Extraction, Modelling and Analysis of the Brain Vessel Tree

ongoing

The brain vessel tree is essential to brain function. However, we still have limited knowledge about this structure compared to other organs that have been extensively studied. While atlases have been helpful in advancing our understanding of the brain in neurosciences, the same progress has not been seen for the brain vessel tree. Its extraction, modelling, and analysis still pose several methodological challenges, making it impossible to accurately, robustly, reliably, and reproducibly quantify and compare it across individuals within large populations. As a result, brain vascular atlases that provide a comprehensive representation of the brain vessel tree are scarce, and the existing ones face important limitations. This is a critical bottleneck towards understanding the role played by the neurovasculature in pathology onset, ageing, and well-being. CARAVEL is an ambitious project at the intersection of biomedical imaging, neuroscience, computer vision, statistics and medicine, aiming to transform neurovascular image analysis. It will devise a radical new approach to build and provide the first population atlas of brain vascular ageing, encompassing multiple scales, and it will formulate a robust and reliable methodological framework to accurately extract, model and analyse the brain vessel tree in a reproducible way. Our efforts will enable the study of the brain's vascular system at a scale that is currently unattainable. The atlas and its methodological framework will be freely available to the scientific community. This will help clinicians and researchers to test and validate new hypotheses, discover knowledge about the brain vessel tree and its interaction with the brain, and contribute to numerous clinical applications. Hence, CARAVEL shall have a tremendous impact on society and the economy.