MRI Study of Normal Brain Development

许多障碍阻碍了儿童脑疾病的神经影像学研究。这些问题包括：由于儿童遵守程序的能力有限，难以从儿童那里获得数据;缺乏充分的规范性数据库，用以说明正常大脑发育的特点，并据此查明和衡量异常大脑发育;缺乏充分的图像分析工具，用以说明大脑发育过程中的变化;以及缺乏充分的手段分享数据分析工具。 三个NIH研究所（NICHD，NIMH和NINDS）联合赞助了一项多中心研究，以了解更多关于典型健康儿童和青少年大脑发育的信息。这项研究将招募大约500名儿童，从婴儿期到青年期，他们将在六年内的不同时间点在美国各地的几个临床中心接受治疗。将进行脑部核磁共振成像，成像结果将与标准化神经心理学测试的结果相关。 这项研究将服务于几个目的：（1）促进正常人类大脑发育的研究;（2）为患有大脑障碍和疾病的儿童的研究提供必要的，代表性的和可靠的正常对照数据来源;（3）提供正常大脑解剖的生长曲线;（4）帮助开发儿科神经成像工具。关于这个项目的更多信息可以在“正常大脑发育的MRI研究”网站上找到：http://www.brain-child.org/。 我们的职责是作为数据处理中心（DPC），特别是处理和分析研究过程中各中心将采集的所有DT-MRI数据。关于我们小组具体任务的详细说明将很快在网上公布。到目前为止，Gustavo Rohde一直在开发方法来扭曲和注册从儿童获得的多维DT-MRI数据集。Lin-Chin Chang一直在开发几个基于网络的应用程序，允许从各个中心导入扩散张量数据并进行质量控制检查。Ferenc Horkay正在开发新的聚合物模型，可用于校准每个中心的每个DT-MRI测量系统，以确保其DT-MRI采集是定量的和高质量的。

Many obstacles have impeded neuroimaging research on childhood brain disorders. These include difficulties in obtaining data from children given their limited ability to comply with procedures, the lack of an adequate normative data base with which to characterize normal brain development and against which to identify and measure aberrant brain development, the lack of adequate image analysis tools for characterizing developmental brain changes in the brain, and a lack of adequate means for sharing data analytic tools. Three NIH Institutes (NICHD, NIMH, and NINDS) have jointly sponsored a multi-center study to learn more about how the brain develops in typical, healthy children and adolescents. This study will enroll approximately 500 children, ranging from infancy to young adulthood, who will be seen at different time points over a six-year period at several clinical centers around the US. MRIs of the brain will be performed and the imaging findings will be related to the results of standardized neuropsycological tests. This study would serve several purposes: (1) to facilitate the study of normal human brain development; (2) to provide a necessary, representative, and reliable source of normal control data for studies of children with brain disorders and diseases; (3) to provide growth curves for normal brain anatomy; and (4) to aid in the development of pediatric neuroimaging tools. More information regarding this project can be found at the "MRI Study of Normal Brain Development" website: http://www.brain-child.org/. Our role is to serve as a Data Processing Center (DPC), in particular, to process and analyze all DT-MRI data that will be acquired by the various Centers during the course of the study. A detailed description of our group's specific tasks will soon be available on the web. To date, Gustavo Rohde has been developing methods to warp and register multi-dimensional DT-MRI data sets obtained from children. Lin-Chin Chang has been developing several web-based applications that allow diffusion tensor data to be imported from the various Centers and examined for quality control purposes. Ferenc Horkay is developing new polymeric phantoms that can be used to calibrate each DT-MRI measurement system in each Center to ensure that their DT-MRI acquisitions are quantitative and of high quality.