Christian Gaser

Christian Gaser is a German computational neuroscientist and Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Neuroimaging at the University of Jena. He is known for developing the computational anatomy toolbox (CAT12), a software package for structural MRI analysis within the SPM framework.

Career and research Gaser received his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Magdeburg. He subsequently held post-doctoral and visiting fellowships at Harvard Medical School (Boston), UCLA (Los Angeles), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York), the Australian National University (Canberra), the University of Auckland, and the University of Oxford.

His research focuses on computational neuroanatomy, neuroplasticity, aging, and imaging biomarkers for neurological and psychiatric disorders. Gaser introduced the BrainAGE framework for estimating biological brain age from MRI using machine-learning methods.

His group also develops methods for cortical surface analysis, gyrification metrics, and longitudinal modeling of structural brain plasticity.

Selected honors and awards Listed in Stanford's 'World's Top 2% Scientists' (2017-2025): Awarded by Stanford University / Elsevier to the top 2% of researchers worldwide. Recipient of the Hood Fellowship

Selected publications