Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Post-Acquisition Processing Confounds In Brain Volumetric Quantification Of White Matter Hyperintensities, Ahmed A. Bahrani, Omar M. Al-Janabi, Erin L. Abner, Shoshana H. Bardach, Richard J. Kryscio, Donna M. Wilcock, Charles D. Smith, Gregory A. Jicha

Neurology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Disparate research sites using identical or near-identical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition techniques often produce results that demonstrate significant variability regarding volumetric quantification of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in the aging population. The sources of such variability have not previously been fully explored.

NEW METHOD: 3D FLAIR sequences from a group of randomly selected aged subjects were analyzed to identify sources-of-variability in post-acquisition processing that can be problematic when comparing WMH volumetric data across disparate sites. The methods developed focused on standardizing post-acquisition protocol processing methods to develop a protocol with less than 0.5% inter-rater variance.

RESULTS: A series …

Co-Prescription Network Reveals Social Dynamics Of Opioid Doctor Shopping, Brea L. Perry, Kai Cheng Yang, Patrick Kaminski, Meltem Odabas, Jaehyuk Park, Michelle M. Martel, Carrie B. Oser, Patricia R. Freeman, Yong-Yeol Ahn, Jeffery C. Talbert

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper examines network prominence in a co-prescription network as an indicator of opioid doctor shopping (i.e., fraudulent solicitation of opioids from multiple prescribers). Using longitudinal data from a large commercially insured population, we construct a network where a tie between patients is weighted by the number of shared opioid prescribers. Given prior research suggesting that doctor shopping may be a social process, we hypothesize that active doctor shoppers will occupy central structural positions in this network. We show that network prominence, operationalized using PageRank, is associated with more opioid prescriptions, higher predicted risk for dangerous morphine dosage, opioid overdose, …