Pipeline prepares brain scans for aging and Alzheimer’s research
Processing more than 2,800 imaging sessions yielded 2,086 quality-checked sessions from 935 participants for research on aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
Research Square
In a computational study, researchers processed more than 2,800 brain-scanning sessions from participants in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. The scans captured brain structure and signals related to brain activity at rest.
The open-source pipeline downloaded and organised imaging and clinical data, converted scans to a standard format and prepared them for analysis. Automated checks examined scan settings and 16 measures of image quality. The pipeline flagged scans outside acceptable ranges using expert input and methods for spotting unusual values. It matched processed scans to clinical assessments from similar times. The process yielded 2,086 quality-checked sessions from 935 participants. The main reasons for exclusion were format-conversion errors, image-quality flags and failures related to scan preparation or participant movement.
Why it matters
For research on aging and Alzheimer’s disease, the resource could support larger studies that follow changes over time and search for brain-imaging indicators of disease.
Caveats
The result concerns scan processing and quality checks, not an aging or disease outcome. This Research Square preprint has not yet been peer reviewed.
The paper
A Pipeline for ADNI Resting-State Functional MRI Processing and Quality Control
Rutherford S, Zahid Z, Welsh RC et al.
Research Square · 6 Oct 2026 · Preprint, not peer-reviewed
