CORE C- IMAGING CORE The Imaging Core supports the Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) Program Project Grant (PPG) by overseeing the acquisition and analyses of all imaging protocols. For the renewal, the Imaging Core will have primary responsibility for the acquisition of the PET protocols for both 11C Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) and 18F Flortaucipir (FTP). The Core will be responsible for acquisition and analytic processing of the BASE MRI sequences to generate standard volumetric MRI variables for all HABS participants, including sampling of PET in MRI-defined regions-of-interest (ROI). The Core will provide BASE protocol image data for use with the ADVANCED Imaging protocol (Project 3), which includes FDG, R1, and TARP. All Core image data will be integrated with data from Core B: Clinical Core within the DataCentral database with oversight by Core D: Analytic Core. In conjunction with the Analytic Core, personnel from each of Projects 1 through 4 will be able to query the database to acquire fully quality-controlled image data for use in testing individual Project hypotheses. For the primary assessments of amyloid and tau deposition, the Core will provide a standard full dynamic protocol for PiB PET and a standard late-frame protocol for FTP PET (Aim 1). The BASE MRI protocol will consist of a standardized set of structural and functional acquisitions for subject characterization, including subcortical volumetrics, e.g., hippocampus, and cortical thickness (Aim 1). Standard measures derived from these data sets by the Core will be used by all four Projects to accomplish individual Project aims (Aim 2). These include proxy measures of amyloid and tau realized as PET metrics in individual or aggregated tissue ROI, e.g., global amyloid burden represented as PiB distribution volume ratio (DVR), or regional tau burden represented as inferior temporal FTP standardized uptake ratio (SUVr). The processing pipelines have been automated using a combination of tools based on FreeSurfer, SPM12, FSL, and in-house scripts and programs. The Imaging Core will supply the four PPG Projects with quality-checked MRI and PET ROI data that has been archived and managed under the supervision of the Analytic Core. The Imaging Core is composed of a strong group of clinical neuroimaging investigators, with specialized training in radiology, neurology, psychology, informatics, and computer science, who will supervise a dedicated research staff to perform MRI and PET acquisitions, data processing, and analyses in close collaboration with the research Projects. The Imaging Core will assist individual Projects to optimize each imaging measure for use in specific analyses.
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