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NEUROIMAGING  
Below are descriptions of the Neuroimaging grants that are currently active. To view a list of past grants in this area, please click on the link below.

Neuroimaging - Past Grants



The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2011-2013

Principal Investigator: Timothy Roberts, Ph.D.

Longitudinal MEG of Auditory Processing in ASD

The project will be supported by the resources of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). This will allow for the utilization of the extensive expertise of the scientific staff (physicists, neuropsychologists, neuroscientists, bioengineers, radiologists) as well as the support staff (research assistants, MR technologists, etc.). CHOP has extensive non-invasive imaging resources including whole-cortex magnetoencephalography (MEG), 3T MRI with 32-channel head coil and very large autism and control populations. The project builds upon extensive structural and functional studies of the auditory system in autism that Dr. Roberts’ group has conducted over the last five years, funded in part by the NLMFF. Given the strong evidence for an abnormal trajectory of brain development in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), set in the context of inter-subject heterogeneity, this study adopts an intra-subject longitudinal design in a well-characterized cohort, with advanced functional, structural imaging (including imaging of white matter, recording of brain waves, and measurement of brain chemistry) and neuropsychological assessment follow-up of this cohort at 2+ years of their original exam.

Click here to read the NLMFF Interview with Dr. Roberts

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia




The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2008-2011

Principal Investigator: Timothy Roberts, Ph.D.

Neonatal Biomagnetometer (Co-Funded with the Lurie Family Foundation)

In partnership with the Lurie Family Foundation, the NLM Family Foundation has provided funding to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for the purchase of a Neonatal Biomagnetometer, a magnetoencephalography (MEG) system that provides non-invasive, 4-dimensional imaging of human brain function necessary to detect developmental disorders. When installed, this system will serve as the world's first dedicated infant-MEG system serving children 18 months to two years, thereby providing better opportunities for successful, appropriate interventions to occur at an earlier age. This technology conducts passive recordings of "brain waves" during rest or stimulation through finger-tapping, sounds, and pictures. A typical scan of the brain may take less than one hour. MEG measures small electrical currents inside the neurons of the brain and generates an accurate representation of the magnetic fields produced by the neurons. Developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and learning disabilities, exploit the ability of MEG to track deficits in rapid temporal processing. This helps identify when and where in the brain and at what stage of linguistic complexity deviations from typical development occur, providing physicians with better opportunities to treat children with the most appropriate form of care. In addition to providing physicians with the best insight into the exact location of abnormalities that cause epilepsy and seizure disorders, the MEG also provides state-of-the-art, pre-surgical mapping for brain tumors and vascular malformations so that surgery can be planned in an effort to minimize postoperative weakness or loss of brain function.

Click here to read the NLMFF Interview with Dr. Roberts

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia



The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2007-2010

Principal Investigator: Timothy Roberts, Ph.D.


MEG of Language Impairment in Autism (Co-funded with the Lurie Family Foundation)

Language impairment is a devastating feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD); however, presence and severity of language impairment varies across the spectrum. The purpose of this project is to use advanced brain imaging (magnetoencephalography) to identify the temporal stage of language processing, and the neural substrates thereof, that depart from typical development in children with autism. Using a battery of auditory processing and linguistic stimuli, the investigator seeks to identify neural signatures or endophenotypes, with which to more specifically characterize language impairment in autism. Additionally, the use of characteristic brain-level endophenotypes will be explored as a mechanism for tightening the connection between experimental and clinical laboratories. Experimental models of autism might now be evaluated in terms of such electrophysiological (as well as behavioral) traits associated with ASD and thus provide a more specific approach for understanding the underlying neurobiology. Furthermore, such specific brain-level phenotyping may offer more specific measures for ongoing genomic efforts at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Click here to read the NLMFF Interview with Dr. Roberts

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia



Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
2007-2010

Principal Investigator: Tal Kenet, Ph.D.


Sensory Perception Deficits and Cortical Coherence in Children with Autism: A Study of the 'Noisy Cortex' Hypothesis

Autism is a behaviorally diagnosed disorder with defining impairments in socialization, interests, and communication abilities. Autism is also characterized by deficits in processing of simple visual and auditory information such as loudness discrimination or perception of moving dots, as well as complex visual and auditory information such as faces and language. Additionally, there is evidence of abnormal tactile sensitivity in autism. These functional findings are complemented by anatomical ones, the most robust of which is that the brains are large. Other neuroanatomical findings include neuroinflammation, and disrupted inhibitory circuitry. To date, no robust models have been formulated for either the neurobiological origin of the observed abnormalities, or the relationship between the pervasive anatomic abnormalities and the neural systems dysfunctions which are characteristic of autism. Furthermore, while the observed anatomical pathologies are distributed rather than localized, the vast majority of functional studies focus on localized features. The main objective of this project is to test the model that the neural substrates underlying the functional deficits of autism at the cortical level stem from a noisy cortex which has a poor signal to noise ratio. To this end, Dr. Kenet will employ magnetoencephalograpy (MEG) to record functional activation in response to sensory stimuli in children with autism and age matched controls. The central hypotheses are: (1) that the cortex of individuals with autism is inherently and internally a "noisy" cortex, i.e. a cortex with a low signal to noise ratio; (2) that the "noisiness" of the cortex is widely distributed rather than localized, resulting in widespread functional abnormalities; and (3) that from this distributed "noisy" cortex emanates a network in which connectivity is disrupted, with ensuing functional abnormalities that include widespread perceptual deficits, and alterations in neural circuitry that may drive higher order cognitive and social impairments emanating at least in part from abnormal network properties.

Massachusetts General Hospital, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging


Massachusetts General Hospital , Boston , MA
2010

Principal Investigator: Martha R. Herbert, M.D., Ph.D.

NIRS Imaging and its Utility and Importance in Infants

The investigators are engaged in a DoD-funded comprehensive multisystem study of development beginning in early infancy to allow them to understand the mechanisms by which autism's brain-behavior-body relationships emerge. They propose that Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) can make a unique contribution to studying autism's emergence by providing an infant- and toddler-friendly technology for examining the metabolic and vascular underpinnings of brain changes in early autism. They propose that NIRS measures of cerebral perfusion and of the redox state of the mitochondrial marker cytochrome c oxidase may provide objective early indicators of risk for autism. Reduced cerebral perfusion has been abundantly documented in autism, and mitochondrial abnormalities are of emerging interest as well. The investigators hypothesize that these cerebral and metabolic changes may temporally precede behavioral abnormalities. They propose that their detection may eventually allow the early institution of medical measures that could improve perfusion and mitochondrial function and that this could prevent autism or reduce its severity. They also propose that the investigation of neurovascular coupling, which can be done by simultaneous NIRS-EEG, may illuminate changes which may arguably be at ground zero of autism. If abnormalities in cerebral perfusion and metabolism develop dynamically in infancy in at least some cases, they may be central to mechanisms of autistic regression. Early detection of these abnormalities could lead to avenues of early medical intervention or even prevention of autism.  The purpose of this equipment grant will be to purchase an OxiplexTS FD-NIRS system ISS Inc. device which would allow the investigators to perform the above measures. They will initially study those at-risk infants in the DoD funded study, "A Multisystem Evaluation of Infants At Risk for Autism" whose parents would consent to this additional evaluation, and will also seek funding for a larger cohort and for studying older children and adults.

Martha Herbert



Massachusetts General Hospital , Boston , MA
2006-2009

Principal Investigator: Martha R. Herbert, M.D., Ph.D.


Electrophysiological Studies of Gating, Timing and Connectivity in Autism

Although autism is defined by three types of behavioral impairments, recent findings in autism research are pointing toward widespread network signal coordination or connectivity problems as underlying what we see as autism - various parts of the brain do not synchronize normally. Reduced connectivity has been found using methods that are better at locating things in space than in time; for example, functional MRI can give us pictures of where the brain activates but is not useful for revealing the sequence of activation, because it cannot register changes that happen in intervals shorter than a second. Electroencephalography (EEG) on the other hand has a time resolution at the millisecond level-more than a thousand times more fine-grained time resolution than can be achieved with MRI. To get the most detailed measurements of short range and long range coordination (which the investigator expects will each have a different kind of abnormality in autism) it is necessary to use a high-density electrode array which covers as much of the entire scalp as possible with electrodes that are closely spaced. To do so, the NLM Family Foundation supported the purchase of a 128-lead EEG machine to upgrade the investigator's capacity from her 32 lead system which limits the measurements she can make. The investigator believes that electrophysiological measures are key to showing the ways that brain functional changes are related to sensorimotor, perceptual, learning and behavioral differences in autism.

Martha Herbert
 
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