Adaptive template generation for amyloid PET using a deep learning approach

Accurate spatial normalization (SN) of amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) images for Alzheimer's disease assessment without coregistered anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the same individual is technically challenging. In this study, we applied deep neural networks to generate individually adaptive PET templates for robust and accurate SN of amyloid PET without using matched 3D MR images. Using 681 pairs of simultaneously acquired ¹¹C‐PIB PET and T1‐weighted 3D MRI scans of AD, MCI, and cognitively normal subjects, we trained and tested two deep neural networks [convolutional auto‐encoder (CAE) and generative adversarial network (GAN)] that produce adaptive best PET templates. More specifically, the networks were trained using 685,100 pieces of augmented data generated by rotating 527 randomly selected datasets and validated using 154 datasets. The input to the supervised neural networks was the 3D PET volume in native space and the label was the spatially normalized 3D PET image using the transformation parameters obtained from MRI‐based SN. The proposed deep learning approach significantly enhanced the quantitative accuracy of MRI‐less amyloid PET assessment by reducing the SN error observed when an average amyloid PET template is used. Given an input image, the trained deep neural networks rapidly provide individually adaptive 3D PET templates without any discontinuity between the slices (in 0.02 s). As the proposed method does not require 3D MRI for the SN of PET images, it has great potential for use in routine analysis of amyloid PET images in clinical practice and research.