This proposal requests funds for the purchase of instrumentation to provide the optimal and essential basis for image analysis, computation, graphics display, and data management for a Center dedicated to morphometric analysis of magnetic resonance imaging data. This Center for Morphometric Analysis has been newly created within the Lawrence E. Martin Laboratories of the Massachusetts General Hospital. It is sponsored by the MGH Department of Neurology, with the collaboration of the MGH Department of Radiology and the Whitaker College of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and will be dedicated to the development and application of morphometric methods in the biomedical sciences. Governance and surveillance of the Center for Morphometric Analysis will be vested in an Internal Advisory Board chaired by the Director of The Center (the PI), and whose representation will be multidisciplinary, including members of no less than 4 separate MGH or MIT departments. The proposed instrumentation, with an application accelerator, provides comprehensive essential image processing and analytic capabilities necessary to operate within The Center. These include segmentation of the primary MR image data into appropriate anatomic components followed by computations of volume, analyses of shape, signal intensity homogeneity, geometric relationships of anatomic structures and even resonance spectral properties of tissues, as appropriate. This instrumentation further provides high speed and high capacity of operation, serving multiple investigators at any give time. These features will be indispensable to the multidisciplinary mission of The Center. Importantly, this instrumentation enjoys great flexibility in its networking capabilities. This will allow The Center to become an integral part of collaborative clinical programs which require that clinical data sets developed by the respective investigators be interrelated.
