Research Projects

Research projects in the ANSIR program offer a wide variety of interest.  Novel and classical methods are applied across multiple modalities to projects dealing with ageing, injury, or disease.

Active Studies

iTAKL Family of Studies

Football head injuries involve significant forces and can result in mild to severe traumatic brain injuries. While this has received increasing attention at the professional, collegiate, and high school levels, there is scarce if any data available for participants in the youth leagues (8-12 years old) and high school teams (15-19). This study will relate information about head motion during a hit in youth football to neurocognitive and imaging data to determine the effects of subconcussive impacts, and the true incidence of cognitive and objective imaging changes. All elements of this study focus on the objective to increase understanding of pediatric mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and prospectively collect biomechanical, imaging, functional, and computational modeling data on a scale never before attempted.

See also: iTAKL and Traumatic Brain Injuries

iTAKL-Youth (5R01NS082453 NINDS, 5R03NS088082 NINDS)
iTAKL-High School (5R01NS091602 NINDS)

DHS Family of Studies

The relationship between cerebrovascular disease and cognition, especially in diabetes remains understudied and poorly understood. We hypothesize genetic factors are significant contributors to cerebrovascular disease and associated cognitive impairment in families enriched for type 2 diabetes. Further, the magnitude of these genetic factors can be measured, their interaction with environmental influences can be quantitated, and the chromosomal location of genes contributing to these traits can be mapped.

Recent Studies

Biological Parametric Mapping

The objective of this Phase I project is to provide the neuroscience research community with a unique investigative tool for the seamless real-time integration of data from emerging imaging modalities (fMRI, PET, SPECT, MRS, and diffusion imaging). This tool will allow analysis of an enormous array of biological processes involving multiple cross-platform modalities recording activation, stimulation, biochemistry and tissue contrast. In this application we propose to incorporate Biologic Parametric Mapping (BPM), a new form of functional imaging data analysis that will integrate the information available from multiple functional imaging modalities and combine them into a user-friendly highly extensible and scalable software environment. The basic idea behind BPM is to allow the probing of functional imaging data using the results of any other form of functional imaging data.

5R01EB004673 NIBIB