A large, open source dataset of stroke anatomical brain images and manual lesion segmentations

Sci Data. 2018 Feb 20:5:180011. doi: 10.1038/sdata.2018.11.

Abstract

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability worldwide, with up to two-thirds of individuals experiencing long-term disabilities. Large-scale neuroimaging studies have shown promise in identifying robust biomarkers (e.g., measures of brain structure) of long-term stroke recovery following rehabilitation. However, analyzing large rehabilitation-related datasets is problematic due to barriers in accurate stroke lesion segmentation. Manually-traced lesions are currently the gold standard for lesion segmentation on T1-weighted MRIs, but are labor intensive and require anatomical expertise. While algorithms have been developed to automate this process, the results often lack accuracy. Newer algorithms that employ machine-learning techniques are promising, yet these require large training datasets to optimize performance. Here we present ATLAS (Anatomical Tracings of Lesions After Stroke), an open-source dataset of 304 T1-weighted MRIs with manually segmented lesions and metadata. This large, diverse dataset can be used to train and test lesion segmentation algorithms and provides a standardized dataset for comparing the performance of different segmentation methods. We hope ATLAS release 1.1 will be a useful resource to assess and improve the accuracy of current lesion segmentation methods.

Publication types

  • Dataset
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Algorithms
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging*
  • Brain / pathology*
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Neuroimaging
  • Stroke / diagnostic imaging*
  • Stroke / pathology*