A comprehensive evaluation of multicentric reliability of single-subject cortical morphological networks on traveling subjects

Abstract Despite the prevalence of research on single-subject cerebral morphological networks in recent years, whether they can offer a reliable way for multicentric studies remains largely unknown. Using two multicentric datasets of traveling subjects, this work systematically examined the inter-site test-retest (TRT) reliabilities of single-subject cerebral morphological networks, and further evaluated the effects of several key factors. We found that most graph-based network measures exhibited fair to excellent reliabilities regardless of different analytical pipelines. Nevertheless, the reliabilities were affected by choices of morphological index (fractal dimension > sulcal depth > gyrification index > cortical thickness), brain parcellation (high-resolution > low-resolution), thresholding method (proportional > absolute), and network type (binarized > weighted). For the factor of similarity measure, its effects depended on the thresholding method used (absolute: Kullback–Leibler divergence > Jensen–Shannon divergence; proportional: Jensen–Shannon divergence > Kullback–Leibler divergence). Furthermore, longer data acquisition intervals and different scanner software versions significantly reduced the reliabilities. Finally, we showed that inter-site reliabilities were significantly lower than intra-site reliabilities for single-subject cerebral morphological networks. Altogether, our findings propose single-subject cerebral morphological networks as a promising approach for multicentric human connectome studies, and offer recommendations on how to determine analytical pipelines and scanning protocols for obtaining reliable results.