The Cerebral Palsy Research Network registry has more than 8,000 patients and an associated 5,000 brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) with those patients stored at the hospitals in the network. Network investigators are working to develop an imaging database extension to the CP Research Network clinical registry so those brain MRIs can be used as biomarkers – biological findings to identify or predict a disease or condition – to initially help diagnose dystonia in CP and eventually other injuries to the brain. In our first MyCP webinar of 2024 next Wednesday, January 31 at 8 pm ET, Rose Gelineau-Morel, MD, a pediatric movement disorders neurologist from Children’s Mercy Hospital, and Ammar Shaikhouni, MD, PhD, a neurosurgeon from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, will present the concept of an imaging database and how the network envisions using it to enhance diagnosis and potentially guide treatment decisions through expanded knowledge gained by analyzing a large data bank of brain MRIs.

Drs. Gelineau-Morel and Shaikhouni along with other colleagues from the CP Research Network have been planning a study that would first build the image database infrastructure to enable the movement of those brain MRIs to our Data Coordinating Center (DCC) at the University of Pittsburgh. Having aggregated numerous brain MRIs into a singular database, the lesions in the brain scans can be mapped to known connected brain areas to predict functional outcomes in a person based on their brain lesions. Having a large database of brain images associated with the clinical findings in our registry opens many avenues of discovery about brain injury and functional outcomes.

Brain MRIs are large and must be stripped of personal identifiers before being centralized at our DCC. Building the database is expensive and will require grant funding which the team led by Dr. Gelineau-Morel is actively pursuing. Both doctors will discuss how the imaging database can not only address issues of identifying dystonia in CP but also how it will be a key tool in our network toolbox for identifying more biomarkers and solving numerous problems.

Please join us for this free MyCP webinar by registering in advance. The presentation will be followed by an open question and answer period. It will also be recorded for future viewing on our YouTube channel or click on the link below.

Click here to see Imaging as a biomarker