There are several issues that should be addressed. Two recent studies indicate that head motion produces substantial changes in rs-fMRI analysis despite compensatory spatial registration and regression of motion estimates; these changes had significant and systematic effects on functional network measures [102], [103]. To evaluate that the main results of this study were not greatly affected by head motion, we (1) calculated 2 indices of data quality introduced by [102]: Frame-wise displacement (FD) and the RMS variance of the temporal derivative of time courses (DVARS); (2) interpolated time points where FD >0.5 mm and DVARS >0.5 with nearest neighbor using cubic spline interpolation [104]; (3) analyzed all global and regional properties of functional brain networks. With and without interpolation of motion artifact, the analysis of global network properties showed same results (e.g., significant age-related increase on local efficiency; higher local efficiency but lower global efficiency in girl). Moreover, regional nodal properties calculated from functional connectivity before and after interpolation also showed high correlations (node degree, r = 0.9857; node efficiency, r = 0.9776; node betweenness, r = 0.8903). Together, the main results reported are likely not attributable to the effects of head motion.
