News: slides and photos from this course are now posted here.

I am very delighted to announce that our proposal for educational workshop titled “Taking Control Of Your Neuroimaging Data: Understanding Artefacts And Quantifying Quality” has been accepted for inclusion in the program for the 2019 OHBM Annual Meeting.

Stay tuned for slides and related educational materials.

Proposal:
Assessing the quality of neuroimaging data, whether raw data hot off the scanner or the output of a preprocessing pipeline, generally requires visual inspection, a prospect that can quickly become overwhelming in even moderately-sized datasets. Inspection is further complicated by the range of acquisitions and modalities used in neuroimaging (e.g. diffusion, anatomical, and functional MRI), each of which has its own artifact sensitivities and quality criteria. The options available for manipulation in post processing span an even larger space, with dozens of methods available for every modality. Although quality control (QC) is receiving increasing attention in the field, the large scope of the topic has led many to “black box” the metrics or conduct only the most cursory checks. This workshop aims to demystify neuroimaging QC, with talks spanning the levels from individual scans (physical origins of artefacts and how to rate their severity) to issues arising from multi-site projects (standardization, phantom calibration and other quality assurance (QA) processes). The presentations are intended to be understandable by newcomers, but also be useful for more experienced researchers. Practical suggestions will be emphasized throughout the tutorial, including currently available software, recommendations of best practices, resources for more detailed information, and sample code. Interaction with the audience will be encouraged, with an open-ended panel discussion at the end of the session.

Organizers
Pradeep Reddy Raamana
Joset A. Etzel
Ben A. Inglis

Learning outcomes

1. Understand the physical basis and sources of prominent artefacts
2. Differentiate levels of artefact severity
3. Understand how to rate image quality, with or without known artefacts
4. Overview of QC/QA tools available now
5. Discuss outstanding issues in neuroimaging QC
6. Learn the need for standards and protocols

Presenters
(names in alphabetical order,
including their emails, twitter handles)

Dr. Martina Callaghan,
m.callaghan@ucl.ac.uk, @mfcallaghan

Dr. Joset A. Etzel,
jetzel@wustl.edu, @JosetAEtzel

Dr. Ben A. Inglis,
binglis@berkeley.edu, @practicalfmri

Dr. Alexander Leemans,
a.leemans@umcutrecht.nl, @Alex_Leemans

Dr. Pradeep Reddy Raamana,
praamana@research.baycrest.org, @raamana_

Dr. Stephen Strother,
sstrother@research.baycrest.org

Dr. Kamil Uludag,
kamil.uludag@maastrichtuniversity.nl, @kamil_FPN