A multi-site, multi-modal travelling-heads resource for brain MRI harmonisation

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Medical Physics
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is crucial for studying the living brain.
• Non-biological factors like scanner variations limit MRI reproducibility and quantifiability.
• Standardization is needed to overcome these limitations in multi-site neuroimaging studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the Oxford-Nottingham Harmonisation (ON-Harmony) resource, a comprehensive dataset for MRI harmonization.
• To provide a resource for mapping biological, between-scanner, and within-scanner variability in MRI data.
• To facilitate the evaluation of MRI harmonization approaches.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a travelling heads paradigm with 20 healthy volunteers.
• Scanned participants across six 3T MRI scanners from three vendors (GE, Philips, Siemens) at five sites.
• Acquired data for five imaging modalities (T1w, T2w, dMRI, rfMRI, SWI) with UK Biobank-aligned protocols, including within-scanner repeats for some participants.

Main Results:

• Generated 165 multi-modal scanning sessions.
• Collected data enabling the mapping of various sources of variability for hundreds of MRI-derived measures.
• The ON-Harmony resource is publicly available for research use.

Conclusions:

• The ON-Harmony resource is a valuable asset for the neuroimaging community.
• It supports the development and validation of MRI harmonization techniques.
• This resource will advance the reproducibility and quantifiability of MRI studies.