Empowering Data Sharing in Neuroscience: A Deep Learning De-identification Method for Pediatric Brain MRIs.

Background And Purpose: Privacy concerns, such as identifiable facial features within brain scans, have hindered the availability of pediatric neuroimaging datasets for research. Consequently, pediatric neuroscience research lags adult counterparts, particularly in rare disease and under-represented populations. The removal of face regions (image defacing) can mitigate this, however existing defacing tools often fail with pediatric cases and diverse image types, leaving a critical gap in data accessibility.