用具有重要意义。我们旨在定量研究在三个不同的扫描仪平台上扫描的健康志愿者的 rsfMRI 图论指标的扫描仪间可变性。
在这项前瞻性机构审查委员会批准的研究中，在三个不同的扫描会话中（大约在 1 周内），9 名健康志愿者在三个 3T 扫描仪（Siemens，Erlangen，德国的 Magnetom Prisma、Skyra 和 Trio）上进行了脑 MRI。使用 SPM12 对 rsfMRI 进行了标准预处理。将受试者扫描归一化为蒙特利尔神经学研究所（MNI）空间，并使用 Conn 工具包计算了基于自动解剖标记（AAL）图谱的 116 个感兴趣区域的连接。使用 Brain Connectivity Toolbox 计算了全网络图论指标，并评估了三个扫描会话的组内相关系数（ICC）。
在 9 名受试者中总共完成了 25 次 rsfMRI 检查，中位间隔时间为 3 天。在所有三个会话中，特征路径长度和全局效率（ICC：.79，.79）具有良好到极好的一致性，而传递性、局部效率和聚类系数（ICC =.72，.69，.62）具有良好的一致性。
在三个不同代 3T MRI 扫描仪上扫描的健康志愿者的 rsfMRI 连接网络的图论指标具有高度一致性。
