FBIRN work is focused on methods of identifying and reducing unwanted variation in multi-site fMRI studies. The summary of current recommendations on QA methods is being maintained as part of the FBIRN Best Practices FAQ.
The FBIRN has completed an initial multi-site traveling subjects fMRI study, and a multi-site fMRI study of subjects with and without schizophrenia (the data and descriptions are available as part of the Function BIRN Data Repository). These have focused on identifying and assessing sources of noise in multi-site studies, which use different MRI scanners of different strengths from different vendors. The initial findings have been published (see reference list below).
Monitoring data quality during and/or immediately after acquisition is essential to ensure that all data are collected properly for each subject. Catching problems during the acquisition process makes it possible to correct errors immediately and greatly reduces the chances of collecting and analyzing large amounts of unusable data.
Quality assurance methods must be applied to
- the imaging data,
- the behavioral data collected during imaging,
- the clinical assessments performed separately from scanning, and
- data storage and retrieval
Please see theBest Practices FAQ for the latest recommendations.
References on multi-site fMRI results and analyses.
- Zou KH, Greve DN, Wang M, Pieper SD, Warfield SK, White NS, Manandhar S, Brown GG, Vangel MG, Kikinis R, Wells WM, For the FIRST BIRN Research Group. (2005). Reproducibility of functional MR imaging: preliminary results of Prospective multi-institutional study performed by Biomedical Informatics Research Network. Radiology 237: 781-789.
- Magnotta, V.A., Friedman, L., FIRST BIRN. (2006). Measurement of signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise in the FBIRN multi-center imaging study. Journal of Digital Imaging, 19(2): 140-147.
- Friedman L, Glover GH (2006) Report on a Multicenter fMRI Quality Assurance Protocol. Journal of Magnetic Resonance in Imaging, 23:827-839.
- Friedman L., Glover GH, FIRST BIRN. (2006). Reducing Scanner-to-Scanner Variability of Activation in a Multi-center fMRI Study: Controlling for Signal-to-Fluctuation-Noise-Ratio (SFNR) Differences. Neuroimage, in press.
- Keator, D.B.; Grethe, J.S.; Marcus, D.; Ozyurt, B.; Gadde, S.; Murphy, S.; Pieper, S.; Greve, D.;Notestine, R.; Bockholt, H.J.; Papadopoulos, P.; Function BIRN; Morphometry BIRN; BIRN Coordinating Center. (2007) A National Human Neuroimaging Collaboratory Enabled By The Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN). In Press to IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, Special Bio-Grid edition.
- Friedman, L., Stern, H., Brown, G.G., Mathalon, D., Turner, J.A., Glover, G.H., Gollub, R.L., Lauriello, J., Lim, K.O., Cannon, T., Greve, D.N., Bockholt, H.J., Belger, A., Mueller, B., Doty, M.J., He, J., Wells, W., Smyth, P.J., Pieper, S., Kim, S., Kubicki, M., Morris, S., Vangel, M., Potkin, S.G. (2007). Test-Retest and Between-Site Reliability in a Multicenter fMRI Study. Neuroimage, Manuscript in press.
