Liu S, Abdellaoui A, Verweij KJH, van Wingen GA. Replicable brain-phenotype associations require large-scale neuroimaging data.
Nat Hum Behav 2023;
7:1344-1356. [PMID:
37365408 DOI:
10.1038/s41562-023-01642-5]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2022] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Numerous neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural basis of interindividual differences but the replicability of brain-phenotype associations remains largely unknown. We used the UK Biobank neuroimaging dataset (N = 37,447) to examine associations with six variables related to physical and mental health: age, body mass index, intelligence, memory, neuroticism and alcohol consumption, and assessed the improvement of replicability for brain-phenotype associations with increasing sampling sizes. Age may require only 300 individuals to provide highly replicable associations but other phenotypes required 1,500 to 3,900 individuals. The required sample size showed a negative power law relation with the estimated effect size. When only comparing the upper and lower quarters, the minimally required sample sizes for imaging decreased by 15-75%. Our findings demonstrate that large-scale neuroimaging data are required for replicable brain-phenotype associations, that this can be mitigated by preselection of individuals and that small-scale studies may have reported false positive findings.
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