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Comparing manual and automatic segmentation of hippocampal volumes: Reliability and validity issues in younger and older brains

Wenger, E. ; Mårtensson, Johan LU ; Noack, H. ; Bodammer, N. ; Kühn, S. ; Schäfer, S. ; Heinze, H.-J. ; Düzel, E. ; Bäckmann, L. and Lindenberger, U. , et al. (2014) In Human Brain Mapping 35(8). p.4236-4248
Abstract
We compared hippocampal volume measures obtained by manual tracing to automatic segmentation with FreeSurfer in 44 younger (20–30 years) and 47 older (60–70 years) adults, each measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over three successive time points, separated by four months. Retest correlations over time were very high for both manual and FreeSurfer segmentations. With FreeSurfer, correlations over time were significantly lower in the older than in the younger age group, which was not the case with manual segmentation. Pearson correlations between manual and FreeSurfer estimates were sufficiently high, numerically even higher in the younger group, whereas intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) estimates were lower in the... (More)
We compared hippocampal volume measures obtained by manual tracing to automatic segmentation with FreeSurfer in 44 younger (20–30 years) and 47 older (60–70 years) adults, each measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over three successive time points, separated by four months. Retest correlations over time were very high for both manual and FreeSurfer segmentations. With FreeSurfer, correlations over time were significantly lower in the older than in the younger age group, which was not the case with manual segmentation. Pearson correlations between manual and FreeSurfer estimates were sufficiently high, numerically even higher in the younger group, whereas intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) estimates were lower in the younger than in the older group. FreeSurfer yielded higher volume estimates than manual segmentation, particularly in the younger age group. Importantly, FreeSurfer consistently overestimated hippocampal volumes independently of manually assessed volume in the younger age group, but overestimated larger volumes in the older age group to a less extent, introducing a systematic age bias in the data. Age differences in hippocampal volumes were significant with FreeSurfer, but not with manual tracing. Manual tracing resulted in a significant difference between left and right hippocampus (right > left), whereas this asymmetry effect was considerably smaller with FreeSurfer estimates. We conclude that FreeSurfer constitutes a feasible method to assess differences in hippocampal volume in young adults. FreeSurfer estimates in older age groups should, however, be interpreted with care until the automatic segmentation pipeline has been further optimized to increase validity and reliability in this age group. Hum Brain Mapp, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
hippocampus, FreeSurfer, manual segmentation, left right asymmetry, aging
in
Human Brain Mapping
volume
35
issue
8
pages
4236 - 4248
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • wos:000339426700050
  • scopus:84903948915
  • pmid:24532539
ISSN
1065-9471
DOI
10.1002/hbm.22473
project
Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
8af5b852-d2bb-4b48-ada7-5217c5ae9f76 (old id 4333150)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:25:23
date last changed
2022-03-27 08:05:53
@article{8af5b852-d2bb-4b48-ada7-5217c5ae9f76,
  abstract     = {{We compared hippocampal volume measures obtained by manual tracing to automatic segmentation with FreeSurfer in 44 younger (20–30 years) and 47 older (60–70 years) adults, each measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over three successive time points, separated by four months. Retest correlations over time were very high for both manual and FreeSurfer segmentations. With FreeSurfer, correlations over time were significantly lower in the older than in the younger age group, which was not the case with manual segmentation. Pearson correlations between manual and FreeSurfer estimates were sufficiently high, numerically even higher in the younger group, whereas intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) estimates were lower in the younger than in the older group. FreeSurfer yielded higher volume estimates than manual segmentation, particularly in the younger age group. Importantly, FreeSurfer consistently overestimated hippocampal volumes independently of manually assessed volume in the younger age group, but overestimated larger volumes in the older age group to a less extent, introducing a systematic age bias in the data. Age differences in hippocampal volumes were significant with FreeSurfer, but not with manual tracing. Manual tracing resulted in a significant difference between left and right hippocampus (right > left), whereas this asymmetry effect was considerably smaller with FreeSurfer estimates. We conclude that FreeSurfer constitutes a feasible method to assess differences in hippocampal volume in young adults. FreeSurfer estimates in older age groups should, however, be interpreted with care until the automatic segmentation pipeline has been further optimized to increase validity and reliability in this age group. Hum Brain Mapp, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.}},
  author       = {{Wenger, E. and Mårtensson, Johan and Noack, H. and Bodammer, N. and Kühn, S. and Schäfer, S. and Heinze, H.-J. and Düzel, E. and Bäckmann, L. and Lindenberger, U. and Lövdén, M.}},
  issn         = {{1065-9471}},
  keywords     = {{hippocampus; FreeSurfer; manual segmentation; left right asymmetry; aging}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{8}},
  pages        = {{4236--4248}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Human Brain Mapping}},
  title        = {{Comparing manual and automatic segmentation of hippocampal volumes: Reliability and validity issues in younger and older brains}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22473}},
  doi          = {{10.1002/hbm.22473}},
  volume       = {{35}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}