Dear FreeSurfer experts!
I have a problem which relates to the ICV (eTIV) measure in different
versions, and would be thankful for any suggestions:
I have previously examined associations between body mass index (BMI)
and global cortical measures (e.g. cortical volume) in a sample of
patients with severe mental illness using stats from FS 4.5.0. I then
found a small but significant positive association between BMI and
volume (p<0.05) (corrected for age, gender and diagnosis), which became
more highly significant when covarying for ICV (p<0.0001). According to
my hypothesis, I interpreted this as a tendency towards larger brains
relative to skull size with increasing BMI (it should be noted that
although the association was significant, a beta-value of about .1
indicated the effect was small). Now, when I updated the analyses with
stats from FS 5.3.0, using the same data set, no significant results
emerge: The positive association is now at trend-level (p=0.105), and
when covarying for ICV (eTIV) it disappears altogether.
I’m struggling to understand this difference. The analyses are fairly
similar up to the point where ICV (eTIV) is added as a covariate, but
adjusting for ICV changes the results quite a lot. Both cortical volume
and ICV correlates highly between the two versions (r = .96 and .94,
respectively), but when I calculate cortical volume/ICV-ratios based on
stats from each version, the correlation between these is lower (r =
.75). I have so far ruled out (I believe) any differences in quality
control or editing as a source of the difference. Both versions have
used the talairach.xfm transform and not the older talairach_with_skull.
The problem could be related to collinearity (correlations between
cortical volume and ICV were r=.81 in FS 4.5.0 and r=.74 in FS 5.3.0),
but VIF and tolerance statistics does not indicate a problem (and I
suppose this would affect results equally much between versions (?)).
So, my questions are:
- Are there any differences between FS 4.5.0 and FS 5.3.0 in how ICV
(eTIV) is calculated?
- Is it inappropriate to correct for intracranial volume when examining
global cortical volume rather than regional volumes?
- Do any of you have suggestions as to how I can figure out what is the
‘true’ result here?
Any help is appreciated!