Brain charts for the human lifespan
Richard A. I. Bethlehem, Jakob Seidlitz, Simon R. White, Jacob W. Vogel, Karen Anderson, Chris Adamson, Sophie Adler, George S. Alexopoulos, Evdokia Anagnostou, Ariosky Areces-González, Duncan E. Astle, Bonnie Auyeung, Muhammad Ayub, Ji Hyun Bae, Gareth Ball, Simon Baron‐Cohen, Richard Beare, Saashi A. Bedford, Vivek Benegal, Frauke Beyer, John Blangero, Manuel Blesa, J. P. Boardman, Matthew Borzage, Jorge Bosch‐Bayard, Niall Bourke, Vince D. Calhoun, M. Mallar Chakravarty, C. Chen, Casey Chertavian, Gaël Chételat, Yap Seng Chong, James H. Cole, Aiden Corvin, Manuela Costantino, E. Courchesne, Fabrice Crivello, Vanessa Cropley, Jennifer Crosbie, Nicolás Crossley, Marion Delarue, Richard Delorme, Sylvane Desrivières, Gabriel A. Devenyi, Maria A. Di Biase, Raymond J. Dolan, Kirsten A. Donald, Gary Donohoe, Katharine Dunlop, A. David Edwards, Jed T. Elison, Cameron T. Ellis, Jeremy A. Elman, Lisa T. Eyler, Damien A. Fair, Eric Feczko, Paul C. Fletcher, Peter Fonagy, Carol E. Franz, Lídice Galán‐Garcia, Ali Gholipour, Jay N. Giedd, John H. Gilmore, David C. Glahn, Ian Goodyer, P. Ellen Grant, Nynke A. Groenewold, Faith M. Gunning, Ruben C. Gur, R. C. Gur, Christopher Hammill, Oskar Hansson, Trey Hedden, Andreas Heinz, R. N. Henson, Katja Heuer, Jacqueline Hoare, Bharath Holla, Avram J. Holmes, Rosemary Holt, Hao Huang, K. Im, Jonathan Ipser, C. R. Jack, Andrea Parolin Jackowski, Tianye Jia, K. A. Johnson, Peter B. Jones, D. T. Jones, R. S. Kahn, Hasse Karlsson, Linnéa Karlsson, Ryuta Kawashima, Elizabeth W. Kelley, S.J. Kern, Ki Woong Kim, Manfred G. Kitzbichler, William S. Kremen, François Lalonde, Brigitte Landeau
Abstract
Abstract Over the past few decades, neuroimaging has become a ubiquitous tool in basic research and clinical studies of the human brain. However, no reference standards currently exist to quantify individual differences in neuroimaging metrics over time, in contrast to growth charts for anthropometric traits such as height and weight 1 . Here we assemble an interactive open resource to benchmark brain morphology derived from any current or future sample of MRI data ( http://www.brainchart.io/ ). With the goal of basing these reference charts on the largest and most inclusive dataset available, acknowledging limitations due to known biases of MRI studies relative to the diversity of the global population, we aggregated 123,984 MRI scans, across more than 100 primary studies, from 101,457 human participants between 115 days post-conception to 100 years of age. MRI metrics were quantified by centile scores, relative to non-linear trajectories 2 of brain structural changes, and rates of change, over the lifespan. Brain charts identified previously unreported neurodevelopmental milestones 3 , showed high stability of individuals across longitudinal assessments, and demonstrated robustness to technical and methodological differences between primary studies. Centile scores showed increased heritability compared with non-centiled MRI phenotypes, and provided a standardized measure of atypical brain structure that revealed patterns of neuroanatomical variation across neurological and psychiatric disorders. In summary, brain charts are an essential step towards robust quantification of individual variation benchmarked to normative trajectories in multiple, commonly used neuroimaging phenotypes.