Hello
all,
We are doing
studies correlating neuropsychological measures of executive function
in
normal and clinical
populations, epilepsy and sickle cell disease. I am looking at the issue
of the amount of
time allowed between acquiring the volumetric MR and performing the
battery
of neuropsych tests.
We are working with pediatrics, 10 to 18 years and the frontal areas
that are
thought to be most
correlated with executive function are also developing during this age span.
Also
there is quite
limited knowledge from previous imaging studies of the growth curves for these
regions.
Since we are dealing
also with clinical populations for which even less information is available
concerning
their deviation from
normal growth curves( intractable partial focal epilepsies thought to be of
frontal lobe onset )
Therefore I was
thinking the imaging and testing should be less than one month apart, and
perhaps 2 months would be
absolutely two long.
Since we are working with clinical populations it is not possible to always
control the schedules so
closely, our normal
control populations have their imaging and neuro psych battery never more than a
week apart. I would
be pleased if one of
the freesurfer PI's would give me their impression as to what they would find
acceptable if they were reviewing a paper
so I could have a
second( higher ) opinion to back up the rules I have made for our
studies.
thanks
Greg