Children’s Brain Image Bank Could Become a ‘Google’ Tool for Doctors

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Newswise When an MRI scan uncovers an unusual architecture or shape in a childs brain, its cause for concern: The malformation may be a sign of disease. But deciding whether that odd-looking anatomy is worrisome or harmless can be difficult. To help doctors reach the right decision, Johns Hopkins researchers are building a detailed digital library of MRI scans collected from children with normal and abnormal brains. The goal, the researchers say, is to give physicians a Google-like search system that will enhance the way they diagnose and treat young patients with brain disorders.

This cloud-computing project, being developed by a team of engineers and radiologists, should allow physicians to access thousands of pediatric scans to look for some that resemble their own patients images. The project is supported by a three-year $600,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Were creating a pediatric brain data bank that will let doctors look at MRI brain scans of children who have already been diagnosed with illnesses like epilepsy or psychiatric disorders, said Michael I. Miller, a lead investigator on the project. It will provide a way to share important new discoveries about how changes in brain structures are linked to brain disorders. For the medical imaging world, this system will do what a search engine like Google does when you ask it to look for specific information on the Web.

Miller, a pioneer in the field of computational anatomy, the technology used for brain parsing, is the Herschel and Ruth Seder Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins and director of the universitys Center for Imaging Science. He also is a core faculty member in the universitys Institute for Computational Medicine.

The new pediatric brain imaging data bank, Miller said, will be useful in at least two ways. If doctors arent sure which disease is causing a childs condition, they could search the data bank for images that closely match their patients most recent scan, he said. If a diagnosis is already attached to an image from the data bank, that could steer the physician in the right direction. Also, the scans in our library may help a physician identify a change in the shape of a brain structure that occurs very early in the course of a disease, even before clinical symptoms appear. That could allow the physician to get an early start on the treatment.

Millers co-lead investigator on the project is Susumu Mori, a professor of radiology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. One of Moris primary research interests is studying the anatomy of brain structures captured in MRI scans.

Mori points out that such a biobank has the potential to impact doctors workflow dramatically.

We empirically know that a certain type of anatomical abnormality is related to specific brain diseases, he said. This relationship, however, is not always clear and often is compounded by anatomical changes during the normal course of brain development. Therefore, neuroradiologists need extensive training to accumulate the knowledge. We hope our brain imaging data bank will not only assist such a learning process but also enhance the physicians ability to understand the pathology and reach the best medical decision.

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Children's Brain Image Bank Could Become a 'Google' Tool for Doctors