Balancing Data Quality and Bias: Investigating Functional Connectivity Exclusions in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD Study) Across Quality Control Pathways

• Published in: Human brain mapping Vol. 46; no. 1; pp. e70094 - n/a
• Main Authors: Peverill, Matthew, Russell, Justin D., Keding, Taylor J., Rich, Hailey M., Halvorson, Max A., King, Kevin M., Birn, Rasmus M., Herringa, Ryan J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.01.2025
• Subjects: ABCD; Adolescent; Adolescent Development - physiology; Adolescents; Bias; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - growth & development; Brain - physiology; Brain mapping; Brain research; Child; Cognitive development; Connectome - methods; Connectome - standards; Data Accuracy; Data acquisition; Data analysis; Data collection; Datasets; Demographic variables; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Humans; Image quality; Impact analysis; Intellectual development; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - standards; Male; Medical imaging; Missing data; motion; Neural networks; Neuroimaging; Neurosciences; Pediatrics; Psychopathology; Quality Control; Research design; rs‐fMRI; Scanners; Variables; United States > US; rs‐fMRI; motion; quality control; ABCD; adolescents; missing data
• ISSN: 1065-9471; 1097-0193; 1097-0193
• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.70094

ABSTRACT Analysis of resting state fMRI (rs‐fMRI) typically excludes images substantially degraded by subject motion. However, data quality, including degree of motion, relates to a broad set of participant characteristics, particularly in pediatric neuroimaging. Consequently, when planning quality control (QC) procedures researchers must balance data quality concerns against the possibility of biasing results by eliminating data. In order to explore how researcher QC decisions might bias rs‐fMRI findings and inform future research design, we investigated how a broad spectrum of participant characteristics in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study were related to participant inclusion/exclusion across versions of the dataset (the ABCD Community Collection and ABCD Release 4) and QC choices (specifically, motion scrubbing thresholds). Across all these conditions, we found that the odds of a participant's exclusion related to a broad spectrum of behavioral, demographic, and health‐related variables, with the consequence that rs‐fMRI analyses using these variables are likely to produce biased results. Consequently, we recommend that missing data be formally accounted for when analyzing rs‐fMRI data and interpreting results. Our findings demonstrate the urgent need for better data acquisition and analysis techniques which minimize the impact of motion on data quality. Additionally, we strongly recommend including detailed information about quality control in open datasets such as ABCD. This study investigated participant characteristics associated with exclusion of resting state fMRI data across a range of quality control procedures. Many participant characteristics made exclusion more likely across conditions, demonstrating that correction for missing data is necessary for accurate estimates of brain‐behavior relationships when examining functional connectivity.