Our group is working on reprocessing scans that we originally processed (performed quality control and edited where necessary) with FreeSurfer 5.3 with the HCP patch. We are aiming to reprocess everything with FreeSurfer version
7.3.2. So far when checking and editing FreeSurfer 7 outputs we're regularly seeing areas of brain that should be included within the white matter surface but are not, particularly in the accumbens and orbitofrontal areas. The areas are of lower intensity
within the scans, but FreeSurfer 5.3 is able to handle these areas accurately - we don't see these issues in our runs on the same scan files done in FreeSurfer 5.3.
I've attached a screenshot of the Freesurfer output of each version side by side on one of the slices where the exclusion is happening. We're seeing this on maybe 1 in 10 Freesurfer 7 scans. All did fine in 5.3. We're
finding that the problem is not limited to certain scanners - one of these examples is from a Biograph PETMR scan and the other is from a Prisma.
Is there a recommended flag or flags we could use with Freesurfer 7 recon-all that might get us closer to the way 5.3 handles this?
The Freesurfer 5.3 parameters we originally used were:
-all -qcache -hippo-subfields -nocubic -mprage
The Freesurfer 7.3.2 parameters we are using now are:
-all -qcache
I have the recon-all outputs of both versions and the original scan available and can send them via FTP if that would be helpful.
Other notes: Running with the -mprage flag added to the Freesurfer 7.3.2 recon-all launch was not different from the FS 7.3.2 recon-all launch without the flag but I can send that output along as well if it would be
useful. Also, these examples are done in 7.3.2 but we've also run into this issue with 7.1.1.
Really appreciate any assistance you can provide, as trying to figure this out has been delaying our processing a bit.
Thanks so much,
Sarah