A travelling heads study investigating qMRI metrics on cortical regions

Abstract

Technological advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have facilitated numerous studies on neural architecture, such as studies addressing pathology, behaviour or individual differences in brain activity. It is important, however, to first ascertain what variation can arise due to site-specific scanner properties (hard- and software). A certain amount of noise in MR images can indeed be attributable to such properties, even when the same scanner is used across different sites. Reproducibility across sites is possible with the use of quantitative MRI metrics (qMRI), where physical properties assigned to voxels allow for non-invasive analysis of brain tissue including sensitivity to iron and myelin content. Leutritz et al. (2020) investigated intra-site (scan-rescan) and intersite (between sites) variability on Siemens and Philips scanners through multi-parameter mapping techniques (MPM). The authors found intra-site scan-rescan coefficients of variance (CoV) ranging between 4% and 16% across parameters, with similar results for inter-site CoV. The current study implements a similar strategy to Leutritz et al. (2020) in that it investigates inter-site and interscanner variability in a "travelling heads" type of study. Using scanners by the same manufacturer (but two different models), the study investigates qMRI metrics for inter-site and inter-scanner differences and their corresponding effects on cortical regions.