Publications by Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Fluid and White Matter Suppression contrasts MRI improves Deep Learning detection of Multiple Sclerosis Cortical Lesions

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of Fluid and White Matter Suppression (FLAWS) MRI sequence in improving Deep Learning (DL)-based detection and segmentation of cortical lesions in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients even, and to develop models that can ge ...

2025

Domain shift, domain adaptation, and generalization: A focus on MRI

Jonas Richiardi, Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Tobias Kober, Veronica Lily Ravano

Differences in acquisition protocols or hardware result in measurable changes in image characteristics. These differences affect distributional properties and can also affect the spatial and temporal characteristics of the images. Likewise, the distributio ...

Academic Press2025

Biometry and volumetry in multi-centric fetal brain magnetic resonance imaging: assessing the bias of super-resolution reconstruction

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Thomas Sanchez

Background: Fetal brain MRI is increasingly used to complement ultrasound imaging. Images are processed using complex super-resolution reconstruction pipelines, which may bias biometric and volumetric measurements. Objective: To assess the consistency of 2 ...

2025

Ground-Truth Effects in Learning-Based Fiber Orientation Distribution Estimation in Neonatal Brains

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) is a non-invasive method for depicting brain microstructure in vivo. Fiber orientation distributions (FODs) are mathematical representations extensively used to map white matter fiber configurations. Recently, FO ...

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH2025

Assessing Data Quality on Fetal Brain MRI Reconstruction: A Multi-site and Multi-rater Study

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Thomas Sanchez

Quality assessment (QA) has long been considered essential to guarantee the reliability of neuroimaging studies. It is particularly important for fetal brain MRI, where unpredictable fetal motion can lead to substantial artifacts in the acquired images. Mu ...

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH2025

Exploiting XAI Maps to Improve MS Lesion Segmentation and Detection in MRI

Meritxell Bach Cuadra

To date, several methods have been developed to explain deep learning algorithms for classification tasks. Recently, an adaptation of two of such methods has been proposed to generate instance-level explainable maps in a semantic segmentation scenario, suc ...

Springer2025

Assessing workflow impact and clinical utility of AI-assisted brain aneurysm detection: A multi-reader study

Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Despite the plethora of AI-based algorithms developed for anomaly detection in radiology, subsequent integration into clinical setting is rarely evaluated. In this work, we assess the applicability and utility of an AI-based model for brain aneurysm detect ...

2025

A dataset of synthetic, maturation-informed magnetic resonance images of the human fetal brain

Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful modality for investigating abnormal developmental patterns in utero. However, since it is not the first-line diagnostic tool in this sensitive population, data remain scarce and heterogeneous across scanners a ...

2025

A roadmap towards standardized neuroimaging approaches for human thalamic nuclei

Meritxell Bach Cuadra

The thalamus has a key role in mediating cortical–subcortical interactions but is often neglected in neuroimaging studies, which mostly focus on changes in cortical structure and activity. One of the main reasons for the thalamus being overlooked is that t ...

2024

Cross-Age and Cross-Site Domain Shift Impacts on Deep Learning-Based White Matter Fiber Estimation in Newborn and Baby Brains

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Deep learning models have shown great promise in estimating tissue microstructure from limited diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data. However, these models face domain shift challenges when test and train data are from different scanners and protocols, ...

IEEE2024

Automated Quantitative Susceptibility and Morphometry MR Study: Feasibility and Interrelation Between Clinical Score, Lesion Load, Deep Grey Matter and Normal-Appearing White Matter in Multiple Sclerosis

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Bénédicte Marie Maréchal, Tobias Kober, Tom Hilbert

Lesion load (LL), deep gray matter (DGM) and normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) susceptibility and morphometry may help in monitoring brain changes in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. We aimed at evaluating the feasibility of a fully automated segmentat ...

2024

A Multicenter Longitudinal MRI Study Assessing LeMan-PV Software Accuracy in the Detection of White Matter Lesions in Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Bénédicte Marie Maréchal, Tobias Kober, Cristina Granziera, Po-Jui Lu, Ricardo Alberto Corredor Jerez, Muhamed Barakovic, Lester Melie Garcia

BackgroundDetecting new and enlarged lesions in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients is needed to determine their disease activity. LeMan-PV is a software embedded in the scanner reconstruction system of one vendor, which automatically assesses new and enlarge ...

WILEY2023

SELF-SUPERVISED ISOTROPIC SUPERRESOLUTION FETAL BRAIN MRI

Michaël Unser, Meritxell Bach Cuadra

Superresolution T2-weighted fetal-brain magnetic-resonance imaging (FBMRI) traditionally relies on the availability of several orthogonal low-resolution series of 2-dimensional thick slices (volumes). In practice, only a few low-resolution volumes are acqu ...

IEEE2023

Robust Estimation of the Microstructure of the Early Developing Brain Using Deep Learning

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Hamza Kebiri

Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) is a powerful non-invasive method for studying white matter tracts of the brain. However, accurate microstructure estimation with fiber orientation distribution (FOD) using existing computational methods requires ...

Springer2023

Streamline RimNet: Tools for Automatic Classification of Paramagnetic Rim Lesions in MRI of Multiple Sclerosis

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Cristina Granziera, Francesco La Rosa, Maxence Charles F Wynen

This site provides two software tools related to "RimNet: A deep 3D multimodal MRI architecture for paramagnetic rim lesion assessment in multiple sclerosis" by Barquero et al. NeuroImage: Clinical (2020). People using in part or f ...

Zenodo2023

Cortical lesions, central vein sign, and paramagnetic rim lesions in multiple sclerosis: Emerging machine learning techniques and future avenues

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Tobias Kober, Cristina Granziera, Francesco La Rosa, Maxence Charles F Wynen

The current diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS) lack specificity, and this may lead to misdiagnosis, which remains an issue in present-day clinical practice. In addition, conventional biomarkers only moderately correlate with MS disease progres ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2022

Toward a joint automated assessment of cortical and paramagnetic rim lesions with 7T MRI

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Francesco La Rosa

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD2022

Slice Estimation in Diffusion MRI of Neonatal and Fetal Brains in Image and Spherical Harmonics Domains Using Autoencoders

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Hamza Kebiri, Gabriel Girard, Erick Jorge Canales Rodriguez, Thomas Yu

Diffusion MRI (dMRI) of the developing brain can provide valuable insights into the white matter development. However, slice thickness in fetal dMRI is typically high (i.e., 3-5 mm) to freeze the in-plane motion, which reduces the sensitivity of the dMRI s ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2022

BMAT: An open-source BIDS managing and analysis tool

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Benoît Macq, Francesco La Rosa, Maxence Charles F Wynen

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an established technique to study in vivo neurological disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). To avoid errors on MRI data organization and automated processing, a standard called Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) h ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2022

Fluid and White Matter Suppression New Sensitive 3 T Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrasts for Cortical Lesion Detection in Multiple Sclerosis

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Francesco La Rosa

Objective Cortical lesions are common in multiple sclerosis (MS), but their visualization is challenging on conventional magnetic resonance imaging. The uniform image derived from magnetization prepared 2 rapid acquisition gradient echoes (MP2RAGE(uni)) de ...

LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS2022