News
New Tool Could Help Researchers Better Understand the Brain’s Blood Vessels
October 14, 2026
The brain’s network of blood vessels plays a critical role in maintaining neurological health. Changes to these vessels are associated with conditions including stroke, cognitive impairment, and dementia. Yet studying the brain’s smallest arteries can be challenging, in part because extracting detailed measurements from MRI images often requires substantial manual work.
Researchers at University of Rochester Medicine are developing a technology called ArteryX to address this challenge. The software toolbox analyzes MRI images of the brain’s arteries, allowing researchers to measure characteristics such as vessel size, length, branching, and complexity. By making this process more automated and consistent, ArteryX could help scientists investigate how changes in the brain’s vascular network contribute to disease.
The technology was developed under a National Institutes of Health-funded grant led by Nasir Uddin, PhD, and described in a recent study published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Abrar Faiyaz, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in Uddin’s lab, is the study’s first author.
Read the full UR Newsroom article
Dr. Uddin receives 2025 University Research Award
May 27, 2025
Dr. Nasir Uddin has been awarded a University Research Award for the research project “Developing Fast and Robust Techniques for Brain Microstructure Mapping with Single-Shell diffusion MRI”. Other team members include Professors Giovanni Schifitto and Xing Qiu. The primary goal of the University Research Award (URA) program is to provide seed funding for innovative, early-stage research projects that show strong potential for securing external funding in the near future.
Dr. Uddin receives NIH DP1 Award to Study Liver Disease and Brain Health in People Living with HIV
July 8, 2024
Dr. Uddin has been awarded a DP1 grant from NIH to study the impact of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on brain function in people living with HIV.
Details can be found here.
Dr. Uddin received NIH funding to develop an automated approach for brain artery segmentation and vascular feature extraction on MR Angiography
September 7, 2023
Dr. Uddin has been awarded an NIH grant entitled “Automated Machine Learning-Based Brain Artery Segmentation, Anatomical Prior Labeling, and Feature Extraction on MR Angiography”. Cerebrovascular disease is one of the major causes of death and long-term disability, affecting 15 million people globally. The goal of this proposal is to develop and validate an automated approach to segment and classify brain arteries and extract vascular features with high fidelity from low-resolution clinical MRA images utilizing a prospective machine learning framework and a super-resolution technique with a small training set for clinical convenience. The study will explore the associations between vascular features, cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) markers, and cognitive performance in an existing HIV-CSVD dataset. The main hypothesis is that this automated approach will provide more accurate and time-efficient measures, advancing brain vessel segmentation and feature extraction. The results could facilitate the translation of vessel-related biomarkers into clinical practice, benefiting diagnostic studies and enhancing patient outcomes.