AUTHOR=Gal-Er Barat , Brackenier Yannick , Bonthrone Alexandra F. , Casella Chiara , Price Anthony , Arulkumaran Sophie , Chew Andrew T. M. , Nosarti Chiara , Cleri Michela , Cio Pierluigi Di , Egloff Alexia , Rutherford Mary A. , O’Muircheartaigh Jonathan , Tomi-Tricot Raphael , Malik Shaihan , Cordero-Grande Lucilio , Hajnal Joseph V. , Counsell Serena J. 

TITLE=Verifying the concordance between motion corrected and conventional MPRAGE for pediatric morphometric analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 19 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2025.1534924

DOI=10.3389/fnins.2025.1534924

ISSN=1662-453X

ABSTRACT=PurposeThis study aimed to validate a retrospective motion correction technique, Distributed and Incoherent Sample Orders for Reconstruction Deblurring using Encoding Redundancy (DISORDER), for pediatric brain morphometry.MethodsTwo T1-weighted MPRAGE 3D datasets were acquired at 3 T in thirty-seven children aged 7–8 years: one with conventional linear phase encoding and one using DISORDER. MPRAGE images were scored as motion-free or motion-corrupt. Cortical morphometry and regional brain volumes were measured with FreeSurfer, subcortical grey matter (GM) with FSL-FIRST, and hippocampi with HippUnfold. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to determine agreement. Mann–Whitney U was used to test the difference between measures obtained using DISORDER and (i) motion-free and (ii) motion-corrupt conventional MPRAGE data.ResultsICC measures between conventional MPRAGE and DISORDER data were good/excellent for most subcortical GM (motion-free, 0.75–0.96; motion-corrupt, 0.62–0.98) and regional brain volumes (motion-free 0.47–0.99; motion-corrupt, 0.54–0.99), except for the amygdala and nucleus accumbens (motion-free, 0.38–0.65; motion-corrupt, 0.1–0.42). These values were less consistent for motion-corrupt conventional MPRAGE data for hippocampal volumes (motion-free 0.65–0.99; motion-corrupt, 0.11–0.91) and cortical measures (motion-free 0.76–0.98; motion-corrupt, 0.09–0.74). Mann–Whitney U showed percentage differences in measures obtained with motion-corrupt conventional MPRAGE compared to DISORDER data were significantly greater than in those obtained using motion-free conventional MPRAGE data in 22/58 structures.ConclusionIn the absence of motion, morphometric measures obtained using DISORDER are largely consistent with those from conventional MPRAGE data, whereas improved reliability is obtained by DISORDER for motion-degraded scans. This study validates the use of DISORDER for brain morphometric studies in children.