I want to analyse the connectomes of different subjects from 2 different sites. One site acquired data from control subjects and the other site acquired data from subjects with early MS (age, sex, and other parameters where match).
At the beginning of this work we analysed fmri data, but now we also want to analyse connectomes from the tractographies, but the DWI acquisition from the sites are different:
Site 1:
-b=0, 1 direction ; b=1000, 15 direction
-voxel size = 1.875x1.878x2.47
Site 2:
-b=0, 2 direction ; b=1000, 68 direction
-voxel size = 2x2x2
Is it possible to analyse and calculate the tractographies from DKI, considering that they are from different sites? I had first thought to apply ComBatHarmonization to harmonize the data, is this enough or is another procedure necessary?
If all your controls are scanned on one site and all your MS subjects on another site, there is no way you can objectively compare these two groups, as any differences between both groups can be explained by the different sites/scanner settings.
If I have a number of control subjects obtained with the same scanner and protocol as the one used to obtain the patient subjects, would you recommend harmonising the data with dMRIharmonization to also use the other Control subjects from the other site, or is it better to just use the data from the same site. Thank you very much in advance.