Monitor Neural Activity

PROJECT SUMMARY The highly-organized intrinsic brain activity, as measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI), is being widely used to measure functional brain connectivity in both healthy subjects and patient groups, despite the underlying neural mechanisms remain largely unclear. Converging evidence has suggested that infra-slow propagating activity may play an important role in generating rsfMRI connectivity and dynamics, and it thus could be the key to understanding the neural basis of rsfMRI connectivity and the functional role of intrinsic brain activity.

PROJECT SUMMARY Perivascular spaces are a critical component of the glia-lymphatic circuit, facilitating the clearance of soluble waste. The role of perivascular spaces and changes in the brain’s clearance system in normal development, aging, and cognition is not fully understood, mainly due to lack of neuroimaging capabilities. However, noninvasive in vivo mapping of the perivascular space fluid with high accuracy and reliability is now made possible with our recent analytical developments, using human connectome project (HCP) data.

ABSTRACT A fundamental ethical tenet in medicine is bodily sovereignty, inherent in which is the concept of control. Over the past 10 years, there has been considerable discussion in the neuroethics literature concerning the loss of control attributed to neuromodulation devices, specifically deep brain stimulation (DBS), with a focus on reduced control related to undesired personality changes. Many of these concerns either explicitly or implicitly focus on the invasiveness of the DBS device.

Project Summary / Abstract This 4-year Neuroethics R01 based at the University of Minnesota (UMN) will convene a national Working Group of top neuroethics, neurolaw, and neuroscience experts to conduct empirical research and generate evidence-based consensus recommendations for the ethical conduct of population research using highly portable, cloud-enabled MRI in new and diverse populations in field settings.

Project Summary/Abstract The BRAIN Initiative has made a significant investment in invasive human neuroscientific studies that take advantage of unique neurosurgical opportunities to study basic human neuroscience without therapeutic intent. These non-therapeutic studies are of particular ethical interes

Abstract This application will combine the strengths of two large scale NIH-funded initiatives to understand disorder- related patterns in the human brain: Connectomes Related to Human Disease (CRHD) and Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA). We will develop and evaluate novel brain vulnerability metrics - based on the idea of polygenic risk scores – that we expect to better predict diagnosis and cognitive performance than standard neuroimaging measures.

The human brain is an unimaginably complicated system of interconnected neurons that is capable of complex thought, emotion and behavior. Macroscale white matter connections quantified via the structural connectome (SC) act as the backbone for the flow of functional activation, which can be represented via the functional con- nectome (FC). Our group and others have shown that quantifying properties of the brain’s structural and func- tional connectomes and their relationship can inform understanding of brain-behavior associations and disease mechanisms4-9.

Project Abstract The first postnatal years are an exceptionally dynamic and critical period of structural and functional development of the human brain. Many neurodevelopmental disorders are the consequence of abnormal brain development during this stage. Several NIH-funded studies have recently acquired and released large-scale infant brain MRI datasets in the National Institute of Mental Health Data Archive (NDA), leading to over 3,000 publically-available infant MRI scans from multiple imaging sites.

ABSTRACT Understanding the biological principles of cell type diversity and organization is necessary for deciphering neural circuits underlying brain function. The recent rapid accumulation of single cell transcriptomic and epigenomic data sets provides unprecedented opportunity to explore the molecular genetic basis of cell type identity, diversity, and organization. However, analysis of multi-omics datasets have been largely driven by statistic methods that typically do not engage the deep knowledge of neurobiology and developmental biology.

Constructing an integrated picture of human brain function requires understanding how the effects of molecular and genetic factors propagate upwards, through many intervening layers of structure and interaction, to influence behavioral, psychiatric and cognitive traits.