Dear Anderson (and all),
 
Many thanks for your reassuring response, but I am still puzzled about the lack of association between mean area (rh_medialorbitofrontal_area) and area in qdec (see area.png). I thought that technically there must be larger areas for vertices within medialorbitofrontal?
 
Best wishes,
Wolff

>>> "Anderson M. Winkler" <winkler@fmrib.ox.ac.uk> 11.02.2013 14:22 >>>
Dear Wolff,

There is nothing wrong with your results. Your finding is one more confirmation that thickness and area are indeed different traits, which are influenced differently by different genetic and/or environmental factors, and should not be confused one with another. They represent different aspects of brain morphology and its development, and can (and should) be analyzed and interpreted each on its own right.

It is also evidence that more power can be gained by using these two measurements separately, rather than mixed up as in methods that only measure gray matter volume.

Assuming you did everything else correctly, your results look perfectly fine to me.

All the best!

Anderson



2013/2/11 Wolff Schlotz <Wolff.Schlotz@psychologie.uni-regensburg.de>
Dear Freesurfer experts,
I tested associations between a continuous predictor and thickness and area in qdec (and command line mri_glmfit, which gives the same results) and found a cluster being negatively associated with thickness orbitofrontal, but nothing for area orbitofrontal. After exporting mean thickness and area values from aparc.stats into Stata, consistent with my expectation I found a significant negative correlation with my predictor for thickness. However, I also found a significant positive association between birth weight and area.
To check what might be wrong I tested correlations between mean medialorbitofrontal thickness from rh.aparc.thickness and thickness in qdec and did the same for area. As expected, large average thickness values were positively associated with thickness in medialoribotfrontal and adjacent areas (see attached qdec screenshot thickness.png), but there were no associations using area (see attached qdec screenshot area.png). My expectatioin was that there should be positive area associations similar to those for thickness.
Hence my question: Is this expectation correct? If yes, why this discrepancy between thickness and area?
Thank you.
Wolff

_______________________________________________
Freesurfer mailing list
Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer


The information in this e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is
addressed. If you believe this e-mail was sent to you in error and the e-mail
contains patient information, please contact the Partners Compliance HelpLine at
http://www.partners.org/complianceline . If the e-mail was sent to you in error
but does not contain patient information, please contact the sender and properly
dispose of the e-mail.