Resting state fMRI scanner instabilities revealed by longitudinal phantom scans in a multi-center study

Bibliographic Details
Title: Resting state fMRI scanner instabilities revealed by longitudinal phantom scans in a multi-center study
Authors: Aras Kayvanrad, Stephen R. Arnott, Nathan Churchill, Stefanie Hassel, Aditi Chemparathy, Fan Dong, Mojdeh Zamyadi, Tom Gee, Robert Bartha, Sandra E. Black, Jane M. Lawrence-Dewar, Christopher J.M. Scott, Sean Symons, Andrew D. Davis, Geoffrey B. Hall, Jacqueline Harris, Nancy J. Lobaugh, Glenda MacQueen, Cindy Woo, Stephen Strother
Source: NeuroImage, Vol 237, Iss , Pp 118197- (2021)
Publisher Information: Elsevier, 2021.
Publication Year: 2021
Collection: LCC:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Subject Terms: Resting state fMRI, fMRI quality assurance, MRI scanner instabilities, Multi-center/Longitudinal fMRI studies, Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry, RC321-571
More Details: Quality assurance (QA) is crucial in longitudinal and/or multi-site studies, which involve the collection of data from a group of subjects over time and/or at different locations. It is important to regularly monitor the performance of the scanners over time and at different locations to detect and control for intrinsic differences (e.g., due to manufacturers) and changes in scanner performance (e.g., due to gradual component aging, software and/or hardware upgrades, etc.). As part of the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI) and the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND), QA phantom scans were conducted approximately monthly for three to four years at 13 sites across Canada with 3T research MRI scanners. QA parameters were calculated for each scan using the functional Biomarker Imaging Research Network's (fBIRN) QA phantom and pipeline to capture between- and within-scanner variability. We also describe a QA protocol to measure the full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of slice-wise point spread functions (PSF), used in conjunction with the fBIRN QA parameters. Variations in image resolution measured by the FWHM are a primary source of variance over time for many sites, as well as between sites and between manufacturers. We also identify an unexpected range of instabilities affecting individual slices in a number of scanners, which may amount to a substantial contribution of unexplained signal variance to their data. Finally, we identify a preliminary preprocessing approach to reduce this variance and/or alleviate the slice anomalies, and in a small human data set show that this change in preprocessing can have a significant impact on seed-based connectivity measurements for some individual subjects. We expect that other fMRI centres will find this approach to identifying and controlling scanner instabilities useful in similar studies.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1095-9572
Relation: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921004742; https://doaj.org/toc/1095-9572
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118197
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/7f079387e9e94e2281f5b7253a5bb97f
Accession Number: edsdoj.7f079387e9e94e2281f5b7253a5bb97f
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:10959572
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118197
Published in:NeuroImage
Language:English