Reproducibility of volume and asymmetry measurements of hippocampus,amygdala,and entorhinal cortex on traveling volunteers: a multisite MP2RAGE prospective study

Abstract

Background

Multisite studies can considerably increase the pool of normally aging individuals with neurodegenerative disorders and thereby expedite the associated research. Understanding the reproducibility of the parameters of related brain structures—including the hippocampus, amygdala, and entorhinal cortex—in multisite studies is crucial in determining the impact of healthy aging or neurodegenerative diseases.

Purpose

To estimate the reproducibility of the fascinating structures by automatic (FreeSurfer) and manual segmentation methods in a well-controlled multisite dataset.

Material and Methods

Three traveling individuals were scanned at 10 sites, which were equipped with the same equipment (3T Prisma Siemens). They used the same scan protocol (two inversion-contrast magnetization-prepared rapid gradient echo sequences) and operators. Validity coefficients (intraclass correlations coefficient [ICC]) and spatial overlap measures (Dice Similarity Coefficient [DSC]) were used to estimate the reproducibility of multisite data.

Results

ICC and DSC values varied substantially among structures and segmentation methods, and values of manual tracing were relatively higher than the automated method. ICC and DSC values of structural parameters were greater than 0.80 and 0.60 across sites, as determined by manual tracing. Low reproducibility was observed in the amygdala parameters by automatic segmentation method (ICC = 0.349–0.529, DSC = 0.380–0.873). However, ICC and DSC scores of the hippocampus were higher than 0.60 and 0.65 by two segmentation methods.

Conclusion

This study suggests that a well-controlled multisite study could provide a reliable MRI dataset. Manual tracing of volume assessments is recommended for low reproducibility structures that require high levels of precision in multisite studies.