ArticleHuman brain mapping2021
Improving the replicability of neuroimaging findings by thresholding effect sizes instead of p-values.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Gray Matter Volume Abnormalities in Schizophrenia: Comparisons Between P-Value and Effect Size Inference Frameworks Using Mega- and Meta-Analyses.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Pooled it
- Neuroimaging Investigations of Obesity: a Review of the Treatment of Sex from 2010.Current obesity reports · 2023Pooled it
- Improved Estimation of Correlation Accuracy for Machine Learning Brain-Phenotype Associations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Reconfiguration of brain-wide neural activity after early life adversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia as a model for understanding the cognitive and cerebral determinants of verbal creativity.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2025Article
- Reconfiguration of brain-wide neural activity after early life adversity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Semiparametric confidence sets for cross-sectional and longitudinal neuroimaging.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Article
- Functional delta residuals and applications to simultaneous confidence bands of moment based statistics.Journal of multivariate analysis · 2022Article
- Effects of sleep duration on neurocognitive development in early adolescents in the USA: a propensity score matched, longitudinal, observational study.The Lancet. Child & adolescent health · 2022Observational
- Improving the replicability of neuroimaging findings by thresholding effect sizes instead of p-values.Human brain mapping · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The classical approach for testing statistical images using spatial extent inference (SEI) thresholds the statistical image based on the p-value. This approach has an unfortunate consequence on the replicability of neuroimaging findings because the targeted brain regions are affected by the sample size-larger studies have more power to detect smaller effects. Here, we use simulations based on the preprocessed Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) to show that thresholding statistical images by effect sizes has more consistent estimates of activated regions across studies than thresholding by p-values. Using a constant effect size threshold means that the p-value threshold naturally scales with the sample size to ensure that the target set is similar across repetitions of the study that use different sample sizes. As a consequence of thresholding by the effect size, the type 1 and type 2 error rates go to zero as the sample size gets larger. We use a newly proposed robust effect size index that is defined for an arbitrary statistical image so that effect size thresholding can be used regardless of the test statistic or model.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.