A1040
Title: Improving replicability of brain-behavior association studies by leveraging study design features
Authors: Kaidi Kang - Wake Forest University School of Medicine (United States) [presenting]
Jakob Seidlitz - University of Pennsylvania (United States)
Richard Bethlehem - University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
Jiangmei Xiong - Vanderbilt University (United States)
Megan Jones - Vanderbilt University (United States)
Arielle Keller - University of Connecticut (United States)
Ran Tao - Vanderbilt University Medical Center (United States)
Anita Randolph - University of Minnesota Medical School (United States)
Bart Larsen - University of Minnesota Medical School (United States)
Brenden Tervo-Clemmens - University of Minnesota Medical School (United States)
Oscar Miranda Dominguez - University of Minnesota Medical School (United States)
Jonathan Schildcrout - Vanderbilt University (United States)
Damien Fair - University of Minnesota Medical School (United States)
Theodore Satterthwaite - University of Pennsylvania (United States)
A Alexander-Bloch - University of Pennsylvania (United States)
Simon Vandekar - Vanderbilt University (United States)
Abstract: Several recent studies raised concerns about the low replicability of brain-behavior association studies and showed that thousands of study participants are required for good replicability. However, massive sample sizes are often infeasible in practice. Analyses and meta-analyses are performed using 63 longitudinal and cross-sectional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies from the Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium (77,965 total scans) to systematically investigate how the modifiable study design features can be leveraged to improve the ESs (and therefore, the replicability) of brain-behavior association studies. Based on strong empirical evidence and pragmatic statistical theory, concrete and actionable study design and analysis procedures are provided to neuroscientists to help them improve the replicability of their studies, given their different research objectives and the nature of their target associations.
