Approved research

Population Mapping of Brain, Eye, Spinal Cord, and Abdomen Anatomy in the Context of Electronic Medical Records

Lay summary

Our lab has developed automated medical image segmentation methods to determine anatomical structures within MRI and CT of the head, neck, and abdomen. We seek to understand the structural-functional relationship between anatomy and health status via mining of diagnostic and procedural data. This project seeks to improve available quantitative methods and add to scientific understanding of the function of the human body. We will apply image processing tools to medical images to determine the sizes and shapes of critical organs. We will then study the association of this structural information with the health status of the individuals (for example, likelihood of disease or interventional procedures). Our eventual target is the full cohort (100,000 subjects). However, in this application, we propose to FIRST use the currently available scans (10,000 subjects). We will request the remaining scans when then become available.