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Wiersch L, Hamdan S, Hoffstaedter F, Votinov M, Habel U, Clemens B, Derntl B, Eickhoff SB, Patil KR, Weis S. Accurate sex prediction of cisgender and transgender individuals without brain size bias. Sci Rep 2023; 13:13868. [PMID: 37620339 PMCID: PMC10449927 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37508-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2022] [Accepted: 06/22/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023] Open
Abstract
The increasing use of machine learning approaches on neuroimaging data comes with the important concern of confounding variables which might lead to biased predictions and in turn spurious conclusions about the relationship between the features and the target. A prominent example is the brain size difference between women and men. This difference in total intracranial volume (TIV) can cause bias when employing machine learning approaches for the investigation of sex differences in brain morphology. A TIV-biased model will not capture qualitative sex differences in brain organization but rather learn to classify an individual's sex based on brain size differences, thus leading to spurious and misleading conclusions, for example when comparing brain morphology between cisgender- and transgender individuals. In this study, TIV bias in sex classification models applied to cis- and transgender individuals was systematically investigated by controlling for TIV either through featurewise confound removal or by matching the training samples for TIV. Our results provide strong evidence that models not biased by TIV can classify the sex of both cis- and transgender individuals with high accuracy, highlighting the importance of appropriate modeling to avoid bias in automated decision making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Wiersch
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Sami Hamdan
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Felix Hoffstaedter
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Mikhail Votinov
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-10: Brain Structure-Function Relationships), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Ute Habel
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-10: Brain Structure-Function Relationships), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Benjamin Clemens
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-10: Brain Structure-Function Relationships), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Birgit Derntl
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen Center for Mental Health, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- LEAD Graduate School and Research Network, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Simon B Eickhoff
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Kaustubh R Patil
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
| | - Susanne Weis
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
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