CALMaR: connecting imaging with clinical questions
Co-designed, Automated Lesion Mapping and Reporting
Brain images contain valuable information, but analysing and interpreting them is not always accessible to clinical teams. CALMaR aims to connect neuroimaging with the questions speech pathologists ask in practice, through reproducible analyses and understandable reports.
My role
I lead the project’s development at The University of Queensland and am the sole Chief Investigator on its EAIT Early Career Philanthropic Grant (2026–2027). My work connects pipeline development, clinical requirements, co-design and documentation.
The project is developed in affiliation with the Queensland Aphasia Research Centre and co-designed with Metro North Health speech pathologists and people with lived experience of aphasia.
Use cases and development
- First use case: post-stroke aphasia. The work focuses on lesion mapping and interpretable reports for clinical teams.
- In development: a version for neurodegenerative conditions. I am adapting the approach to neuroimaging questions specific to these conditions.
- Planned next: traumatic brain injury (TBI). A TBI version is a future development I intend to pursue after this work.
The post-stroke aphasia workflow
- MRI imagesPrepare structural imaging data.
- Lesion mappingSegment lesions and examine affected regions.
- Quality reviewReview results and document decisions.
- ReportingPresent interpretable results and their sources.
CALMaR uses the Neurodesk environment to make tools and analyses reproducible. The approach also aims to respect data privacy and document processing and interpretation decisions.
Project stage
CALMaR is in development. The code and a getting-started guide are open. Clinical usefulness and workflow reliability remain questions to evaluate; the availability of code does not itself demonstrate clinical effectiveness.
Code, guide and collaboration
I welcome discussion with teams interested in neuroimaging in stroke, neurodegenerative conditions or TBI, accessible reports, co-design and the evaluation of clinical workflows.