Labounek R, Bondy MT, Paulson AL, Bédard S, Abramovic M, Alonso-Ortiz E, Atcheson NT, Barlow LR, Barry RL, Barth M, Battiston M, Büchel C, Budde MD, Callot V, Combes A, De Leener B, Descoteaux M, de Sousa PL, Dostál M, Doyon J, Dvorak AV, 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, Grussu F, Hagiwara A, Henry PG, Horák T, Hori M, Joers JM, Kamiya K, Karbasforoushan H, Keřkovský M, Khatibi A, Kim JW, Kinany N, Kitzler H, Kolind S, Kong Y, Kudlička P, Kuntke P, Kurniawan ND, Kusmia S, Laganà MM, Laule C, Law CSW, Leutritz T, Liu Y, Llufriu S, Mackey S, Martin AR, Martinez-Heras E, Mattera L, 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 GW, Tinnermann A, Valošek J, Van De Ville D, Yiannakas MC, Weber KA 2nd, Weiskopf N, Wise RG, Wyss PO, Xu J, Cohen-Adad J, Lenglet C, and Nestrašil I
Clinical research emphasizes the implementation of rigorous and reproducible study designs that rely on between-group matching or controlling for sources of biological variation such as subject's sex and age. However, corrections for body size (i.e. height and weight) are mostly lacking in clinical neuroimaging designs. This study investigates the importance of body size parameters in their relationship with spinal cord (SC) and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics. Data were derived from a cosmopolitan population of 267 healthy human adults (age 30.1±6.6 years old, 125 females). We show that body height correlated strongly or moderately with brain gray matter (GM) volume, cortical GM volume, total cerebellar volume, brainstem volume, and cross-sectional area (CSA) of cervical SC white matter (CSA-WM; 0.44≤r≤0.62). In comparison, age correlated weakly with cortical GM volume, precentral GM volume, and cortical thickness (-0.21≥r≥-0.27). Body weight correlated weakly with magnetization transfer ratio in the SC WM, dorsal columns, and lateral corticospinal tracts (-0.20≥r≥-0.23). Body weight further correlated weakly with the mean diffusivity derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in SC WM (r=-0.20) and dorsal columns (-0.21), but only in males. CSA-WM correlated strongly or moderately with brain volumes (0.39≤r≤0.64), and weakly with precentral gyrus thickness and DTI-based fractional anisotropy in SC dorsal columns and SC lateral corticospinal tracts (-0.22≥r≥-0.25). Linear mixture of sex and age explained 26±10% of data variance in brain volumetry and SC CSA. The amount of explained variance increased at 33±11% when body height was added into the mixture model. Age itself explained only 2±2% of such variance. In conclusion, body size is a significant biological variable. Along with sex and age, body size should therefore be included as a mandatory variable in the design of clinical neuroimaging studies examining SC and brain structure., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests Since June 2022, Dr. A.K. Smith has been employed by GE HealthCare. This article was co-authored by Dr. Smith in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in the article are his in and do not necessarily reflect the views of GE HealthCare. Since August 2022, Dr. M. M. Laganà has been employed by Canon Medical Systems srl, Rome, Italy. This article was co-authored by Dr. M. M. Laganà in her personal capacity. The opinions expressed in the article are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Canon Medical Systems. Since September 2023, Dr. Papp has been an employee of Siemens Healthcare AB, Sweden. This article was co-authored by Dr. Papp in his personal capacity. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Siemens Healthcare AB, or Siemens Healthineers AG. Since January 2024, Dr. Barry has been employed by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the NIH. This article was co-authored by Robert Barry in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in the article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NIH, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. Guillaume Gilbert is an employee of Philips Healthcare. S Llufriu received compensation for consulting services and speaker honoraria from Biogen Idec, Novartis, Bristol Myer Squibb Genzyme, Sanofi Jansen and Merck. The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging have institutional research agreements with Siemens Healthcare. NW holds a patent on acquisition of MRI data during spoiler gradients (US 10,401,453 B2). NW was a speaker at an event organized by Siemens Healthcare and was reimbursed for the travel expenses. The other authors declare no competing interests.