Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41480190›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in neuroinformatics2025

SynSpine: an automated workflow for the generation of longitudinal spinal cord synthetic MRI data.

Marco Ganzetti, Paola Valsasina, Frederik Barkhof, Maria A Rocca, Massimo Filippi, Ferran Prados, Licinio Craveiro

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in neuroinformatics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Marco GanzettiF. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Basel, Switzerland.
Paola ValsasinaNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Frederik BarkhofQueen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Maria A RoccaNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Massimo FilippiVita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
Ferran PradosUCL Hawkes Institute, Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Licinio CraveiroF. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Basel, Switzerland.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: Spinal cord atrophy is a key biomarker for tracking disease progression in neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and spinal cord injury. Recent MRI advancements have improved atrophy detection, particularly in the cervical region, facilitating longitudinal studies. However, validating atrophy quantification algorithms remains challenging due to limited ground truth data. Objective: This study introduces SynSpine, a workflow for generating synthetic spinal cord MRI data (i.e., digital phantoms) with controlled levels of artificial atrophy. These phantoms support the development and preliminary validation of spinal cord imaging pipelines designed to measure degeneration over time. Methods: The workflow consists of two phases: (1) generating synthetic MR images by isolating, extracting and scaling the spinal cord, simulating atrophy on the PAM50 template; (2) performing non-rigid registration to align the synthetic images with the subject's native space, ensuring accurate anatomical correspondence. A proof-of-concept application utilizing the Active Surface and Reg methods implemented in Jim demonstrated its effectiveness in detecting atrophy across various levels of simulated atrophy and noise. Results: SynSpine successfully generates synthetic spinal cord images with varying atrophy levels. Non-rigid registration did not significantly affect atrophy measurements. Atrophy estimation errors, estimated using Active Surface and Reg methods, varied with both simulated atrophy magnitude and noise level, exhibiting region-dependent differences. Increased noise led to higher measurement errors. Conclusion: This work presents a novel and modular framework for simulating spinal cord atrophy data using digital phantoms, offering a controlled setting for testing spinal cord analysis pipelines. As the simulated atrophy may over-simplify

Indexed as

artificial dataatrophydigital phantomMRIsimulationspinal cordsynthetic data

Identifiers

PMID41480190
PMCPMC12753887

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.