Voxel-based Bayesian lesion-symptom mapping

Most existing voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping methods are based on the same statistical foundation: null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). The two major limitations of these methods are the inability to infer that there is no difference in lesion proportions, and a requirement for multiple-comparison correction. We propose a Bayesian approach that directly models the posterior distribution of lesion-proportion difference, and makes decisions based on inference on this posterior distribution. Compared to NHST-based approaches, our Bayesian approach yields inference results with clearer semantics, and does not require multiple-comparison correction. We evaluated our Bayesian method using simulated data, and data from a study of acute ischemic left-hemispheric stroke. Results of both experiments indicate that the Bayesian approach is sensitive in detecting regions that characterize group differences.