Reproducibility of findings in modern PET neuroimaging: insight from the NRM2018 grand challenge
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The reproducibility of findings is a compelling methodological problem that the neuroimaging community is facing these days. The lack of standardized pipelines for image processing, quantification and statistics plays a major role in the variability and interpretation of results, even when the same data are analysed. This problem is well-known in MRI studies, where the indisputable value of the method has been complicated by a number of studies that produce discrepant results. However, any research domain with complex data and flexible analytical procedures can experience a similar lack of reproducibility. In this paper we investigate this issue for brain PET imaging. During the 2018 NeuroReceptor Mapping conference, the brain PET community was challenged with a computational contest involving a simulated neurotransmitter release experiment. Fourteen international teams analysed the same imaging dataset, for which the ground-truth was known. Despite a plurality of methods, the solutions were consistent across participants, although not identical. These results should create awareness that the increased sharing of PET data alone will only be one component of enhancing confidence in neuroimaging results and that it will be important to complement this with full details of the analysis pipelines and procedures that have been used to quantify data.
Date Issued
2021-10-01
Date Acceptance
2021-04-03
Citation
Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 2021, 41 (10), pp.2778-2796
ISSN
0271-678X
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Start Page
2778
End Page
2796
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
Volume
41
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33993794
Subjects
PET
data analysis
data sharing
reproducibility crisis
“NRM2018 PET Grand Challenge”
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2021-05-17