Dear Sir,
Our articles was recently repaired and we have several reviewer questions that I would kindly ask your assistance with and which relate to the use of your very valuable Restplus toolbox.
①reviewer1： two-sample t-test performed on these four brain regions will add the statistical errors. The P value also should be reset.
reviewer2: On the Seed-based analysis, four ANCOVA (there is no two-sample t-test with covariates) were independently performed? This should be corrected, or included in the same model.
Our study was divided into two groups: case group and control group; seed-based functional connectivity(FC) analysis was used(four ROI were selected);the difference between the two groups was compared using two sample t test(Gaussian random field(GRF) correction with voxel level threshold p < 0.001 and cluster level threshold p < 0.05,two-tailed) ,with age, gender, education and head motion parameters (FD according to Jenkinson) as covariates.How should we respond to the reviewer's comments?
②reviwer1: Only mean FD were considered as head motion control? Isolated spikes of excessive head motion can lead to abnormally increased connectivity. This confounding factor is ignored in most of the cases when computing only the average FD
In our study,the subjects who have excessive head motion were excluded, the threshold were set to mean framewise displacement(FD) per Jenkinson<0.2 mm.As for the reviewer's opinion, should those who with head motion parameters exceeded 3 mm in any direction or 3.0° of any angular during the scan also be excluded?
③review3:If the idea was to find regions outside the DMN with altered connectivity, only one seed would be enough (PCC for example). The results showed only recursive DMN related regions (PCC seed found aMPFC, aMPFC found PCC..., obviously) and this kind of information (intra-network) is better accessed using the ROI-based methodology, as performed.
In our study, the four seed sites were located in DMN, respectively representing several core regions of DMN. According to the reviewer's opinion, one PCC is enough for analysis. However, referring to the previous literature, there were some articles that selected multiple DMN regional groups as seed sites.Should this situation be handled according to the reviewer's opinion?
④reviewer1：Are the correlations corrected for multiple comparisons? How many correlations in total were run? It is difficult to interpret the results without this information.
we conducted a partial correlation analysis between altered FC and clinical variables in the patients by controlling for the effects of age, gender and education.What does this "correlations in total were run" mean?
There are too many problems, which have delayed your precious time. However, your help is very important to us. The above blue is the reviewer's opinion, while red is some of our questions.We hope to receive your reply as soon as possible.
thanks sincerely!