System and Method of Brain Age Identification for Predicting Neuro-Degenerative Disease

A system for preparing images of a subject's brain for calculating a brain age for the subject, comprises

• a computer comprising a processor;
• computer readable memory connected to the processor and storing software to implement steps comprising:
• acquiring diffusion magnetic resonance images (dMRI) and T1 weighted magnetic resonance images (T1w MRI) of the brain of the subject;
• calculating a pair of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scalar maps comprising a fractional anisotropy (FA) scalar map and mean diffusivity (MD) scalar map;
• concatenating the FA scalar map and the MD scalar map to form a frame of scalar map data;
• applying a rigid transformation from the frames of scalar map data to the T1w images to store a rigid transformed image in the computer memory;
• applying an affine transformation from the rigid transformed image to a selected brain template and storing a rigid plus affine transformed image in the computer memory;
• applying a non-rigid transformation to warp the rigid plus affine transformed image to the selected brain template to form a non-rigid white matter age input to a brain age calculation model.

A computer implemented method of preparing images of a subject's brain for calculating a brain age for the subject, the method comprising:

• using a computer comprising a processor and computer readable memory storing software to implement steps comprising:
• acquiring diffusion magnetic resonance images (dMRI) and T1 weighted magnetic resonance images (T1w MRI) of the brain of the subject;
• calculating at least one diffusion-derived scalar map of the brain;
• forming frames of scalar map data;
• applying a rigid transformation from the frames of scalar map data to the T1w images to store a rigid transformed image in the computer memory;
• applying an affine transformation from the rigid transformed image to a selected brain template and storing a rigid plus affine transformed image in the computer memory;
• applying a non-rigid transformation to warp the rigid plus affine transformed image to the selected brain template to form a non-rigid white matter age input to a brain age calculation model.