title: A short-term scan-rescan reliability test measuring brain tissue and subcortical hyperintensity volumetrics obtained using the lesion explorer structural MRI processing pipeline.
abstract: Lesion Explorer (LE) is a reliable and comprehensive MRI-derived tissue segmentation and brain region parcellation processing pipeline for obtaining intracranial tissue and subcortical hyperintensity (SH) volumetrics. The processing pipeline segments: gray (GM) and white matter (WM); sulcal (sCSF) and ventricular cerebrospinal fluid (vCSF); periventricular (pvSH) and deep white subcortical hyperintensities (dwSH); and cystic fluid filled lacunar-like infarcts (Lacunar); into 26 regions of interest. A short-term scan-rescan reliability test was performed on 20 healthy volunteers: 10 older (mean = 77.7 years, SD = 11.1) and 10 younger (mean = 29.4 years, SD = 7.1). Each participant was scanned twice with an average interscan interval of 15.4 days (range: 29 min-50 days). Results suggest low technique-related error as indicated by excellent intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) results, with ICCs above 0.90 (p < 0.05) for GM, WM, and CSF, in all 26 regions of interest (13 per hemisphere). Ventricular and lesion sub-type (pvSH, dwSH, and Lacunar) volumes also showed high scan-rescan reliability (dwSH = 0.9998, pvSH = 0.9998, Lacunar = 0.9859, p < 0.01). As indicated by the results of this short-term scan-rescan study, the LE structural MRI processing pipeline can be applied for longitudinal volumetric analyses with confidence.
authors.affiliation: LC Campbell Cognitive Neurology Research Unit, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada. joelr@sri.utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.forename: Christopher J M
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Sandra E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Black
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult