Automatic Personal Identification Using a Single MRI Slice

Identification of unknown individuals is challenging, and radiological imaging databases provide rich anatomical information for automated recognition. This study evaluated whether a single routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slice contains sufficient person-specific features to identify individuals in large databases. It analyzed 11,078 head MRI examinations from 5770 individuals (age 52 ± 18 years, 2714 men) acquired between 2002 and 2025. For identification, 112 individuals were randomly selected across eight 10-year age groups, and one slice from four anatomical regions was extracted. The remaining 10,966 MRI examinations with 247,804 slices formed the reference database. Distinctive anatomical features were automatically extracted using computer vision (CV), and the identification rate was evaluated by rank. Using a single MRI slice, the identification rate at rank 1 reached 96% (107/112) for the best-performing region, the maxillary sinus, among 5770 potential identities. Across all regions, the rank 1 identification rate ranged from 91% to 96%; combining them increased rank 1 and 10 identification rates to 98% (110/112) and 99% (111/112). Identification rate remained stable over several years, with only two cases showing reduced rank 1 performance, likely due to age-related morphological changes. A single MRI slice contains stable, individualized features sufficient for reliable identification in large databases, supporting automated CV-based personal identification across years.