Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.

Structural brain networks may be reconstructed from diffusion MRI tractography data and have great potential to further our understanding of the topological organisation of brain structure in health and disease. Network reconstruction is complex and involves a series of processesing methods includin...

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Main Authors: Christopher S Parker, Fani Deligianni, M Jorge Cardoso, Pankaj Daga, Marc Modat, Michael Dayan, Chris A Clark, Sebastien Ourselin, Jonathan D Clayden
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111262
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author Christopher S Parker
Fani Deligianni
M Jorge Cardoso
Pankaj Daga
Marc Modat
Michael Dayan
Chris A Clark
Sebastien Ourselin
Jonathan D Clayden
author_facet Christopher S Parker
Fani Deligianni
M Jorge Cardoso
Pankaj Daga
Marc Modat
Michael Dayan
Chris A Clark
Sebastien Ourselin
Jonathan D Clayden
author_sort Christopher S Parker
collection DOAJ
description Structural brain networks may be reconstructed from diffusion MRI tractography data and have great potential to further our understanding of the topological organisation of brain structure in health and disease. Network reconstruction is complex and involves a series of processesing methods including anatomical parcellation, registration, fiber orientation estimation and whole-brain fiber tractography. Methodological choices at each stage can affect the anatomical accuracy and graph theoretical properties of the reconstructed networks, meaning applying different combinations in a network reconstruction pipeline may produce substantially different networks. Furthermore, the choice of which connections are considered important is unclear. In this study, we assessed the similarity between structural networks obtained using two independent state-of-the-art reconstruction pipelines. We aimed to quantify network similarity and identify the core connections emerging most robustly in both pipelines. Similarity of network connections was compared between pipelines employing different atlases by merging parcels to a common and equivalent node scale. We found a high agreement between the networks across a range of fiber density thresholds. In addition, we identified a robust core of highly connected regions coinciding with a peak in similarity across network density thresholds, and replicated these results with atlases at different node scales. The binary network properties of these core connections were similar between pipelines but showed some differences in atlases across node scales. This study demonstrates the utility of applying multiple structural network reconstrution pipelines to diffusion data in order to identify the most important connections for further study.
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spelling doaj-art-349cf38f85ef4927805f084cc8cc026d2025-08-20T02:22:37ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032014-01-01910e11126210.1371/journal.pone.0111262Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.Christopher S ParkerFani DeligianniM Jorge CardosoPankaj DagaMarc ModatMichael DayanChris A ClarkSebastien OurselinJonathan D ClaydenStructural brain networks may be reconstructed from diffusion MRI tractography data and have great potential to further our understanding of the topological organisation of brain structure in health and disease. Network reconstruction is complex and involves a series of processesing methods including anatomical parcellation, registration, fiber orientation estimation and whole-brain fiber tractography. Methodological choices at each stage can affect the anatomical accuracy and graph theoretical properties of the reconstructed networks, meaning applying different combinations in a network reconstruction pipeline may produce substantially different networks. Furthermore, the choice of which connections are considered important is unclear. In this study, we assessed the similarity between structural networks obtained using two independent state-of-the-art reconstruction pipelines. We aimed to quantify network similarity and identify the core connections emerging most robustly in both pipelines. Similarity of network connections was compared between pipelines employing different atlases by merging parcels to a common and equivalent node scale. We found a high agreement between the networks across a range of fiber density thresholds. In addition, we identified a robust core of highly connected regions coinciding with a peak in similarity across network density thresholds, and replicated these results with atlases at different node scales. The binary network properties of these core connections were similar between pipelines but showed some differences in atlases across node scales. This study demonstrates the utility of applying multiple structural network reconstrution pipelines to diffusion data in order to identify the most important connections for further study.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111262
spellingShingle Christopher S Parker
Fani Deligianni
M Jorge Cardoso
Pankaj Daga
Marc Modat
Michael Dayan
Chris A Clark
Sebastien Ourselin
Jonathan D Clayden
Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
PLoS ONE
title Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
title_full Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
title_fullStr Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
title_full_unstemmed Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
title_short Consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks.
title_sort consensus between pipelines in structural brain networks
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111262
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