Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI): Structural MRI Methods and Outcome Measures

Joel Ramirez; Melissa F Holmes; Christopher J M Scott; Miracle Ozzoude; Sabrina Adamo; Gregory M Szilagyi; Maged Goubran; Fuqiang Gao; Stephen R Arnott; Jane M Lawrence-Dewar; Derek Beaton; Stephen C Strother; Douglas P Munoz; Mario Masellis; Richard H Swartz; Robert Bartha; Sean Symons; Sandra E Black; ONDRI Investigators

doi:10.3389/fneur.2020.00847

Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI): Structural MRI Methods and Outcome Measures

Front Neurol. 2020 Aug 11:11:847. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.00847. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Joel Ramirez¹, Melissa F Holmes¹, Christopher J M Scott¹, Miracle Ozzoude¹, Sabrina Adamo¹, Gregory M Szilagyi¹, Maged Goubran^{1

2}, Fuqiang Gao¹, Stephen R Arnott³, Jane M Lawrence-Dewar⁴, Derek Beaton³, Stephen C Strother^{2

3}, Douglas P Munoz⁵, Mario Masellis^{1

6}, Richard H Swartz^{1

6}, Robert Bartha⁷, Sean Symons⁸, Sandra E Black^{1

6}; ONDRI Investigators

Affiliations

¹ Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
³ Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁴ Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada.
⁵ Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
⁶ Department of Medicine (Neurology), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁷ Department of Medical Biophysics, Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
⁸ Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Abstract

The Ontario Neurodegenerative Research Initiative (ONDRI) is a 3 years multi-site prospective cohort study that has acquired comprehensive multiple assessment platform data, including 3T structural MRI, from neurodegenerative patients with Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, and cerebrovascular disease. This heterogeneous cross-section of patients with complex neurodegenerative and neurovascular pathologies pose significant challenges for standard neuroimaging tools. To effectively quantify regional measures of normal and pathological brain tissue volumes, the ONDRI neuroimaging platform implemented a semi-automated MRI processing pipeline that was able to address many of the challenges resulting from this heterogeneity. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a reference and conceptual overview of the comprehensive neuroimaging pipeline used to generate regional brain tissue volumes and neurovascular marker data that will be made publicly available online.

Keywords: Alzheimer; MRI; Parkinson; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; cerebral small vessel disease; cerebrovascular disease; frontotemporal dementia; stroke.