petBrain: A New Pipeline for Amyloid, Tau Tangles and Neurodegeneration Quantification Using PET and MRI
This work addresses limitations in processing time, tracer variability, and multimodal integration for Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and prognosis, offering an openly accessible platform for clinical research, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing quantification standards.
The authors tackled the challenge of quantifying amyloid plaques, tau tangles, and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease using PET and MRI by developing petBrain, an end-to-end pipeline that provides reliable and rapid biomarker quantification with results comparable to existing methods and strong concordance with ADNI databases.
INTRODUCTION: Quantification of amyloid plaques (A), neurofibrillary tangles (T2), and neurodegeneration (N) using PET and MRI is critical for Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis and prognosis. Existing pipelines face limitations regarding processing time, variability in tracer types, and challenges in multimodal integration. METHODS: We developed petBrain, a novel end-to-end processing pipeline for amyloid-PET, tau-PET, and structural MRI. It leverages deep learning-based segmentation, standardized biomarker quantification (Centiloid, CenTauR, HAVAs), and simultaneous estimation of A, T2, and N biomarkers. The pipeline is implemented as a web-based platform, requiring no local computational infrastructure or specialized software knowledge. RESULTS: petBrain provides reliable and rapid biomarker quantification, with results comparable to existing pipelines for A and T2. It shows strong concordance with data processed in ADNI databases. The staging and quantification of A/T2/N by petBrain demonstrated good agreement with CSF/plasma biomarkers, clinical status, and cognitive performance. DISCUSSION: petBrain represents a powerful and openly accessible platform for standardized AD biomarker analysis, facilitating applications in clinical research.