Hi Sima,
it's hard to say just from the tiffs. A couple of things you can look at:
run mris_euler_number on the lh.orig.nofix and the rh.orig.nofix. Better sequences should result in bigger (less negative) euler numbers.
Plot the intensity distributions of the gray matter, CSF and the white matter as histograms and see how much they overlap and how broad they are.
Use mri_cnr to compute the gray/white CNR from the surfaces.
cheers, Bruce
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009, sima chalavi wrote:
Dear Bruce,
Thank you for this advice. We understand the importance of optimalising the proposed factors. Do you perhaps have tips on programs that we can use to assess these factors?
In addition, we are wondering how the factors influence the output of Freesurfer. For example, if we optimize the contrast-to-noise how will this effect the cortical thickness measure? The reason for this question is depicted in the attachments. We have compared our sequences to 'bert', lined up in talairach space. Which sequence would you prefer on the basis of visual inspection?
Thanks you again for your help, Sima.
2009/9/4 Bruce Fischl fischl@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
Hi Sima,
you could compute the contrast-to-noise ratio between gray and white, which will give you some idea. The overall optimization is very difficult though as there are factors like distortion, contrast uniformity, etc....
cheers Bruce
On Fri, 4 Sep 2009, sima chalavi wrote:
Hi Pedro,
Thanks for your reply,
Actually I am using 6 different sequences for scanning the same subject, so a small part of the difference could be because of randomness, but there should be a way to select the best scan from these 6 different scans. I need to know how to select the best.
any suggestion?
Regards, Sima.
2009/9/4 Pedro Paulo de Magalhães Oliveira Junior ppj@netfilter.com.br
Hi Sima,
I've run 6 versions of the same scan of the same subject I got some differences too. Not so big as you found but still some differences
Probably it's the -randomness flag in the recon-all
Check: http://www.mail-archive.com/freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/msg11235.html < http://www.mail-archive.com/freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/msg11235.html
cheers
Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom --- Novo Netfilter 3.2 www.Netfilter.com.br --- Novo Netfilter Small Business
2009/9/4 sima chalavi sima.chalavi@gmail.com
Dear Freesurfer experts,
We performed 6 different (pilot) structural scans from the same subject and analyzed the data using Freesurfer in order to find the best scan to be used in our real experiment.
We have checked the Freesurfer output visually and there do not seem to be any problem as described in the trouble shooting manual. So all 6 scans manage to get through the Freesurfer process just fine.
However, There are a lot of differences between the numerical results for the different scans. Please find Attached graphs of (some of ) the results of segmentation and parcellation of these 6 sequences from the statistical outputs. Now, the problem is how to select the best scan from these results.
Does any body have a standard protocol for assessing images for analysis or a standard metric, e.g. goodness of fit, from the software that we can assess without having a gold standard?
Or any other tip is also appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Sima.