Age-Specific Average Head Template for Typically Developing 6-Month-Old Infants

Sep 2, 2026

Age-related anatomical changes during early human development and the mismatch between infant brains and standard adult templates make age- and population-specific averaging essential for infant neuroimaging. This study generated an unbiased, high-detail age-specific average head template in an MNI152-like infant coordinate system for healthy typically developing 6-month-old infants using linear normalization, diffeomorphic normalization, and iterative averaging on 60 subjects’ structural images. The template provides clearer anatomical detail than prior infant averages while retaining typical 6-month head size. It also includes an example transforming MEG activity locations into the standard infant space and a new atlas reflecting true 6-month brain anatomy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryGeneral

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Age-specific average head template creation

MNI152-like infant coordinate system and normalization pipeline

Results: anatomical detail, size retention, and usability for MEG

Atlas generation and public availability

| Abstract
Due to the rapid anatomical changes that occur within the brain structure in early human development and the significant differences between infant brains and the widely used standard adult templates, it becomes increasingly important to utilize appropriate age-and population-specific average templates when analyzing infant neuroimaging data. In this study we created a new and highly detailed age-specific unbiased average head template in a standard MNI152-like infant coordinate system for healthy, typically developing 6-month-old infants by performing linear normalization, diffeomorphic normalization and iterative averaging processing on 60 subjects’ structural images. The resulting age-specific average templates in a standard MNI152-like infant coordinate system demonstrate sharper anatomical detail and clarity compared to existing infant average templates and successfully retains the average head size of the 6-month-old infant. An example usage of the average infant templates transforms magnetoencephalography (MEG) estimated activity locations from MEG’s subject-specific head coordinate space to the standard MNI152-like infant coordinate space. We also created a new atlas that reflects the true 6-month-old infant brain anatomy. Average templates and atlas are publicly available on our website ([http://i](http://i)[labs.washington.edu/6-m-templates-atlas](labs.washington.edu/6-m-templates-atlas)). | | --- | | Citation: Akiyama LF, Richards TR, Imada T, Dager SR, Wroblewski L, et al. (2013) Age-Specific Average Head Template for Typically Developing 6-Month-Old
Infants. PLoS ONE 8(9): e73821 . doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073821
Editor: Wieslaw Nowinski, Biomedical Imaging Lab, Agency for Science, Singapore Received March 4, 2013; Accepted July 23, 2013; Published September 12, 2013
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Funding: Support for the research was provided by the Santa Fe Institute Consortium and National Institutes of Health grants to P.K.K. (HD37954 and ARRAHD37954-0951) and SRD (ARRA-HD065283 and HD55741) . We acknowledge the support of the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS), supported by HD55741, for acquiring 3T 6 month old imaging data. This work was also supported by the University of Washington’s Science of Learning Center (The LIFE Center, SMA- 0835854, PI, P.K.K.) and an NIH UW Research Core Grant, University of Washington P30 DC04661 . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: [pkkuhl@u.washington.edu](pkkuhl@u.washington.edu) | | Scan Site | Tesla | Total number of subjects (female/ male) | Mean Age (days)±standard deviation | Median Age (days) | Age Range (days) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | University of Washington | 1.5T | 27 (13/14) | 206.8612.1 | 204 | 187–230 | | Seattle Children’s Hospital | 3T | 33 (18/15) | 202.3612.5 | 200 | 177–225 | | Overall | | 60 (31/29) | 204.0±12.2 | 202.5 | 177–230 |

FAQs

Why are age- and population-specific templates important for infant neuroimaging?

Early brain anatomy changes and differences from adult templates make standard adult-based references increasingly inaccurate for infant data analysis.

How was the new 6-month-old infant average head template generated?

The study used linear normalization, diffeomorphic normalization, and iterative averaging on structural images from 60 typically developing 6-month-old infants in an MNI152-like infant coordinate system.

How can the template be used with MEG data?

It supports transforming MEG estimated activity locations from each subject’s head coordinate space into the standard MNI152-like infant coordinate system.

Sep 2, 2026

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