Brain/MINDS Beyond human brain MRI project (BMB-HBM)
BMB-HBM Project plans to develop a world first harmonization techniques of brain MRI to accurately understand and diagnose the neuropsychiatric diseases including a developmental disease and dementia. The development includes data acquisition, preprocessing, and statistics using the data across multiple research centers, as well as sharing of the raw and preprocessed data. Despite many attempts to diagnose neuropsychiatric disease using brain MRI image, quantitative diagnostic procedure has not been established. In this project, we developed an optimized harmonized protocol (
HARP) for the MRI scanning across different scanners, which is adapted to those used in Human Connectome Project (HCP) in US and UK Biobank in UK.
And various functions of quantitative susceptibility mapping, arterial spin labeling, the cerebral function during resting and a problem and the observation of the brain by the technique are enabled from T1W, T2W image and diffusion tensor imaging by using HARP. We expect this study to find common and specific factors for psychiatric disorders. The results are expected to be a diagnostic biomarker and development of the psycho-neurologic disease.
For the collaborative research with much MRI institutions, we push forward technology development to describe as follows.
◦Standardization of the data acquisition
◦Storage sharing technique after the data acquisition
◦Development of pipeline for pre-processing with one data, and sharing technology
◦Immediate analysis, statistical analysis, and sharing of these technologies
Data acquisition and analysis methods are available in the
archive.
Recruitment of Participating Institutions
One purpose of this project is to obtain brain imaging of the MRI and the clinical information of the same subjects in several institutions using protocol of HARP (
Harmonization method ofMRI in the BMB). We are developing a platform for collaborative research to analyze and share these data. We look forward to the participation of many organizations (Reference: Project
Organization Chart).
Specifically, one group acquires clinical data using MRI and analyzes the obtained data to elucidate the pathogenesis mechanisms of psychiatric and neurological disorders (
Organization Chart: Research Group 1-1). Another group is working on the construction and operation of a platform for MRI brain imaging and clinical indicator data (
Organization Chart: Research Groups 1-2). In order to further develop human brain MRI research both in Japan and overseas, we believe it is necessary to obtain a large amount of data, mainly from East Asians, and to make the analysis data open so that it can be widely shared with researchers. For this reason, we are also seeking organizations to participate in this project as needed. If you are interested in the purpose of the project, please refer to the link below for the requirements.
