Artificially-reconstructed brain images with stroke lesions from non-imaging data: modeling in categorized patients based on lesion occurrence and sparsity

Brain imaging is necessary for understanding disease symptoms, including stroke. However, frequent imaging procedures encounter practical limitations. Estimating the brain information (e.g., lesions) without imaging sessions is beneficial for this scenario. Prospective estimating variables are non-imaging data collected from standard tests. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the variable feasibility for modelling lesion locations. Heterogeneous variables were employed in the multivariate logistic regression. Furthermore, patients were categorized (i.e., unsupervised clustering through k-means method) by the charasteristics of lesion occurrence (i.e., ratio between the lesioned and total regions) and sparsity (i.e., density measure of lesion occurrences across regions). Considering those charasteristics in models improved estimation performances. Lesions (116 regions in Automated Anatomical Labeling) were adequately predicted (sensitivity: 80.0–87.5% in median). We confirmed that the usability of models was extendable to different resolution levels in the brain region of interest (e.g., lobes, hemispheres). Patients’ charateristics (i.e., occurrence and sparsity) might also be explained by the non-imaging data as well. Advantages of the current approach can be experienced by any patients (i.e., with or without imaging sessions) in any clinical facilities (i.e., with or without imaging instrumentation).