BRAINS imagebank

The Brain Images of Normal Subjects (BRAINS) imagebank is a searchable, living database of images & clinical information across the human lifespan.

What is BRAINS?

• an integrated repository project / living imagebank
• hosted by the University of Edinburgh
• sponsored by the Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence (SINAPSE) collaborators
• contains data from 808 healthy volunteers
  • 15 to 81 years of age
  • from 7 projects in 3 centres
• new data will be added when available
  • additional completed & ongoing studies of normal individuals from 1st to 10th decades are in preparation & will be included as they become available

What is the BRAINS imagebank?

• an anonymised collection of images & associated clinical data collected from 'normal' individuals participating in research
• it includes several MR & structural sequences (e.g. T1, T2, T2* & FLAIR) available in DICOM (http://dicom.nema.org/)
• future addition of DTI planned
• images are linked to a wide range of ‘textual data’ including:
  • age
  • medical history
  • physiological measures (e.g. blood pressure)
  • medication use
  • cognitive ability
  • perinatal information for pre- / post-natal subjects
• the imagebank can be searched to include or exclude ranges of these variables to create better estimates of ‘what is normal’ at different ages

What does BRAINS provide?

• sharing & archiving of detailed normal human brain imaging
• sharing & archiving of relevant phenotypic data
• data is already collected in studies of healthy volunteers across the life-course
• focus is in particular on extremes of age where variability is largest
  • current emphasis on older age
  • future plans to include perinatal imaging
• future plans to include other imaging which is under-represented in existing databanks