14.2.12. Chen et al. (2018a). A tail of two sides: Artificially doubled false positive …

Introduction

Here we present commands used in the following paper:

  • Chen G, Cox RW, Glen DR, Rajendra JK, Reynolds RC, Taylor PA (2019). A tail of two sides: Artificially doubled false positive rates in neuroimaging due to the sidedness choice with t-tests. Human Brain Mapping 40:1037-1043.

Abstract: One-sided t-tests are widely used in neuroimaging data analysis. While such a test may be applicable when investigating specific regions and prior information about directionality is present,we argue here that it is often mis-applied, with severe consequences for false positive rate (FPR) control. Conceptually, a pair of one-sided t-tests conducted in tandem (e.g., to test separately for both positive and negative effects), effectively amounts to a two-sided t-test. However, replacing the two-sided test with a pair of one-sided tests without multiple comparisons correction essentially doubles the intended FPR of statements made about the same study; that is, the actual family-wise error (FWE) of results at the whole brain level would be 10% instead of the 5% intended by the researcher. Therefore, we strongly recommend that, unless otherwise explicitly justified, two-sided t-tests be applied instead of two simultaneous one-sided t-tests.

Study keywords: task-block, EPI, MPRAGE, human, control, adult, MNI space, nonlinear align

Main programs: 3dMEMA, 3dClustSim, 3dClusterize, gen_group_command.py, 3dmask_tool

Download scripts

To download, either:

  • ... click the link(s) in the following table (perhaps Rightclick -> “Save Link As…”):

    s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh

    An example of group level analyses with two-tailed testing (using 3dMEMA, 3dClustSim and 3dClusterize, among others)

  • ... or copy+paste into a terminal:

    curl -O https://afni.nimh.nih.gov/pub/dist/doc/htmldoc/codex/fmri/media/2018a_ChenEtal/s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh
    

View scripts

These scripts were run on the NIH’s Biowulf HPC cluster, hence some of the variables like $SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK, $SLURM_JOBID, etc.

s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh

  1#!/bin/tcsh
  2
  3# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  4# Script: s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh
  5# Run on: openfmri/ds001_R2.0.4
  6# Date  : May, 2018
  7#
  8# Take a group of subjects processed for task-based FMRI, run 3dMEMA
  9# on their final statistical results.  Clustering is also performed
 10# here, using 3dClustSim (with the ACF blur estimation).  Some
 11# individual volumes of t-statistics and effect estimate maps are also
 12# output.  This provides an example of using the newest clusterizing
 13# program in AFNI, 3dClusterize (an update version of 3dclust).
 14#
 15# Used as an example of proper two-sided testing in:
 16#  
 17#   A tail of two sides: Artificially doubled false positive rates in
 18#   neuroimaging due to the sidedness choice with t-tests
 19#
 20#   by Chen G, Glen DR, Rajendra JK, Reynolds RC, Cox RW, Taylor PA.
 21#      Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH/NIH/DHHS, USA.
 22#
 23# ... as applied to an earlier processed dataset from *this* study:
 24#
 25#   Some comments and corrections on FMRI processing with AFNI in
 26#   "Exploring the Impact of Analysis Software on Task fMRI Results"
 27# 
 28#   by Taylor PA, Chen G, Glen DR, Rajendra JK, Reynolds RC, Cox RW.
 29#      Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH/NIH/DHHS, USA.
 30#
 31#   NOTE: The processing described in "Some comments..." includes sets
 32#   of processing commands correcting/improving upon some sets of
 33#   commands run in an earlier study by a different group (see therein
 34#   for more details).  However, even the "NIMH" set of commands still
 35#   includes some non-ideal features, as described there, for the
 36#   purposes of comparison with the other group's processing stream.
 37#   Please read the associated text carefully before using/adapting
 38#   those scripts.
 39#
 40# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 41#
 42# To run for a single subject, for example:
 43#
 44#   tcsh -ef s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh
 45#
 46# On a cluster you might want to use scratch disk space for faster
 47# writing, and a lot of memory and CPUs, depending on the
 48# data/processing choices.  Syntax might be:
 49#
 50#   sbatch                       \
 51#      --partition=SOME_NAMES    \
 52#      --cpus-per-task=32        \
 53#      --mem=64g                 \
 54#      --gres=lscratch:80        \
 55#      s.nimh_group_level_02_mema_bisided.tcsh
 56#
 57# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 58
 59# ================ Set up paths and many params ======================
 60
 61set here        = $PWD
 62set p_0         = /data/NIMH_SSCC
 63set path_main   = ${p_0}/openfmri/ds001_R2.0.4
 64set path_proc   = ${path_main}/data_proc_nimh
 65set odir        = GROUP_LEVEL_nimh
 66set path_mema   = ${path_proc}/${odir}
 67
 68# Running 3dMEMA
 69set script_mema = do_group_level_nimh.tcsh # generated command file name
 70set omema       = mema_results.nii.gz      # output effect+stats filename
 71set groupid     = controls                 # volume label for stat result
 72
 73# Cluster parameters
 74set csim_neigh  = 1         # neighborhood; could be NN=1,2,3
 75set csim_NN     = "NN${csim_neigh}"  # other form of neigh
 76set csim_sided  = "bisided" # test type; could be 1sided, 2sided or bisided
 77set csim_pthr   = 0.001     # voxelwise thr (was higher, 0.01, in orig study)
 78set csim_alpha  = 0.05      # nominal FWE
 79set csim_pref   = "clust_${csim_sided}" # prefix for outputting stuff
 80
 81# ================== Optional: Biowulf cluster =========================
 82
 83# This section for possibly running on Biowulf cluster.
 84
 85#### The following 2 lines could be uncommented to load these modules;
 86#### that would likely not be necessary outside of NIH's Biowulf cluster.
 87# source /etc/profile.d/modules.csh   
 88# module load afni R
 89
 90# set thread count if we are running SLURM
 91if ( $?SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK ) then
 92  setenv OMP_NUM_THREADS $SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK
 93endif
 94
 95# Set temporary output directory; then requires using something like
 96# this on the swarm command line: --sbatch '--gres=lscratch:50'.
 97# These variables used again *after* afni_proc.py command, if running
 98# on Biowulf.
 99if( $?SLURM_JOBID )then
100  set tempdir = /lscratch/$SLURM_JOBID/${odir}
101  set usetemp = 1
102else
103  set tempdir = $path_mema
104  set usetemp = 0
105endif
106
107mkdir -p $tempdir
108
109
110# ====================== Voxelwise modeling ==========================
111
112# Create and execute 3dMEMA command.  Note the inclusion of the
113# "-options -missing_data 0" flags, to avoid some numerical badness of
114# possible FOV edge effects, etc.
115gen_group_command.py                                           \
116    -command      3dMEMA                                       \
117    -write_script ${tempdir}/${script_mema}                    \
118    -prefix       ${tempdir}/${omema}                          \
119    -dsets        ${path_proc}/sub*/stats.sub*_REML+tlrc.HEAD  \
120    -set_labels   "$groupid"                                   \
121    -subs_betas   'pumps_demean_vs_ctrl_demean#0_Coef'         \
122    -subs_tstats  'pumps_demean_vs_ctrl_demean#0_Tstat'        \
123    -options      -missing_data 0
124
125tcsh -ef ${tempdir}/${script_mema}
126echo "++ MEMAed!"
127
128cd ${tempdir}
129echo "++ Now in the group stat dir: $PWD"
130
131# ====================== Make group mask ==========================
132
133# Make a group level mask for reporting results.  This also determines
134# the volume over which multiple comparisons corrections for voxelwise
135# stats are done.
136# The "-frac 1.0" is to make an intersection mask.
1373dmask_tool                                             \
138    -prefix mask.nii.gz                                 \
139    -input `ls ${path_proc}/sub-*/mask_epi_anat.*.HEAD` \
140    -frac 1.0
141
142# ==================== Calc average smoothness =======================
143
144# Get the line from each blur estimate file that has our desired
145# parameters; we are running REML here and using the ACF smoothness
146# estimation, so the gpattern variable reflects both.  For N subjects,
147# the output *1D file contains N rows of the 3 ACF parameters.
148set gpattern = 'err_reml ACF'
149grep -h "$gpattern" ${path_proc}/sub*/blur_est*   \
150    | cut -d\  -f1-3                              \
151    > group_ACF_ests.1D
152
153# Get the group average ACF parameters.
154set blur_est = ( `3dTstat -mean -prefix - group_ACF_ests.1D\'` )
155echo "++ The group average ACF params are: $blur_est"
156
157# ==================== Cluster simulations =======================
158
159# Simulations for FWE corrected cluster-size inference: make a cluster
160# table based on the simulations, and *that* gets parsed and applied
161# to the actual data.
1623dClustSim                                       \
163    -both                                        \
164    -mask   mask.nii.gz                          \
165    -acf    $blur_est                            \
166    -prefix ClustSim 
167
168# Get the volume threshold value from the ClustSim results, based on
169# user's choice of parameters as set above.  The "-verb 0" means that
170# just the threshold number of voxels is returned, so we can save that
171# as a variable.
172set clust_thrvol = `1d_tool.py -verb 0                                \
173                        -infile ClustSim.${csim_NN}_${csim_sided}.1D  \
174                        -csim_pthr   $csim_pthr                       \
175                        -csim_alpha "$csim_alpha"`
176
177# Get the statistic value equivalent to the desired voxelwise p-value,
178# for thresholding purposes.  Using the same p-value and sidedness
179# that were selected in the ClustSim results.  This program also gets
180# the number of degrees of freedom (DOF) from the header of the volume
181# containing the statistic. The "-quiet" means that only the
182# associated statistic value is returned, so we can save it to a
183# variable.
184#
185# Note: actually, you can do this calculation within 3dClusterize
186# directly now, specifying the threshold as a p-value.
187
188set voxstat_thr = `p2dsetstat -quiet                    \
189                    -pval $csim_pthr                    \
190                    "-${csim_sided}"                    \
191                    -inset "${omema}[${groupid}:t]"`
192
193echo "++ The final cluster volume threshold is:  $clust_thrvol"
194echo "++ The voxelwise stat value threshold is:  $voxstat_thr"
195
196# ================== Make cluster maps =====================
197
198# Run the 'clusterize' program to make maps of the clusters (sorted by
199# size) and to output a cluster-masked map of the effect estimate (EE)
200# data, in this case %BOLD fluctuation values-- i.e., the stuff we
201# should report.
202#
203# The main inputs are: dataset contain the statistic volume to be
204# thresholded, a mask within which to find clusters, and the ClustSim
205# parameters+outputs.  A common addition to this list of inputs is to
206# specify the location of the EE volume in the input dset, for
207# reporting the EE info within any found clusters.
208#
209# SPECS:
210#  3dClusterize \
211#      -inset      :input dset to get info from; like both stat and eff data
212#      -ithr       :str label of stat vol in inset; or, use vol index: 1
213#      -idat       :(opt) str label EE vol in inset; or, use vol index: 0
214#      -mask       :same mask input to 3dClustSim (here, whole brain)
215#      -bisided    :specify *type* of test; followed by threshold limit info
216#      -NN         :what neighborhood definition was used? 
217#      -clust_nvox :cluster size threshold from 3dClustSim
218#      -pref_map   :name for cluster map output vol
219#      -pref_dat   :name for cluster-masked EE output vol
220#      > ${csim_pref}_report.txt :dump text table of cluster report to file
221#
222# Note: one-sided testing would require slightly different syntax:
223# '-1sided ...' would not be followed by 2 numbers, as used here for
224# '-bisided ...', but instead by specifying a tail (i.e.,
225# "RIGHT_TAIL") and then a single number (its threshold value).  Also,
226# if you use the "p=..." form of specifying a threshold value in
227# 3dClusterize, then the syntax would be a bit different, just using
228# that single argument after even '-bisided ...', for example.  Please
229# see the help file for a more full description of the option(s).
230
2313dClusterize                                   \
232    -inset  ${omema}                           \
233    -ithr   "${groupid}:t"                     \
234    -idat   "${groupid}:b"                     \
235    -mask   mask.nii.gz                        \
236    -${csim_sided} -$voxstat_thr $voxstat_thr  \
237    -NN             ${csim_neigh}              \
238    -clust_nvox     ${clust_thrvol}            \
239    -pref_map       ${csim_pref}_map.nii.gz    \
240    -pref_dat       ${csim_pref}_EE.nii.gz     \
241    > ${csim_pref}_report.txt
242
243echo "++ Clusterizing complete."
244
245cd $here
246
247# ===================================================================
248
249# Again, Biowulf-running considerations: if processing went fine and
250# we were using a temporary directory, copy data back.
251if( $usetemp && -d $tempdir )then
252    echo "Copying data from $tempdir to $path_mema"
253    mkdir -p $path_mema
254    \cp -pr $tempdir/* $path_mema/
255endif
256
257# ===================================================================
258
259echo "\n++ DONE with group level stats + clustering!\n"
260
261time ; exit 0