ENIGMA-DTI « ENIGMA

Genetic Analyses for Diffusion Tensor Imaging Phenotypes

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The integrity of the brain’s white matter can serve as an important endophenotype, and several genetic associations have already been established. However, measures derived from DTI, such as fractional anisotropy or tract measures derived from tractography, can vary substantially depending on variables in the imaging acquisition protocols such as the image voxel size, number of directional gradients used, scanner magnetic field strength, and the ratio of the number of directional images to those with no diffusion sensitization. We are therefore forming a DTI working group for phenotype harmonization – to determine several measures computed from DTI images to serve as possible phenotypes to pool together for multi-site genetic analyses.

This working group is a methods development group to identify heritable, and reproducible, measures from diffusion images and ways to model or account for inter-site differences in these phenotypes. The group will be dedicated to testing various processing methods, initial phenotypes, and establishing quality control procedures that can be applied practically to large datasets.