Empirical examination of the replicability of associations between brain structure and psychological variables
- Research Centre Jülich, Germany
Abstract
Linking interindividual differences in psychological phenotype to variations in brain structure is an old dream for psychology and a crucial question for cognitive neurosciences. Yet, replicability of the previously-reported 'structural brain behavior' (SBB)-associations has been questioned, recently. Here, we conducted an empirical investigation, assessing replicability of SBB among heathy adults. For a wide range of psychological measures, the replicability of associations with gray matter volume was assessed. Our results revealed that among healthy individuals 1) finding an association between performance at standard psychological tests and brain morphology is relatively unlikely 2) significant associations, found using an exploratory approach, have overestimated effect sizes and 3) can hardly be replicated in an independent sample. After considering factors such as sample size and comparing our findings with more replicable SBB-associations in a clinical cohort and replicable associations between brain structure and non-psychological phenotype, we discuss the potential causes and consequences of these findings.
Data availability
All data used in this study, are openly available (eNKI, ADNI). The eNKI Rockland cohort data were downloaded from http://fcon_1000.projects.nitrc.org/indi/enhanced/. Users are first required to complete a Data Usage Agreement document before access to these data is granted (further details here http://fcon_1000.projects.nitrc.org/indi/enhanced/phenotypicdata.html). The ADNI data were downloaded from http://adni.loni.usc.edu/about/. Users must first request access before they can log in to the data archive and access is contingent on adherence to the ADNI Data Use Agreement (further details here http://adni.loni.usc.edu/data-samples/access-data/).
Article and author information
Author details
Shahrzad Kharabian Masouleh
Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Shahrzad Kharabian Masouleh
- Sarah Genon
Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft
- Shahrzad Kharabian Masouleh
- Simon B Eickhoff
- Felix Hoffstaedter
- Sarah Genon
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Shahrzad Kharabian Masouleh
- Simon B Eickhoff
- Felix Hoffstaedter
- Sarah Genon
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Institutional Review Board Approval (IRBA) was obtained for this project at the Nathan Kline Institute (Phase I #226781 and Phase II #239708) and at Montclair State University (Phase I #000983A and Phase II #000983B). Written informed consent was obtained for all study participants.For ADNI data, IRBA was also obtained within each participating institute as well as informed consent forms were signed by each participant (see https://adni.loni.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ADNID_Approved_Protocol_11.19.14.pdf for detailed information about ethical procedures for ADNI).Additionally, analysis of the data from both eNKI (Study No. 4039) and ADNI (Registration No. 2018114856) received ethical approval from the ethics committee of medical faculty at the University of Düsseldorf.
Copyright
© 2019, Kharabian Masouleh et al.
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.
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Empirical examination of the replicability of associations between brain structure and psychological variables
eLife 8:e43464.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43464
