Cited by 27Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and ApplicationsEpilepsy research and treatmentAdvanced MRI Techniques and Applications

Comparison of manual and automated fiber quantification tractography in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Open access
Kreilkamp, Barbara A.K., Lisanti, Lucy, Glenn, G. Russell, Wieshmann, Udo C., Das, Kumar, Marson, Anthony G., Keller, Simon S.·2019·NeuroImage: Clinical

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the agreement between manually and automatically generated tracts from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Whole and along-the-tract diffusivity metrics and correlations with patient clinical characteristics were analyzed with respect to tractography approach. METHODS: We recruited 40 healthy controls and 24 patients with TLE who underwent conventional T1-weighted imaging and 60-direction DTI. An automated (Automated Fiber Quantification, AFQ) and manual (TrackVis) deterministic tractography approach was used to identify the uncinate fasciculus (UF) and parahippocampal white matter bundle (PHWM). Tract diffusion scalar metrics were analyzed with respect to agreement across automated and manual approaches (Dice Coefficient and Spearman correlations), to side of onset of epilepsy and patient clinical characteristics, including duration of epilepsy, age of onset and presence of hippocampal sclerosis. RESULTS: Across approaches the analysis of tract morphology similarity revealed Dice coefficients at moderate to good agreement (0.54 - 0.6) and significant correlations between diffusion values (Spearman's Rho=0.4-0.9). However, within bilateral PHWM, AFQ yielded significantly lower FA (left: Z = 4.4, p<0.001; right: Z = 5.1, p<0.001) and higher MD values (left: Z=-4.7, p<0.001; right: Z=-3.7, p<0.001) compared to the manual approach. Whole tract DTI metrics determined using AFQ were significantly correlated with patient characteristics, including age of epilepsy onset in FA (R = 0.6, p = 0.02) and MD of the ipsilateral PHWM (R=-0.6, p = 0.02), while duration of epilepsy corrected for age correlated with MD in ipsilateral PHWM (R = 0.7, p<0.01). Correlations between clinical metrics and diffusion values extracted using the manual whole tract technique did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Both manual and automated along-the-tract analyses demonstrated significant correlations with patient clinical characteristics such as age of onset and epilepsy duration. The strongest and most widespread localized ipsi- and contralateral diffusivity alterations were observed in patients with left TLE and patients with HS compared to controls, while patients with right TLE and patients without HS did not show these strong effects. CONCLUSIONS: Manual and AFQ tractography approaches revealed significant correlations in the reconstruction of tract morphology and extracted whole and along-tract diffusivity values. However, as non-identical methods they differed in the respective yield of significant results across clinical correlations and group-wise statistics. Given the absence of excellent agreement between manual and AFQ techniques as demonstrated in the present study, caution should be considered when using AFQ particularly when used without reference to benchmark manual measures.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.102024

Cites

63 of 63 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Manual streamline selection is considered the gold standard for delineating anatomical fiber tracts in tractography, for validating other tract identification techniques, and for benchmarked comparisons and algorithm training.

    “Manual streamline selection is considered to be the gold standard to delineate anatomical fiber tracts in tractography and has been widely used to validate other anatomical tract identification techniques (Poulin et al., 2019; Pujol et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2020).”

    From Quantitative mapping of the brain’s structural connectivity using diffusion MRI tractography: A review (2022) · cites this paper as Kreilkamp et al., 2019

    The Introduction (page unavailable) describes manual techniques as closest to ground truth in the absence of histological data and as a benchmark for comparing automated tractography, supporting the core of the claim. It does not establish that manual selection has been widely used to validate other tract-identification techniques; it says recent automated methods have not been extensively validated. It also does not describe using manual selections for algorithm training. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kreilkamp, B. A. K., Lisanti, L., Glenn, G. R., Wieshmann, U. C., Das, K., Marson, A. G., & Keller, S. S.
Affiliations
  • University of Liverpool (GB)
  • Royal Society (GB)
  • Emory University (US)
  • Walton Centre (GB)
Corresponding author
Kreilkamp, Barbara A.K.
Venue
NeuroImage: Clinical
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019
Volume
24
Pages
102024
ISSN
2213-1582 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2980870414
Cited by
27
References
63
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3
FWCI
1.78
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • NeuroImage Clinical (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Epilepsy Action
  • Medical Research Council
  • Epilepsy Research UK
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Epilepsy research and treatment
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
Keywords
temporal lobe epilepsy, automated fiber quantification, uncinate fasciculus, hippocampal sclerosis, fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, epilepsy onset age, epilepsy duration, white matter microstructure, diffusion tensor imaging, left temporal lobe epilepsy, right temporal lobe epilepsy
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Automation, Brain Mapping, Cell Count, Electroencephalography, Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Functional Laterality, Male, Middle Aged, Nerve Fibers, Sclerosis, Young Adult, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, White Matter

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review