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，用以描述正常大脑发育的特点，并据此确定和衡量异常大脑发育;缺乏充分的图像分析工具，用以描述大脑发育变化的特点;以及缺乏充分的手段来分享数据分析工具。 四个NIH研究所（NICHD，NIMH，NINDS和NIDA）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。这项研究招募了大约500名儿童，从婴儿期到青年期，他们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。正在进行大脑的核磁共振成像，成像结果与标准化神经心理学测试的结果相关。 该项目服务于几个目的：（1）促进正常人脑发育的研究;（2）为患有脑障碍和疾病的儿童的研究提供必要的，有代表性的和可靠的正常对照数据来源;（3）提供正常脑解剖的生长曲线;（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/。 我们的角色是作为扩散张量数据处理中心（DPC）。这需要处理和分析研究过程中各中心采集的所有扩散张量磁共振（DT-MRI）数据。 去年，我们开始开发DT-MRI数据处理管道。具体来说，我们开发的程序进行排序，显示，并配准扩散加权图像。图像配准过程完成了消除受试者运动和涡流失真的影响以及仅用一个插值步骤将图像与给定模板对齐的任务，从而确保最小的质量损失。我们还提出了一种新的策略，用于鲁棒估计的扩散张量和量来自it. Finally，我们解决了注册DT-MRI数据的数据库中包含的其他结构的MRI数据的任务。

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, and a lack of an adequate means for sharing data analytic tools. Four NIH Institutes (NICHD, NIMH, NINDS, and NIDA) have jointly sponsored a multi-center study to learn more about how the brain develops in typical, healthy children and adolescents. This study is enrolling approximately 500 children, ranging from infancy to young adulthood, who are being seen at different time points over a six-year period at several clinical centers around the US. MRIs of the brain are being performed and the imaging findings are being related to the results of standardized neuropsycological tests. This project serves 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 Diffusion Tensor Data Processing Center (DPC). This entails processing and analyzing all diffusion tensor magnetic resonance (DT-MRI) data that is being acquired by the various Centers during the course of the study. During the last year we began developing the DT-MRI data processing pipeline. Specifically we developed procedures for sorting, displaying, and co-registering diffusion weighted images. The image registration procedure accomplishes the tasks of removing the effects of subject motion and eddy current distortion as well as aligning the images to a given template with only one interpolation step, ensuring minimal quality loss. We also proposed a new strategy for robust estimation of the diffusion tensor and quantities derived from it. Finally we addressed the task of registering DT-MRI data to other structural MRI data contained in the database.