Specialization
My specialisation is the development of computer software for brain image analysis in multiple languages and environments, as is visible from my GitHub account (account amwink).
Most analyses concern 3-dimensional brain MRI (magnetic resonance images) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans. Methods development includes quality testing, preprocessing (e.g. automatic positional alignment) and statistical analysis.
Application areas forcus on age-related neurodegeneration (e.g. Alzheimer's disease), neuroinflammation (e.g. Multiple Sclerosis) and brain tumours (e.g. gliomas). Next to publishing our analysis results for advancing the fied, we also publish the methods and share our imaging data sets to facilitate reproducibility and repeatability. Examples are the public EPAD and AMYPAD imaging studies.
Focus of research
My main interest is the development and application of methods and software solution for the analysis of medical imaging data, in particular the analysis of brain images to improve the diagnosis and understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders.
With industry and healthcare producing imaging data in ever increasing quantity, and arguably quality, on one hand, and the advent of automatically generated analysis methods and results on the other, it is critical to investigate both from a background of mathematical and physical precision.
We are developing models of the scans that are acquired, as well as the underlyiing mechanisms of the disorders we investigate, to make robust diagnostic and prognostic predictions that will increase the quality of patiennt care and patient life.