NeuroSynth: MRI-Derived Neuroanatomical Generative Models and Associated Dataset of 18,000 Samples

Availability of large and diverse medical datasets is often challenged by privacy and data sharing restrictions. For successful application of machine learning techniques for disease diagnosis, prognosis, and precision medicine, large amounts of data are necessary for model building and optimization. To help overcome such limitations in the context of brain MRI, we present NeuroSynth: a collection of generative models of normative regional volumetric features derived from structural brain imaging. NeuroSynth models are trained on real brain imaging regional volumetric measures from the iSTAGING consortium, which encompasses over 40,000 MRI scans across 13 studies, incorporating covariates such as age, sex, and race. Leveraging NeuroSynth, we produce and offer 18,000 synthetic samples spanning the adult lifespan (ages 22-90 years), alongside the model's capability to generate unlimited data. Experimental results indicate that samples generated from NeuroSynth agree with the distributions obtained from real data. Most importantly, the generated normative data significantly enhance the accuracy of downstream machine learning models on tasks such as disease classification. Data and models are available at: https://huggingface.co/spaces/rongguangw/neuro-synth.

Applications of Generative Adversarial Networks in Neuroimaging and Clinical Neuroscience

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are one powerful type of deep learning models that have been successfully utilized in numerous fields. They belong to a broader family called generative methods, which generate new data with a probabilistic model by learning sample distribution from real examples. In the clinical context, GANs have shown enhanced capabilities in capturing spatially complex, nonlinear, and potentially subtle disease effects compared to traditional generative methods. This review appraises the existing literature on the applications of GANs in imaging studies of various neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, brain tumors, brain aging, and multiple sclerosis. We provide an intuitive explanation of various GAN methods for each application and further discuss the main challenges, open questions, and promising future directions of leveraging GANs in neuroimaging. We aim to bridge the gap between advanced deep learning methods and neurology research by highlighting how GANs can be leveraged to support clinical decision making and contribute to a better understanding of the structural and functional patterns of brain diseases.

GaNDLF: A Generally Nuanced Deep Learning Framework for Scalable End-to-End Clinical Workflows in Medical Imaging

Deep Learning (DL) has greatly highlighted the potential impact of optimized machine learning in both the scientific and clinical communities. The advent of open-source DL libraries from major industrial entities, such as TensorFlow (Google), PyTorch (Facebook), and MXNet (Apache), further contributes to DL promises on the democratization of computational analytics. However, increased technical and specialized background is required to develop DL algorithms, and the variability of implementation details hinders their reproducibility. Towards lowering the barrier and making the mechanism of DL development, training, and inference more stable, reproducible, and scalable, without requiring an extensive technical background, this manuscript proposes the \textbf{G}ener\textbf{a}lly \textbf{N}uanced \textbf{D}eep \textbf{L}earning \textbf{F}ramework (GaNDLF). With built-in support for $k$-fold cross-validation, data augmentation, multiple modalities and output classes, and multi-GPU training, as well as the ability to work with both radiographic and histologic imaging, GaNDLF aims to provide an end-to-end solution for all DL-related tasks, to tackle problems in medical imaging and provide a robust application framework for deployment in clinical workflows.