Open-access quantitative MRI data of the spinal cord and reproducibility across participants, sites and manufacturers.
Cohen-Adad J., Alonso-Ortiz E., Abramovic M., Arneitz C., Atcheson N., Barlow L., Barry RL., Barth M., Battiston M., Büchel C., Budde M., Callot V., Combes AJE., De Leener B., Descoteaux M., de Sousa PL., Dostál M., Doyon J., Dvorak A., Eippert F., Epperson KR., Epperson KS., Freund P., Finsterbusch J., Foias A., Fratini M., Fukunaga I., Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott CAM., Germani G., Gilbert G., Giove F., Gros C., Grussu F., Hagiwara A., Henry P-G., Horák T., Hori M., Joers J., Kamiya K., Karbasforoushan H., Keřkovský M., Khatibi A., Kim J-W., Kinany N., Kitzler HH., Kolind S., Kong Y., Kudlička P., Kuntke P., Kurniawan ND., Kusmia S., Labounek R., Laganà MM., Laule C., Law CS., Lenglet C., Leutritz T., Liu Y., Llufriu S., Mackey S., Martinez-Heras E., Mattera L., Nestrasil I., O'Grady KP., Papinutto N., Papp D., Pareto D., Parrish TB., Pichiecchio A., Prados F., Rovira À., Ruitenberg MJ., Samson RS., Savini G., Seif M., Seifert AC., Smith AK., Smith SA., Smith ZA., Solana E., Suzuki Y., Tackley G., Tinnermann A., Valošek J., Van De Ville D., Yiannakas MC., Weber Ii KA., Weiskopf N., Wise RG., Wyss PO., Xu J.
In a companion paper by Cohen-Adad et al. we introduce the spine generic quantitative MRI protocol that provides valuable metrics for assessing spinal cord macrostructural and microstructural integrity. This protocol was used to acquire a single subject dataset across 19 centers and a multi-subject dataset across 42 centers (for a total of 260 participants), spanning the three main MRI manufacturers: GE, Philips and Siemens. Both datasets are publicly available via git-annex. Data were analysed using the Spinal Cord Toolbox to produce normative values as well as inter/intra-site and inter/intra-manufacturer statistics. Reproducibility for the spine generic protocol was high across sites and manufacturers, with an average inter-site coefficient of variation of less than 5% for all the metrics. Full documentation and results can be found at https://spine-generic.rtfd.io/ . The datasets and analysis pipeline will help pave the way towards accessible and reproducible quantitative MRI in the spinal cord.