Abstract

In volumetric brain imaging analysis, volumes of brain structures are typically assumed to be proportional or linearly related to intracranial volume (ICV). However, evidence abounds that many brain structures have power law relationships with ICV. To take this relationship into account in volumetric imaging analysis, we propose a power law based method—the power-proportion method—for ICV correction. The performance of the new method is demonstrated using data from the PREDICT-HD study.

Highlights

  • In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the human brain, volumetric analysis of anatomical brain regions plays an important role in studying disease states

  • Scatterplots of prediction errors from the two methods are shown in Figure 4, where the straight line in each plot represents the line with 45◦ angle. From these plots it is clear that when the nonlinear relationship between a volume of interest (VOI) and intracranial volume (ICV) is strong, the prediction error based on the power-proportion method are smaller than that based on the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) method; whereas when the linear relationship between a VOI and ICV approximately holds, the prediction errors are very similar

  • In volumetric comparison of a brain region between groups of individuals, the proportion method is often applied to correct for individual differences in head size

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the human brain, volumetric analysis of anatomical brain regions plays an important role in studying disease states. Studies have shown that the relationships between many VOIs and ICV follow the power law principle (Zhang and Sejnowski, 2000; Lüders et al, 2002; Im et al, 2008; Barnes et al, 2010), that is, a VOI is related to ICV through the relationship VOI = α ∗ ICVβ. In the study of Im et al (2008), the authors investigated the relationships between ICV and lobar cortical volume based on a sample of 148 normal individuals and found the relationships follow power law, and the scaling exponents for four lobes are between 0.836 and 0.901. With more and more evidence showing that the power law principle is behind the relationships between brain VOIs and ICV, an effective ICV correction method should utilize the power law relationship. We propose a power law based ICV correction method—the “power-proportion method.”

MATERIALS AND METHODS
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DISCUSSION

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