Brain charts for the human lifespan

The PREVENT-AD Research Group, VETSA, 3R-BRAIN, AIBL, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Alzheimer’s Disease Repository Without Borders Investigators, CALM Team, Cam-CAN, CCNP, COBRE, cVEDA, ENIGMA Developmental Brain Age Working Group, Developing Human Connectome Project, FinnBrain, Harvard Aging Brain Study, IMAGEN, KNE96, The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, NSPN, POND

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Over the past few decades, neuroimaging has become a ubiquitous tool in basic research and clinical studies of the human brain. However, no reference standards currently exist to quantify individual differences in neuroimaging metrics over time, in contrast to growth charts for anthropometric traits such as height and weight1. Here we assemble an interactive open resource to benchmark brain morphology derived from any current or future sample of MRI data (http://www.brainchart.io/). With the goal of basing these reference charts on the largest and most inclusive dataset available, acknowledging limitations due to known biases of MRI studies relative to the diversity of the global population, we aggregated 123,984 MRI scans, across more than 100 primary studies, from 101,457 human participants between 115 days post-conception to 100 years of age. MRI metrics were quantified by centile scores, relative to non-linear trajectories2 of brain structural changes, and rates of change, over the lifespan. Brain charts identified previously unreported neurodevelopmental milestones3, showed high stability of individuals across longitudinal assessments, and demonstrated robustness to technical and methodological differences between primary studies. Centile scores showed increased heritability compared with non-centiled MRI phenotypes, and provided a standardized measure of atypical brain structure that revealed patterns of neuroanatomical variation across neurological and psychiatric disorders. In summary, brain charts are an essential step towards robust quantification of individual variation benchmarked to normative trajectories in multiple, commonly used neuroimaging phenotypes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)525-533
Number of pages9
JournalNature
Volume604
Issue number7906
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 21 2022

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Brain charts for the human lifespan'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this