Assessing reliability in neuroimaging research through intra-class effect decomposition (ICED)

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging has become an indispensable tool for studying associations between structural and functional properties of the brain and behavior in humans. However, generally recognized standards for assessing and reporting the reliability of these techniques are still lacking. Here, we introduce a new approach for assessing and reporting reliability, termed intra-class effect decomposition (ICED). ICED uses structural equation modeling of data from a repeated-measures design to decompose reliability into orthogonal sources of measurement error that are associated with different characteristics of the measurements, for example, session, day, or scanning site. This allows researchers to describe the magnitude of different error components, make inferences about error sources, and inform them in planning future studies. We apply ICED to published measurements of myelin content and resting state functional connectivity. These examples illustrate how longitudinal data can be leveraged separately or conjointly with cross-sectional data to obtain more precise estimates of reliability.

Data availability

The dataset on myelin water fraction measurements is freely available at https://osf.io/t68my/ and the link-wise resting state functional connectivity data is available at https://osf.io/8n24x/.

The following previously published data sets were used

1. Arshad M
2. Stanley J A
3. Raz
4. N
(2018) Reliability of Myelin Water Fraction in ALIC
Publicly available at Open Science Framework.

https://osf.io/t68my/
(2018) Resting-state fMRI correlations: from link-wise unreliability to whole brain stability
Publicly available at Open Science Framework.

https://osf.io/8n24x/

Article and author information

Author details

Andreas M Brandmaier

Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

For correspondence
brandmaier@mpib-berlin.mpg.de

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8765-6982
Elisabeth Wenger

Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Nils C Bodammer

Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Simone Kühn

Clinic and Policlinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Naftali Raz

Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Ulman Lindenberger

Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R01-AG011230)

Naftali Raz

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (732592)

Andreas M Brandmaier
Simone Kühn
Ulman Lindenberger

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Open-access funding)

Andreas M Brandmaier
Elisabeth Wenger
Nils C Bodammer
Naftali Raz
Ulman Lindenberger

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.