We generally have 2 scans per subject, pre- and post-intervention. But the
subject I sent you data for and the list of fa values earlier in this
thread has 6 scans. The runs at 7500, 20k, and 50k samples used all 6
scans. To save time, I just ran 2 scans through the trac-all -path for the
100k run(s) (results from 2nd run at 100k fa_avg_wgt for rh.cst = 0.532818).

Peggy

On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Anastasia Yendiki <
[email protected]> wrote:

>
> Ok, I didn't realize you were using the longitudinal stream. So the data
> sets that you sent were from one of the time points? How many time points
> are there for a subject?
>
> The longitudinal stream uses all the time points at once, which makes the
> convergence a bit slower than the cross-sectional case, so the default # of
> samples is somewhat higher than the default for cross-sectional (but much
> less than 100K). We should look into this with the full longitudinal set of
> images to see why it's converging so much slower for your data.
>
> On Mon, 22 Jun 2015, Peggy Skelly wrote:
>
>  Thanks for looking at the data.
>>
>> 1- Since the data has already been acquired, I can't change that. For our
>> new study we are setting up, we'll definitely use isotropic
>> resolution, and we'll probably acquire a fieldmap to correct for epi
>> distortions.
>>
>> FSL has some recommendations at FDT/FAQ and there are also
>> recommendations from www.birncommunity.org.
>>
>> 2 - I am using the longitudinal processing stream. I usually create a
>> bash script to call trac-all -path with the dmrirc.txt file listing
>> the sessions (timepoints) and the baselist for a single subject. I can
>> then have a few scripts for different subjects running
>> concurrently. Looking at Len_Avg for rh.cst for one subject, there seems
>> to be more variability between -path runs than between
>> session/timepoints, even when sessions are on different scanners (1.5T vs
>> 3T).
>>
>> Specifically (using 7500 iterations), for one run, Len_avg of rh.cst was
>> 41.8583. The value was the same to 4 decimal points across 6
>> different sessions, 4-3T scans and 2-1.5T scans. On a separate run,
>> Len_avg was 50.0967, also agreeing to 4 decimal places on the 6
>> different scans.
>>
>> We definitely need to run longer than the default iterations, but do all
>> the subjects need to be run at the same time (listed in a single
>> dmrirc file)? Within the longitudinal stream, during trac-all -path,
>> there seems to be initialization with priors from the base space. Is
>> there some other interaction between timepoints/sessions/subj_list
>> causing session-similar output, but run variability? I'm wondering if
>> they use the same random number seed for the mcmc algorithm?
>>
>> Peggy
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Anastasia Yendiki <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>       Hi Peggy - Thanks for sending me the data. The tract
>> reconstructions look much different than what I'm used to seeing, from
>>       other users or our own data. Visually, it seems to me like the 100K
>> one is more converged. The probability distributions of
>>       the pathways look much sharper, so when thresholded you don't get
>> much of the tails of the distribution, which would be
>>       noisier. It's hard to tell why it's taking so much longer to sample
>> the distributions in your data. The only thing I see that
>>       stands out is that the resolution in z is quite low (3mm), so some
>> of the tracts (see for example cingulum, corpus callosum)
>>       are only 1 voxel thick in z. This combined with partial voluming
>> (ventricles seem enlarged) probably introduces more
>>       uncertainty in the data. If you can change the aqcuisition, I'd
>> recommend isotropic resolution (the usual is 2mm) as
>>       anisotropic voxels introduce bias in estimates of diffusion
>> anisotropy. If you have to stick with the existing acquisition,
>>       it looks like the default sampling settings will have to be changed
>> for your case. I'm happy to help troubleshoot further.
>>
>>       For a longitudinal study, I recommend using the longitudinal
>> tracula stream. We've found that it improves test-retest
>>       reliability in longitudinal measurements substantially, while also
>> improving sensitivity to longitudinal changes (the paper
>>       is in review).
>>
>>       Best,
>>       a.y
>>
>>       On Fri, 19 Jun 2015, Peggy Skelly wrote:
>>
>>             It's been a while, but we are still working on computing our
>> tracts in
>>             tracula!
>>
>>             We are still struggling with variability of the output from
>> 'trac-all
>>             -path'.  Running with the default number of iterations, there
>> was enough
>>             variability in the output from multiple runs, that I ran
>> longer iterations
>>             to see if the output would converge to more consistent
>> values. Here is the
>>             fa_avg_weight of the rh.cst for a single set of dwi images
>> processed through
>>             tracula, then trac-all -path run several times (with reinit=0
>> and default
>>             values for nburnin & nkeep):
>>
>>             nsample=7500: 0.516818, 0.529206, 0.495232, 0.514368,
>> 0.492393, 0.51711
>>             nsample=20,000: 0.521082, 0.513492, 0.50974
>>             nsample=50,000: 0.506167, 0.502324, 0.504106
>>             nsample=100,000: 0.530423
>>
>>             Between 7500 and 50k samples, it does seem like the algorithm
>> is converging,
>>             but at 100k samples the output is out of the range of any
>> previous runs. (I
>>             keep looking for errors in how I ran that one, and am running
>> it again.)
>>
>>             In the reference Yendiki, et.al, 2011, you state that the
>> burn-in and
>>             iterations to ensure convergence is for future investigation.
>> Have you had
>>             any more thoughts or progress on this topic?
>>
>>             We are doing a longitudinal analysis, comparing FA_avg_weight
>> over tracts
>>             pre- and post- a 3-month therapeutic intervention. So we
>> anticipate rather
>>             small changes. Do you have any suggestions for how we handle
>> this
>>             variability?
>>
>>             Thanks,
>>             Peggy
>>
>>
>>
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