# Comprehensive Longitudinal Probabilistic Atlas of the Brain of Older Adults Without Dementia

> **NIH NIH R01** · ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2020 · $497,981

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
A comprehensive digital atlas representative of the brain of older adults without dementia has not been
constructed. An overwhelming number of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies are now focusing
on older adults without dementia to elucidate the role of brain characteristics in the mechanisms supporting
cognitive health or leading to cognitive decline, with an ultimate goal to develop strategies for prevention of
cognitive impairment. Human brain atlases consisting of MRI templates and semantic labels serve a critical
role in neuroimaging, by mainly facilitating spatial normalization and automated segmentation for the purposes
of voxel-wise, region-of-interest, and network analyses. Increasing the sensitivity and specificity of
neuroimaging research on older adults without dementia requires an atlas with a comprehensive set of high-
quality templates representative of the brain characteristics of the individuals under investigation, and detailed
labels accurately mapping brain regions of interest. However, such an atlas has not been constructed for the
brain of older adults without dementia. Available templates of the aging brain have been generated for only few
MRI modalities (mainly T1-weighted MRI), several include information from demented individuals, almost all are
based on small numbers of persons with a wide age-range, some are of low quality, none includes data on the
individual participants, all are missing important information pertinent to aging, and all lack detailed gray and
white matter labels. Thus, there is a major gap in neuroimaging tools substantially limiting the accuracy and
increasing the complexity of MRI investigations in the critical group of non-demented older adults.
The objective of the proposed work is to develop a high-quality, comprehensive, longitudinal, probabilistic atlas
of the brain of older adults without dementia. We have recently developed and released the NIH-funded IIT
Human Brain Atlas (v.4.1) for the young adult brain in ICBM-152 space, rapidly attracting attention for its
comprehensive set of brain templates, state-of-the-art diffusion tensor and high angular resolution diffusion
imaging (HARDI) templates, probabilistic gray matter labels, and probabilistic HARDI connectivity-based white
matter labels. Furthermore, we have already collected multimodal brain MRI data on a large number of well-
characterized older adults without dementia through our work in longitudinal, epidemiologic clinical-pathologic
cohort studies of aging at Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. Therefore, we propose to leverage our a)
expertise in brain atlas development, and b) available multimodal MRI data on a large community cohort of
well-characterized non-demented older persons, in order to develop a high-quality, multi-channel, longitudinal,
probabilistic atlas of the brain of older adults without dementia. Successful completion of this work will bring
forth a powerful set of resources that will substantially...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9944434
- **Project number:** 5R01AG052200-05
- **Recipient organization:** ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Konstantinos Arfanakis
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $497,981
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9944434

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9944434, Comprehensive Longitudinal Probabilistic Atlas of the Brain of Older Adults Without Dementia (5R01AG052200-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9944434. Licensed CC0.

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