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Published on: July 30, 2009
Success rates for functional MR imaging in children
A Rajagopal1, A Byars2, M Schapiro2
1From the Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium (A.R., G.R.L., S.K.H.), Department of Radiology akila.rajagopal@cchmc.org.
Insights
Functional MRI (fMRI) success rates are higher in longitudinal studies for children. Longitudinal pediatric brain imaging studies show improved cooperation and task completion across all age groups.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric neuroimaging research
- Developmental neuroscience
- Child psychology
Background:
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is crucial for studying brain development in children.
- Engaging young children in high-quality brain imaging research presents significant cooperation challenges.
- Understanding fMRI success rates informs recruitment strategies for pediatric studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate fMRI success rates in typically developing children.
- To compare success rates between longitudinal and cross-sectional study designs.
- To guide sample size estimations for future pediatric neuroimaging research.
Main Methods:
- 459 healthy children (5-18 years) participated in a cross-sectional study.
- 30 children (5-7 years) underwent annual fMRI scans for 10 years in a longitudinal study.
- Success rate was defined as completing 4 fMRI tasks; analyzed using Fischer exact test.
Main Results:
- Cross-sectional: 74% overall task completion; younger children (5-7) had 34%-67% success, older (8-18) had 76%-100%.
- Longitudinal: 89% completed all tasks annually over 10 years.
- Significant differences in completion rates between cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts (P < .0001); no sex differences.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric fMRI study sample sizes should be adjusted based on age.
- Recommended scaling factors: 33% for ages 8-18, 50% for ages 5-7.
- Longitudinal designs may yield higher cooperation and data quality in pediatric neuroimaging.
Background And Purpose:
Functional MR imaging is widely used for research in functional brain development in healthy children. However, obtaining high-quality brain imaging data from pediatric research participants requires cooperation that is challenging for young children. In this study, we examined success rates for fMRI in typically developing children in both longitudinal and cross-sectional research study designs to inform the recruitment needs of future pediatric brain imaging studies.
Materials And Methods:
In the cross-sectional study, 459 healthy children (5-18 years of age, 215 girls) were recruited. A subset of 30 healthy children 5-7 years of age from the cross-sectional cohort were selected and scanned for 10 consecutive years in the longitudinal arm of the study. Following anatomic scans, each participant attempted 4 functional MR imaging tasks. Success rate was defined as the proportion of fMRI tasks completed. Differences in success rates across sexes and in cross-sectional-versus-longitudinal cohorts were evaluated by using the Fischer exact test.
Results:
In the cross-sectional study, 74% of the children completed all tasks. Success rates for individual tasks ranged from 34% to 67% for children 5-7 years of age and 76%-100% for those 8-18 years of age. In the longitudinal study, 89% of children completed all tasks in all 10 years. We established significance (P < .0001) between the cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts for both 0% and 100% task completion rates. There was no significance between sexes.
Conclusions:
When designing pediatric fMRI studies in children, the sample sizes indicated by power analysis should be scaled up according to age (ie, 33% for ages 8-18 years, 50% for ages 5-7 years).
