The Neuroimage Analysis Center (NAC), a national resource center, is developing algorithms and image analysis software tools for improving our understanding of brain diseases and enabling innovative treatments. The focus of this competitive renewal is the creation of a new kind of atlases. These atlases will integrate information from multiple image modalities, multiple subjects, and multiple time points together with canonical knowledge of function, structure and connectivity for normal and disease populations. The proposal is organized around five cores. The White Matter Architecture from Diffusion Tensor Images Core will focus on algorithms to elucidate and quantify white matter in individuals and in groups. The fMRI Informatics Core will extract information on brain function by further developing statistical technologies for the analysis of fMRI in populations. New lines of research will focus on the analysis of multi-modal functional data, and on the relationship between structure and function. The Time-Series Analysis Core will research dynamic models of the morphological correlates of disease over time. The Clinical Computational Anatomy Core will focus on the integration of symbolic descriptions of neural systems with a new high-resolution structural brain atlas. This will serve as a bridge between the declarative information in neuroscientific and disease-related databases and the morphology of subjects and populations. The Engineering Core will continue to develop and support the software environment that enables interaction between the cores and makes their scientific advances usable by biomedical scientists. The BWH team of investigators is augmented by subcontractors from MIT, GE, Isomics, and Georgia Tech, each of which provides expertise needed in our atlas creation efforts. A key deliverable of the NAC as a Resource Center is the integration of our atlas and related technology into 3D Slicer for unrestricted use, and we will continue to offer support and training at local and national venues as part of our outreach activities. Our close collaboration with clinician-scientists continues to be critical to the implementation of these tools for the purpose of understanding the brain and treating brain disorders, an important mission of NIH.
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