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The Quandary Of Covarying: A Brief Review And Empirical Examination Of Covariate Use In Structural Neuroimaging Studies On Psychological Variables, Courtland Hyatt, Max M. Owens, Michael L. Crowe, Donald R. Lynam, Joshua D. Miller

Department of Psychological Sciences Faculty Publications

Although covarying for potential confounds or nuisance variables is common in psychological research, relatively little is known about how the inclusion of covariates may influence the relations between psychological variables and indices of brain structure. In Part 1 of the current study, we conducted a descriptive review of relevant articles from the past two years of NeuroImage in order to identify the most commonly used covariates in work of this nature. Age, sex, and intracranial volume were found to be the most commonly used covariates, although the number of covariates used ranged from 0 to 14, with 37 different covariate …