ESMRMB 2009 Congress, Antalya, Turkey, 1–3 October: Abstracts, Friday: Reproducibility of hippocampus and amygdala volume measures using the FSL tool FIRST: a multi centre perspective

As populations age around the world, identifying factors that protect against the degenerative effects of ageing on cognitive ability is of increasing importance. Changes to the structures in the medial temporal lobe (hippocampus and amygdala) have been associated with ageing and Alzheimer’s disease, and with age-related changes to cognitive processes such as memory and information processing speed. Because of the improved statistical value of larger cohorts, the possibility of combining data sets from multiple sites is attractive, and therefore a robust testing of the reproducibility of data across multiple sites is required. The study demonstrates that the automated segmentation and volume measurement methods used can reliably measure amygdala and hippocampal volumes broadly independently of the providing institution. Further work is required to calibrate the tools to provide better agreement between automated and manual segmentation methods.