Journal article
Is removal of weak connections necessary for graph-theoretical analysis of dense weighted structural connectomes from diffusion MRI?
Oren Civier, Robert Elton Smith, Chun-Hung Yeh, Alan Connelly, Fernando Calamante
NEUROIMAGE | ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE | Published : 2019
Abstract
Recent advances in diffusion MRI tractography permit the generation of dense weighted structural connectomes that offer greater insight into brain organization. However, these efforts are hampered by the lack of consensus on how to extract topological measures from the resulting graphs. Here we evaluate the common practice of removing the graphs' weak connections, which is primarily intended to eliminate spurious connections and emphasize strong connections. Because this processing step requires arbitrary or heuristic-based choices (e.g., setting a threshold level below which connections are removed), and such choices might complicate statistical analysis and inter-study comparisons, in this..
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Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Australia)
Awarded by Australian Research Council (Australia)
Awarded by Melbourne Bioinformatics at the University of Melbourne (Australia)
Awarded by 16 NIH Institutes and Centers
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the support of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Australia), grant numbers APP1091593 and APP1117724; the Australian Research Council (Australia), grant number DP170101815; the Victorian Government's Operational Infrastructure Support (Australia); and of Melbourne Bioinformatics at the University of Melbourne (Australia), grant number UOM0048. We acknowledge the facilities of the National Imaging Facility, a National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) capability, at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (Australia). Data were provided in part by the Human Connectome Project, WU-Minn Consortium (Principal Investigators: David Van Essen and Kamil Ugurbil; 1U54MH091657) funded by the 16 NIH Institutes and Centers that support the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research (United States); and by the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience at Washington University (United States). Lastly, we would like to thank Marion Sourty for assistance with HCP data processing, and Donna Parker, Farnoosh Sadeghian, Valerie Yap, Patrick Carney, Magdalena Kowalczyk and Mira Semmelroch for help with subject recruitment for clinical-grade data acquisition.