A dataset of multi-contrast unbiased average MRI templates of a Parkinson's disease population

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative dis-order affecting regions such as the substantia nigra (SN), red nucleus (RN) and locus coeruleus (LC). Processing MRI data from patients with PD requires anatomical structural refer-ences for spatial normalization and structural segmentation. Extending our previous work, we present multi-contrast un-biased MRI templates using nine 3T MRI modalities: T1w, T2 *w, T1-T2* fusion, R2 *, T2w, PDw, fluid-attenuated in -version recovery (FLAIR), susceptibility-weighted imaging, and neuromelanin-sensitive MRI (NM). One mm isotropic voxel size templates were created, along with 0.5 mm isotropic whole brain templates and 0.3 mm isotropic tem-plates of the midbrain. All templates were created from 126 PD patients (44 female; ages = 40-87), and 17 healthy controls (13 female; ages = 39-84), except the NM tem-plate, which was created from 85 PD patients and 13 con-trols, respectively. The dataset is available on the NIST MNI Repository via the following link: http://nist.mni.mcgill.ca/ multi- contrast- pd126- and- ctrl17-templates/ . The data is also available on NITRC at the following link: https://www.nitrc. org/projects/pd126/ .