Why Voxel-based morphometry should be used
Abstract
This article has been written in response to Dr. Fred L. Bookstein's article entitled '"Voxel-Based Morphometry" Should Not Be Used with Imperfectly Registered Images' in this issue of NeuroImage. We will address three main issues: (i) Dr. Bookstein appears to have misunderstood the objective of voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and the nature of the continuum we referred to. (ii) We agree with him when he states that findings from VBM can pertain to systematic registration errors during spatial normalization. (iii) His argument about voxelwise tests on smooth data holds in the absence of error variance, but is of no consequence when using actual data. We first review the tenets of VBM, paying particular attention to the relationship between VBM and tensor-based morphometry. The last two sections of this response deal with the specific concerns raised by Dr. Bookstein.
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The study used voxel-based morphometry, a well-validated technique.
“We used voxel-based morphometry, a well validated technique that facilitates exploration of volume changes throughout the brain, including cortical and subcortical areas [29].”
From The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis as a brain correlate of psychological inflexibility in fibromyalgia (2020) · cites this paper as [29]
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“We used voxel-based morphometry, a well validated technique that facilitates exploration of volume changes throughout the brain, including cortical and subcortical areas [29].”
Method
- Authors
- Ashburner, J., & Friston, K. J.
- Affiliations
- National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Ashburner, John
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2001-12
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1238-1243
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2036142047
- Cited by
- 842
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 35 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 48
- FWCI
- 31.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Medical Image Segmentation Techniques
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Keywords
- voxel-based morphometry, tensor-based morphometry, image registration errors, spatial normalization, error variance
- MeSH terms
- Atrophy, Cephalometry, Cerebral Cortex, Humans, Image Enhancement, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Temporal Lobe, Artifacts
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