Superior Temporal Gyrus        Cingulate Gyrus              Occipital Lobe

Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) is a National Institutes of Health initiative that fosters distributed collaborations in biomedical science by utilizing information technology innova-tions. Currently the BIRN involves a consortium of 15 universities and 22 research groups that participate in one or more of three test-bed projects centered on brain imaging of human neurological disorders and associated animal models.a

The discipline of Computational Anatomy focuses on shape analysis of anatomical structures obtained in biomedical imaging. Under the auspices of the Brain Morphometry BIRN, a processing pipeline is being developed to enable processing of brain morphometry data for subcortical structures through the integration of multiple site applica-tions. As a test bed, the tools are being integrated to perform Semi-Automated Shape Analysis (SASHA) of the hippocampus volumes in a study of Alzheimer’s disease. Brain structural MRI data from Washington University are being made available to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and JHU to drive the integration of the morphometric analysis tools that these sites are BIRN-enabling.