Approved research

Cortex.Map: a web service for MRI-based localization of brain abnormalities in epilepsy

Lay summary

The aim of this study is to develop a web-based tool for mapping brain abnormalities in individuals using neuroanatomical MRI. This tool will be useful for localizing cortical changes in epilepsy patients, and will be useful for presurgical planning in individuals with medically intractable epilepsy. Imaging data collected as part of the UK Biobank study will be combined with other large neuroimaging datasets to generate a large population-level database of normative quantitative imaging metrics that can then be used to identify subtle brain changes in individual epilepsy patients. The outcomes of our study will improve epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. Techniques developed as part of the proposed study will also be useful for similar web-based tools in other neurological disorders, and will therefore contribute to the stated purpose of improving diagnosis and treatment of illness, with a specific focus on neurological disorders. We will build a web-based tool that allows users to upload brain MRI scans of epilepsy patients, and obtain maps that show where the brain structure in these patients is abnormal. This often indicates where seizures are coming from in the brains of people with epilepsy. In patients with severe epilepsy, brain surgery is often the only effective treatment option. The Cortex.Map tool will assist surgeons to plan which brain regions to remove to stop these patients having seizures. UK Biobank participants with brain MRI scans will be included in this study. Therefore approximately 10,000 participants will be included in our study.