title: Enhancing the reproducibility of group analysis with randomized brain parcellations.
abstract: Neuroimaging group analyses are used to compare the intersubject variability observed in brain organization with behavioural or genetic variables and to assess risks factors of brain diseases. The lack of stability and of sensitivity of current voxel-based analysis schemes may however lead to non-reproducible results. A new approach is introduced to overcome the limitations of standard methods, in which active voxels are detected according to a consensus on several random parcellations of the brain images, while a permutation test controls the false positive risk. Both on syntetic and real data, this approach shows higher sensitivity, better recovery and higher reproducibility than standard methods and succeeds in detecting a significant association in an imaging-genetic study between a genetic variant next to the COMT gene and a region in the left thalamus on a functional magnetic resonance imaging contrast.
authors.affiliation: Parietal Team, INRIA Saclay-Ile-de-France, Saclay, France. benoit.da_mota@inria.fr
authors.forename: Benoit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Da Mota
authors.affiliation: Parietal Team, INRIA Saclay-Ile-de-France, Saclay, France.
authors.forename: Virgile
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Fritsch
authors.affiliation: Parietal Team, INRIA Saclay-Ile-de-France, Saclay, France.
authors.forename: Gaël
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Varoquaux
authors.affiliation: CEA, DSV, I2BM, Neurospin bât 145, 91191 Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Frouin
authors.affiliation: CEA, DSV, I2BM, Neurospin bât 145, 91191 Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Baptiste
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Poline
authors.affiliation: Parietal Team, INRIA Saclay-Ile-de-France, Saclay, France.
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Thirion
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity