Research

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.

Virtual Biopsy with Tissue-Level Accuracy in Glioma

A Bioengineering Research Grant (BRG) proposal in response to PAR-19-158 to further develop and validate a non-invasive panel of the most critical glioma molecular markers (IDH, 1p/19q, MGMT) using standard clinical MRI T2-weighted images and deep learning, and extend the performance to tissue-level accuracies. Learn more at NIH RePORT.

Quantitative Non-Contrast Perfusion using Arterial Spin Labeling for Assessment of Cancer Therapy Response

The Validation of Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) by demonstrating the reliability and precision of ASL measured perfusion in the brain and kidneys of 30 normal volunteers, predicting clinical outcomes based on baseline (pre- treatment) perfusion and early changes in post-treatment perfusion in 40 patients with newly diagnosed GBM undergoing chemoradiation therapy, andy by predicting long-term outcomes based on baseline (pre-treatment) perfusion and early changes in post-treatment perfusion in 40 patients with metastatic RCC undergoing antiangiogenic therapies. ASL is a quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that can measure tumor perfusion non-invasively and without the administration of exogenous contrast agent. Learn more at NIH RePORT

Previous Studies

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. See also: Diabetes Heart Mind. 

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.