High-resolution T2-FLAIR and non-contrast CT brain atlas of the elderly

Normative brain atlases are a standard tool for neuroscience research and are, for example, used for spatial normalization of image datasets prior to voxel-based analyses of brain morphology and function. Although many different atlases are publicly available, they are usually biased with respect to an imaging modality and the age distribution. Both effects are well known to negatively impact the accuracy and reliability of the spatial normalization process using non-linear image registration methods. An important and very active neuroscience area that lacks appropriate atlases is lesion-related research in elderly populations (e.g. stroke, multiple sclerosis) for which FLAIR MRI and non-contrast CT are often the clinical imaging modalities of choice. To overcome the lack of atlases for these tasks and modalities, this paper presents high-resolution, age-specific FLAIR and non-contrast CT atlases of the elderly generated using clinical images.