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Luppi AI, Gellersen HM, Liu ZQ, Peattie ARD, Manktelow AE, Adapa R, Owen AM, Naci L, Menon DK, Dimitriadis SI, Stamatakis EA. Systematic evaluation of fMRI data-processing pipelines for consistent functional connectomics. Nat Commun 2024; 15:4745. [PMID: 38834553 PMCID: PMC11150439 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48781-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2022] [Accepted: 05/10/2024] [Indexed: 06/06/2024] Open
Abstract
Functional interactions between brain regions can be viewed as a network, enabling neuroscientists to investigate brain function through network science. Here, we systematically evaluate 768 data-processing pipelines for network reconstruction from resting-state functional MRI, evaluating the effect of brain parcellation, connectivity definition, and global signal regression. Our criteria seek pipelines that minimise motion confounds and spurious test-retest discrepancies of network topology, while being sensitive to both inter-subject differences and experimental effects of interest. We reveal vast and systematic variability across pipelines' suitability for functional connectomics. Inappropriate choice of data-processing pipeline can produce results that are not only misleading, but systematically so, with the majority of pipelines failing at least one criterion. However, a set of optimal pipelines consistently satisfy all criteria across different datasets, spanning minutes, weeks, and months. We provide a full breakdown of each pipeline's performance across criteria and datasets, to inform future best practices in functional connectomics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea I Luppi
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
- St John's College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
| | - Helena M Gellersen
- German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Magdeburg, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Zhen-Qi Liu
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
| | - Alexander R D Peattie
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Anne E Manktelow
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Ram Adapa
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Adrian M Owen
- Department of Psychology, Western Institute for Neuroscience (WIN), Western University, London, ON, Canada
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western Institute for Neuroscience (WIN), Western University, London, ON, Canada
| | - Lorina Naci
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| | - David K Menon
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Stavros I Dimitriadis
- Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Institut de Neurociències, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Neuroinformatics Group, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff, Wales, UK
- Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, School of Medicine, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
- MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, School of Medicine, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
- Integrative Neuroimaging Lab, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Emmanuel A Stamatakis
- Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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