Bone-brain crosstalk in structural MRI

• Applicant: Dr. Polona Kalc
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554321949

The role of bones in brain health has been overlooked by the neuroscientific community. Recent studies suggest that bones, particularly the cranium with its bone marrow, are linked to inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. However, neuroimaging studies typically discard non-brain tissue, which results in the loss of valuable information on brain health status. In this project, I will use machine learning methods to extract non-brain tissues from T1-weighted brain MRI images, in particular bone cortex and bone marrow, to investigate the association between somatic and brain health status. The goal is to test the assumption that cranial bone marrow could serve as a biomarker of brain health, and to provide the neuroimaging community with improved measures of bone mineral density and subcutaneous adiposity, which are typically not available in open-source MRI databases. The final outcome of the project will be an open-source toolbox for extracting the aforementioned bodily measures. This toolbox can be used by neuroscientists to study the human brain in relation to bone and other somatic systems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants