Dr. Andrew Chen, assistant professor of biostatistics at Medical University of South Carolina, will share “Ongoing challenges in constructing MRI reference intervals” for a colloquium presented by the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. The seminar will be held on Friday, Feb. 20, at 1 p.m. in Cudahy Hall 401.
Multi-site national and international imaging consortia have formed with the goal of precisely characterizing the human brain across the lifespan. These consortia have succeeded in collecting large samples of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to estimate sex-specific trajectories of brain phenotypes across age, often called brain charts. The promise of brain charts is that future researchers and clinicians will be able to assess a new scan to interpret that scan as normal or abnormal. In practice, this refers to using brain charts to estimate a reference interval, i.e. a range of normal values. However, application of MRI reference intervals is severely limited by differences across MRI scanners and study designs.
In this talk, Chen will first discuss several projects in harmonization of MRI data. Then, he will apply harmonization for estimating MRI reference intervals from the Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium. Finally, he will discuss potential solutions and ongoing challenges in constructing MRI reference intervals.
