OASIS Brains
Category: Datasets
Website: http://www.oasis-brains.org/
Focus: Open-access brain MRI and related data for normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease research
Overview
The Open Access Series of Imaging Studies (OASIS) is a collection of freely available neuroimaging datasets designed to support basic and clinical neuroscience research. The project compiles and distributes multimodal brain imaging and associated clinical, cognitive, and biomarker data, with a primary focus on normal aging, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer’s disease.
OASIS datasets are hosted via NITRC-IR and span a broad demographic, cognitive, and genetic spectrum, providing an accessible resource for neuroimaging, clinical, and cognitive research.
Features
General Features
- Open-access neuroimaging datasets of the human brain
- Freely available to the scientific and research community
- Focus on normal aging, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
- Data used for:
- Hypothesis-driven analyses
- Development of neuroanatomical atlases
- Development and validation of segmentation and analysis algorithms
- Hosted and distributed via NITRC-IR
- Includes multimodal imaging, clinical, cognitive, and biomarker data (depending on dataset release)
OASIS Cross-sectional Dataset
- Type: Cross-sectional MRI collection
- Participants: 416 subjects
- Age range: 18–96 years
- Handedness: All right-handed
- Sex: Both men and women included
- Imaging:
- 3 or 4 individual T1-weighted MRI scans per subject
- All scans obtained in single scan sessions
- Alzheimer’s disease representation:
- 100 subjects over age 60 clinically diagnosed with very mild to moderate AD
- Reliability subset:
- 20 nondemented subjects
- Imaged on a subsequent visit within 90 days of initial session
OASIS Longitudinal Dataset
- Type: Longitudinal MRI collection
- Participants: 150 subjects
- Age range: 60–96 years
- Handedness: All right-handed
- Sex: Both men and women included
- Longitudinal design:
- Each subject scanned on two or more visits
- Visits separated by at least one year
- Total of 373 imaging sessions
- Imaging:
- 3 or 4 individual T1-weighted MRI scans per subject per session
- Cognitive status groups:
- 72 subjects nondemented throughout the study
- 64 subjects demented at initial visit and remained demented
- Includes 51 individuals with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease
- 14 subjects nondemented at initial visit who later became demented
OASIS-3 Dataset
- Type: Longitudinal, multimodal neuroimaging and clinical dataset
- Participants: 1,378
- 755 cognitively normal adults
- 622 individuals at various stages of cognitive decline
- Age range: 42–95 years
- Data collection:
- Retrospective compilation across several ongoing projects at WUSTL Knight ADRC
- Spans approximately 30 years of data collection
- De-identification and timing:
- All participants assigned new random identifiers
- All dates removed
- Time information normalized to "days from entry into study"
- Imaging sessions:
- Imaging modalities included (may vary by session):
- T1-weighted (T1w)
- T2-weighted (T2w)
- FLAIR
- Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL)
- Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI)
- Time-of-flight angiography
- Resting-state BOLD fMRI
- Additional modalities (by design of OASIS-3):
- Clinical assessments
- Cognitive measures
- Biomarker data
OASIS-4 Dataset (high-level)
- Type: Multimodal dataset focused on memory complaints
- Content:
- MRI (MR)
- Clinical data
- Cognitive assessments
- Biomarker data
- Participants: Individuals presenting with memory complaints
Use Cases
- Research on structural and functional brain changes in normal aging
- Studies of the progression and characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias
- Development and evaluation of neuroimaging processing pipelines and segmentation algorithms
- Creation of neuroanatomical atlases and templates
- Methodological work in longitudinal modeling of cognitive decline and brain aging
Access & Licensing
- Datasets are made openly available to the scientific community via NITRC-IR.
- Researchers typically must agree to data use terms and follow appropriate ethical and privacy guidelines (see official site for current conditions).
Pricing
- Access to OASIS datasets is described as freely available / open access.
(No paid plans or pricing tiers are indicated in the provided content.)
