Head size, weight, and growth normative reference charts are used to evaluate infant and child development relative to age and gender. Similarly, NeuroQuant® provides context to patients’ brain structure volumes as compared to a data set established from a large population set of healthy individuals. This allows NeuroQuant to deliver an impression of where an individual’s brain structure volume falls within the age- and gender-based reference charts, aiding physicians in their assessment of neurodegenerative conditions.

NeuroQuant norms provide valuable reference information that informs the clinical diagnosis process. It is the most validated normative data set, having been tested with tens of thousands of clinical cases. To be able to accurately compare an individual’s brain structure volume to the normative data, NeuroQuant normalizes the brain structures to the intracranial volume (ICV), in order to adjust for naturally occurring variances due to head size. The ICV normalization and norms comparison on NeuroQuant reports provides physicians with a better understanding when assessing a patient.

For example, NeuroQuant helps differentiate if a patient’s hippocampus is innately small or, if a patient has abnormal neurodegeneration relative to his/her age and gender (images on the left, below). It can also help determine if there is unusual asymmetry in the hippocampus (images on the right, below).

NeuroQuant’s normative database incorporates an age range from 3 to 100 years and provides fast, reliable volumetric assessments. Several thousand data points from publicly available studies, clinical collaborators and proprietary subjects were used to build the database.

Comparing patients’ brain volume results with normative data based on age and gender has been an integral part of NeuroQuant FDA clearance, CE mark and Health Canada license  since its commercial product launch in 2006.

Interested in learning more? Our Normative Database white paper is available for download.