Sex differences in white matter development during adolescence: A DTI study

Wang, Yingying; Adamson, Chris; Yuan, Weihong; Altaye, Mekibib; Rajagopal, Amirtham; Byars, Anna W.; Holland, Scott K.

doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2012.08.038

Cited by 97 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Our findings that QA may affect the relationship between age and FA, specifically in males, is also noteworthy. Young males typically show a larger association between FA and age (Wang et al, 2012), a finding we corroborate. This sex difference is thought to reflect earlier white matter maturation in females than in males.…”

Section: 0 Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

The impact of quality assurance assessment on diffusion tensor imaging outcomes in a large-scale population-based cohort

Roalf¹,

Quarmley²,

et al. 2016

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Background Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is applied in investigation of brain biomarkers for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. However, the quality of DTI measurements, like other neuroimaging techniques, is susceptible to several confounding factors (e.g. motion, eddy currents), which have only recently come under scrutiny. These confounds are especially relevant in adolescent samples where data quality may be compromised in ways that confound interpretation of maturation parameters. The current study aims to leverage DTI data from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC), a sample of 1,601 youths ages of 8–21 who underwent neuroimaging, to: 1) establish quality assurance (QA) metrics for the automatic identification of poor DTI image quality; 2) examine the performance of these QA measures in an external validation sample; 3) document the influence of data quality on developmental patterns of typical DTI metrics. Methods All diffusion-weighted images were acquired on the same scanner. Visual QA was performed on all subjects completing DTI; images were manually categorized as Poor, Good, or Excellent. Four image quality metrics were automatically computed and used to predict manual QA status: Mean voxel intensity outlier count (MEANVOX), Maximum voxel intensity outlier count (MAXVOX), mean relative motion (MOTION) and temporal signal-to-noise ratio (TSNR). Classification accuracy for each metric was calculated as the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC). A threshold was generated for each measure that best differentiated visual QA status and applied in a validation sample. The effects of data quality on sensitivity to expected age effects in this developmental sample were then investigated using the traditional MRI diffusion metrics: fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Finally, our method of QA is compared to DTIPrep. Results TSNR (AUC=0.94) best differentiated Poor data from Good and Excellent data. MAXVOX (AUC=0.88) best differentiated Good from Excellent DTI data. At the optimal threshold, 88% of Poor data and 91% Good/Excellent data were correctly identified. Use of these thresholds on a validation dataset (n=374) indicated high accuracy. In the validation sample 83% of Poor data and 94% of Excellent data was identified using thresholds derived from the training sample. Both FA and MD were affected by the inclusion of poor data in an analysis of age, sex and race in a matched comparison sample. In addition, we show that the inclusion of poor data results in significant attenuation of the correlation between diffusion metrics (FA and MD) and age during a critical neurodevelopmental period. We find higher correspondence between our QA method and DTIPrep for Poor data, but we find our method to be more robust for apparently high-quality images. Conclusion Automated QA of DTI can facilitate large-scale, high-throughput quality assurance by reliably identifying both scanner and subject induced imaging artifacts. The results present a pra...

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Section: 0 Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

The impact of quality assurance assessment on diffusion tensor imaging outcomes in a large-scale population-based cohort

Roalf¹,

Quarmley²,

et al. 2016

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“…Despite a growing literature of differential white matter effects between boys and girls, the current study was unable to statistically demonstrate such an interaction in associations between white matter integrity and cognition. Previous work has shown sex differences, both in brain development and in behavioral and cognitive associations (Hanggi et al, 2010;Schmithorst, 2009;Schmithorst et al, 2008;Simmonds et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2012). One potential explanation for the lack of an interaction effect in the present study is that the effects are focal rather than global.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 71%

White matter integrity and cognitive performance in school-age children: A population-based neuroimaging study

et al. 2015

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“…Further studies looking at changes of FA in these tracts following intervention might help us in understanding the effect of different types of reading therapies on neuroplasticity in AF and ILF and the influence of the integrity of these tracts, particularly in the right hemisphere, on reading ability. Note that the relatively small number of participants precluded separating males and females in the analysis, although we know that sex influences white matter developmental trajectories in general (Wang et al, 2012). Future studies should consider the differences between genders as well as testing our hypotheses about the role of the right hemisphere by enrolling a clinical population as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) (Smith et al, 2006) was then used to prepare the individual diffusion maps for voxel-based group analysis by performing the following steps (see Figure 4): all subject FA images were aligned to a template of averaged FA images (FMRIB-58) in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space using a non-linear registration algorithm implemented in FNIRT (FMRIB's Non-linear Registration Tool) (Rueckert et al, 1998). We have previously found that the MNI adult framework is adequate for co-registration of DTI data from adolescent brains (Wilke, Schmithorst, & Holland, 2003; Wang et al, 2012 ). After transformation into MNI space, a cohort mean FA image was created and thinned to generate a cohort mean FA skeleton of the white matter tracts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ROI-based analysis offers us global mean values of Fractional Anisotropy (or FA; a measure of white matter microstructure) whereas the voxel-wise TBSS within the two ROIs provides us regional characteristics of FA related to reading skills within the AF and ILF. TBSS combines the strength of both voxel-based and tractography-based analyses and overcomes the limitations of conventional methods, including partial voluming, spatial smoothing, and arbitrary thresholds (Smith & Nichols, 2009; Wang et al, 2012). TBSS improves the normalization and alignment for group analysis of DTI data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Involvement of the right hemisphere in reading comprehension: A DTI study

et al. 2014

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The Simple View of reading emphasizes the critical role of two factors in normal reading skills: word recognition and reading comprehension. The current study aims to identify the anatomical support for aspects of reading performance that fall within these two components. Fractional anisotropy (FA) values were obtained from Diffusion Tensor images in twenty-one typical adolescents and young adults using the Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) method. We focused on the Arcuate Fasciculus (AF) and Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus (ILF) as fiber tracts that connect regions already implicated in the distributed cortical network for reading. Our results demonstrate dissociation between word-level and narrative-level reading skills: the FA values for both left and right ILF were correlated with measures of word reading, while only the left ILF correlated with reading comprehension scores. FA in the AF, however, correlated only with reading comprehension scores, bilaterally. Correlations with the right AF were particularly robust, emphasizing the contribution of the right hemisphere, especially the frontal lobe, to reading comprehension performance on the particular passage comprehension test used in this study. The anatomical dissociation between these reading skills is supported by the Simple View theory and may shed light on why these two skills dissociate in those with reading disorders.

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Sex differences in white matter development during adolescence: A DTI study

Cited by 97 publications

References 66 publications

The impact of quality assurance assessment on diffusion tensor imaging outcomes in a large-scale population-based cohort

The impact of quality assurance assessment on diffusion tensor imaging outcomes in a large-scale population-based cohort

White matter integrity and cognitive performance in school-age children: A population-based neuroimaging study

Involvement of the right hemisphere in reading comprehension: A DTI study

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