Rebuttal to Hasan and Pedraza in comments and controversies: "Improving the reliability of manual and automated methods for hippocampal and amygdala volume measurements".
Here we address the critiques offered by Hasan and Pedraza to our recently published manuscript comparing the performance of two automated segmentation programs, FSL/FIRST and FreeSurfer (Morey R, Petty C, Xu Y, Pannu Hayes J, Wagner H, Lewis D, LaBar K, Styner M, McCarthy G. (2009): A comparison of automated segmentation and manual tracing for quantifying of hippocampal and amygdala volumes. Neuroimage 45:855-866). We provide an assessment and discussion of their specific critiques. Hasan and Pedraza bring up some important points concerning our omission of sample demographic features and inclusion of left and right hemisphere volumes as independent measures in correlational analyses. We present additional data on demographic attributes of our sample and correlations analyzed separately on left and right hemispheres of the amygdala and hippocampus. While their commentary aids the reader to more critically asses our study, it falls short of substantiating that our omissions ought to lead readers to significantly revise their interpretations. Further research will help to disentangle the advantages and limitations of the various freely-available automated segmentation software packages.
Morey
Rajendra A
RA
Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA. rajendra.morey@duke.edu
Petty
Christopher M
CM
Xu
Yuan
Y
Hayes
Jasmeet Pannu
JP
Wagner
H Ryan
HR
Lewis
Darrell V
DV
Labar
Kevin S
KS
Styner
Martin
M
McCarthy
Gregory
G
D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging; D000679:Amygdala / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D001331:Automation / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D044469:Racial Groups; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software