NEWS

A USC-led team of researchers releases expanded data set of brain scans from stroke patients with more than four times the data in the hopes of speeding up large-scale stroke recovery research.

New findings from the largest study to date by an international group of neuroscience experts show significant reductions in grey matter in people with anorexia nervosa.

Research funded by the grant will capitalize on the development of biomarkers and advanced imaging by scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC to launch studies tracking changes in the blood-brain barrier, neurovascular function and cognition.

The INI's Paul M. Thompson is featured on All Things Considered.

The INI is proud to announce the appointment of Xingfeng Shao, PhD, to assistant professor of research radiology.

The findings could provide potential targets for new Alzheimer’s drugs.

Opened in 2016, the CIA is an MRI facility housing a Siemens Magnetom Prisma, a 3 Tesla MRI scanner, and a Siemens Magnetom 7T MRI scanner. These scanners include unparalleled innovations for neuroimaging.

As a result of a conference hosted by the INI, Brain Imaging and Behavior has published Special Issue: 2020 Pacific Rim New Horizons in Human Brain Imaging: Neuroimaging across the Lifespan.

USC’s recently launched Center for Neuronal Longevity brings together a multidisciplinary team to address unmet needs in vision loss and other neurological diseases

This serious mental health disorder comes with dramatic and sometimes unpredictable shifts in mood, energy and activity levels.

USC study suggests targeted outreach and better vaccine access may help reduce health disparities in vulnerable communities statewide.

“Our project aims to understand the connection between poor sleep leading to AD in African Americans. We will employ leading neuroimaging technologies at the USC INI to map the brain clearance system in individuals with and without sleep problems,” says Dr. Choupan.

INI Director Arthur Toga makes Clarivate’s Highly Cited 2021 list.

The INI is honored to have a section of the video, Ultrahigh Field MRI – The Value of Fine-Grained Examination, featured on the NIH Director’s Blog.

Danny JJ Wang Wang and his team are addressing the growing concern that radiation involved in CT scans can be unnecessarily harmful to patients.

Studies at USC’s Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) use mice to gain insight into brain structure and function to better understand brain disease and potential treatments.

The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (USC Stevens INI) is one of three institutions partnering in a five-year, $31.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to merge many types of Alzheimer’s disease data in an effort to stimulate new drug development.

A new USC study of more than 80 counties nationwide reveals the difference more or less restrictive policies may have had on the spread of COVID-19.

More than 90 federal grants totaling $92 million were awarded to USC researchers in 2020, underscoring the university’s status as one of the nation’s leading research centers as we acknowledge World Alzheimer’s Day 2021.

The National Institutes of Health is funding a global consortium of researchers from 20 countries to study how the disease develops and spreads.

The USC+Amazon Center on Secure and Trusted Machine Learning, established in January 2021 to support fundamental research and development of new approaches to machine learning (ML) privacy, security, and trustworthiness, today announced it has selected five research projects for 2021-2022.

A novel non-invasive neuroimaging technique can detect early-stage dysfunction of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) associated with small vessel disease (SVD), according to new research published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Cerebral SVD is the most common cause of vascular cognitive impairment, with many cases leading to dementia.

Collaborative research between the University of Kentucky and the University of Southern California (USC) suggests that a noninvasive neuroimaging technique may index early-stage blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction associated with small vessel disease (SVD).

When disease hides in the body, it takes some big ideas from scientists and doctors to illuminate it — and save lives.

Mapping the brain's unknown territories and vibrant connections

It’s common knowledge that our surroundings affect our health — decades of research have linked things like air, water and soil quality to various measures of physical well-being. But much less is known about how the environment changes our brain. Now, a research team at the Keck School of Medicine of USC is pooling thousands of brain scans to better understand how aspects of our physical space — including air pollution, noise and green space — alter brain structure, influence our behavior and impact our risk for various developmental, neurodegenerative and psychiatric problems.

A stroke occurs when a blocked artery can no longer supply blood to part of the brain. But the mechanism differs between thrombotic strokes, embolic strokes, thromboembolic strokes, and brain hemorrhages. Our latest scientific visualization describes various types of strokes and illustrates what’s going on in the brain when they occur.

Two new studies, published in Nature Medicine and Movement Disorders, have shown that people with Parkinson disease (PD) exhibit alterations in brain lymphatic and glymphatic drainage systems. The findings suggest that dysfunction of brain drainage pathways represents both an early biomarker and a potential therapeutic target for PD.

Nearly 38 million people around the world are living with HIV, which, with access to treatment, has become a lifelong chronic condition. Understanding how infection changes the brain, especially in the context of aging, is increasingly important for improving both treatment and quality of life.

Until recently, scientists didn’t know much about perivascular spaces (PVS), fluid-filled regions in the brain involved in clearing waste and toxins — mainly because it’s tough to get a clear look at them using neuroimaging. But as technology evolves, researchers are finding that PVS may play a central role in brain changes associated with aging, including in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Ryan P. Cabeen, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (USC Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has received an imaging technology grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a philanthropy led by Priscilla Chan, MD, and her husband, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Researchers, led by a team at USC, will use artificial intelligence to study tens of thousands of brain images and whole genome sequences.

Decreased blood flow is linked to more severe tau pathology in regions of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

Offering fresh insight into the deep-seated roots of dementia, new research finds that diminished blood flow to the brain is tied to buildup a protein long associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers based at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute have conducted the largest-ever diffusion imaging study of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS). The genetic disorder, caused by a small segment of missing DNA on chromosome 22, is the strongest known genetic risk factor for schizophrenia.

For patients with tumors, strokes, cerebrovascular disease and other conditions, computed tomography (CT) scans can be lifesaving. But there’s a growing concern that the radiation involved is unnecessarily harmful to patients.

Clinicians and researchers around the world are racing to collect data in order to better understand COVID-19 — including risk factors for severe cases, treatment strategies and the viability of various vaccines. But a vital element missing has been a wide-scale database for sharing information as research progresses.

Clinicians need to act quickly to administer effective treatment when a patient has an acute ischemic stroke — the most common type — which occurs when a clot blocks blood flow through an artery in the brain.

USC’s Sook-Lei Liew, Judy Pa and James M. Finley are researching the benefits of virtual reality for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or stroke.

A multi-omics, multi-algorithm approach will unleash a new wave of understanding around Alzheimer’s disease and diagnosis, that in time, will make precision diagnostics practical, speakers predicted at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2020 virtual event, held July 27-31.

The Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation is supporting innovative biomedical research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC by granting $100,000 awards to two assistant professors.

Researchers at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC are forging ahead with their research programs.

Although scientists have long known APOE4 is a leading risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, they were unsure how exactly it drives a decline in memory. USC researchers now believe they have an answer.

The key to a better understanding of schizophrenia may exist in a genetic disorder so rare that researchers haven’t been able to conduct an adequate study — until now.

In a new study led by Dr. Arthur W. Toga, director of the INI, researchers analyzed MRI scans from more than 11,000 people and found that the brains of those who smoke or drink frequently tend to age faster.

Alzheimer’s is one of the most common diseases affecting older generations in America.In fact, a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease every 65 seconds. Larry King sits down with a panel of experts to explore the research being done and preventative measures to stop early onset.

Researchers at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute are working on safer ways to scan the brains of stroke patients in assessing damage.

This fall, the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) received a $2 million competitive renewal from the Alzheimer’s Association to continue expanding its pioneering data-sharing platform, the Global Alzheimer’s Association Interactive Network (GAAIN).

Paul M. Thompson, PhD, has received a Zenith Fellows research grant from the Alzheimer’s Association, one of the most prestigious awards in Alzheimer’s and dementia research.

Most people know that problems with memory and cognition are an early hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, but fewer are aware that in up to 88% of patients, neuropsychiatric issues like depression, anxiety and apathy are also among the first symptoms of the disease.

The app, created by a USC professor, has major implications for the medical field.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what about a figure in a scientific paper?

Learn about some of our latest findings, view our new scientific data visualizations & more in our interactive fall newsletter.

INI scientists have launched a smartphone app that uses augmented reality to visualize scientific data via 3D models and video.

Brain imaging data will be stored at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

For the first time, the INI has convened the research and clinical imaging communities of Southern California for an impactful annual workshop on high- and low-field Magnetic Resonance Imaging technologies. On October 12, the group convened on the USC Health Sciences Campus for a day of tours, tutorials and presentations that connected researchers from across the region and stimulated new lines of inquiry as well as novel research partnerships.

Danny JJ Wang, PhD, professor of neurology, director of imaging technology of innovation at INI and co-organizer of the workshop, started the day by welcoming guests to the institute and sharing a brief history of the INI and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging Resource (LONIR), a platform for collaborative research in the neurosciences. Later, Wang led a tour of the institute and its Center for Image Acquisition (CIA), which houses both an ultra-high-field (UHF) 7-Tesla Siemens Terra MRI system and a 3-Tesla Siemens Prisma MRI system.

Presentations throughout the day included an in-depth discussion of high-performance-low-field (HPLF) MRI at USC by workshop co-organizer Krishna Nayak, PhD, a professor of electrical engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering with joint appointments in radiology and biomedical engineering. Other topics, including clinical and research applications of UHF MRI, vascular imaging with UHF MRI, UHF coil developments, cardiac intervention and lung imaging with HPLF MRI, and more were also featured.

The event was sponsored by the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging Resource, the Center for Image Acquisition, and Siemens Healthineers.

Many adult children are painfully seeing their parents experience cognitive decline and symptoms of dementia. What if virtual reality, or VR, can help prevent or delay the onset of cognitive decline?

Dr. Liew partnered with children's media company GoldieBlox for their new YouTube series, Fast Forward Girls.

Meredith Braskie, PhD, assistant professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has been named director of education for the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) effective Aug. 1.

A massive new dataset of RNA sequencing data is now included in the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), a database which involves collecting clinical, biological, and imaging data from 1400 individuals over at least 5 years.

The Southern California (SoCal) High Low (Hi-Lo) Field Workshop is an annual workshop that will help researchers maximize the unique resources and research programs on the ultra-high-field (UHF) 7T Terra system at the Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute and the high performance low field (HPLF) ~0.5T system at the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The goal is to engage the research and clinical imaging communities of Southern California, build a user base and stimulate new ideas.

A team of experts at the INI, in collaboration with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), has just added a crucial new element – RNA sequencing data — to its robust study of Parkinson’s disease.

One of LONI's animations was featured on the NIH Director's blog on August 20.

On July 1, Vishal Patel, MD, PhD, joined the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC as an assistant professor of radiology.

Scientists are becoming more nuanced in how they use amyloid scans—not just to detect the presence of Alzheimer’s pathology, but also to pinpoint disease stage.

INI's Sook-Lew Liew is showing young women what's possible in STEM.

On July 1, Vishal Patel, MD, PhD, joined the INI as an assistant professor of radiology. Patel, who earned his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering, completed a residency in diagnostic radiology at the University of California, Los Angeles and a fellowship in neuroradiology at USC.

Patel’s research interests include MRI, diffusion imaging, tractography and machine learning. At the INI, he plans to apply his knowledge of computational MRI and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve diagnostic techniques for neuroradiologists.

“The goal is to establish USC, and in particular the INI, as a site where AI methods and techniques are developed, validated and made available for use to the greater neuroimaging community, including both researchers and clinicians,” Patel says.

AI holds promise for a number of clinical challenges. For instance, an MRI scanner may register images of very small brain lesions that the naked eye cannot detect, but researchers like Patel can build software that identifies subtle abnormalities present in the underlying imaging data. Ultimately, this technology can be used to detect tumors and classify them by cell-type and pathological grade, providing a precise and non-invasive way to diagnose brain cancer.

Patel’s research at USC will build on his previous work applying machine learning concepts to tumor identification and other clinical challenges. But now, he has a powerful new tool: the INI’s ultra-high field 7Tesla MRI scanner, which received FDA approval for clinical scanning last fall.

“The INI is proud to welcome Vishal to our team,” says Arthur W. Toga, PhD, provost professor at USC and director of the INI and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI). “Applying his expertise in neuroradiology to our high-end clinical imaging system will undoubtedly lead to meaningful new discoveries.”

Toga and Patel have collaborated in the past and look forward to resuming their research together on a new clinical imaging study of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

“LONI was a phenomenal place during my graduate training and it continues to become more and more impressive, especially with the addition of clinical high-field imaging capabilities,” says Patel. “I’m excited to come on board and get to work in what I know to be an excellent environment for research.”

Understanding the brain structure of transgender people could help tailor care and support, says recent USC grad and neuroscientist Jonathan Vanhoecke.

USC research into Alzheimer’s — which will be on display at the upcoming Alzheimer’s Association International Conference — has uncovered much about the disease, including establishing a link between cardiovascular health and a fully functioning brain.

Check out this video of microstructure and connectivity in the brain, created by LONI's Jim Stanis using data collected by Ryan Cabeen and Arthur W. Toga.

The interdisciplinary endeavor aims to establish USC as a world leader in the use of virtual technologies for healthcare.

Shaina Sta. Cruz, a student researcher at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, authored her first publication in the journal Neuroinformatics.

Spotlight on Jonathan Vanhoecke, Keck School of Medicine of USC

Spotlight on Elizabeth Haddad, Keck School of Medicine of USC

This spring, researchers at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute have published new studies exploring Alzheimer’s disease, connectivity in the mammalian brain and new noninvasive imaging techniques.

LONI's medical animator, Jim Stanis, won second place in the NIH BRAIN Initiative's 2019 video contest! His animation depicts 3D diffusion tractography, a modeling technique that maps connections in the brain.

Watch the winning video here.

Read more about the other contest winners here.

After months of hard work, dozens of students from Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School presented their original research projects at the annual Bravo-USC Science and Engineering Fair on March 4 to a panel of judges from USC, UCLA and other institutions.

INI master's student and radiation oncology specialist Faisal Rashid recently became the LAPD’s first Bangladeshi sworn officer through its reserve program

The blood brain barrier lines the vessels of the circulatory system in the brain, preventing harmful substances from crossing. This animation explains the blood brain barrier’s anatomy at a micro level—and what happens when it starts to break down.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZCfTCF4ABo

Watch the video

The INI is home to an interdisciplinary group of researchers, programmers and visualization specialists capable of producing sophisticated scientific visualizations. Videos like these help researchers better comprehend and communicate complex biological processes.

Faisal Rashid, a student in the INI’s Neuroimaging and Informatics master’s program, was sworn into the Los Angeles Police Department on January 4 as a reserve officer after nearly two years of interviews, background investigations, polygraph tests, extensive training, and medical, physical fitness and psychological examinations.

Rashid was inspired to join the academy while working as a project assistant in the lab of Paul Thompson, PhD, INI’s associate director. After studying how addiction, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions affect brain health, Rashid says he began to understand how such issues contribute to crime and homelessness.

“Law enforcement officers are typically first responders to emergencies that involve individuals with mental health problems, trauma, or troubled adolescents. Sometimes, the right interaction with the right people can change the trajectory of someone’s life for the better," Rashid says, adding that it’s always been a priority for him to give back to Los Angeles, where he was born and raised.

He is currently assigned to the LAPD's Counter Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau. Moving forward, he hopes to study the relationship between mental health, trauma in childhood and adolescence, and crime.

USC researchers found “hidden factors” in medical data that could improve Alzheimer’s disease prediction and lead to better outcomes.

Leaky blood vessels in the brain may be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, researchers say.

Brain changes associated with leaky capillaries suggest new, potential drug targets as well as a way to diagnose the disease sooner.

The ENIGMA Consortium's new international initiative aims to better understand variables that affect brain aging and progression to dementia in diverse settings.

INI's recent Nature Neuroscience hippocampus study is featured on the NIH Director's Blog.

On December 14, INI held its holiday party and 2^nd annual Winter Games competition. While faculty and staff enjoyed festive food, treats and cocktails, six teams entered in a fierce battle for first place in the highly anticipated Games.

Event One was a Pseudoscience Fair, in which teams created scientific posters to prove unscientific concepts, including birthday astrology, phrenology and crystal healing. Some teams conducted live “experiments” or used sweets, props and pandering to win over the judges.

Event Two required each team member to taste and name one of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (a mainstay of the Harry Potter universe). Participants correctly identitifed a range of bean flavors, including everything from candyfloss and cinnamon to soap, earwax and vomit.

For Event Three, each team used a variety of building materials (including tinker toys, pipe cleaners, egg cartons and cardboard) to construct a scene related to the institute. Several teams crafted versions of the INI’s 7T MRI scanner. Teams also earned bonus points for wearing nametags adorned with photos of themselves dating back more than 10 years.

The judges deliberated carefully and ultimately named Carinna, Avnish, Jeana, Zach and Kaelan winners for their superb presentation on “The Effects of Phrenology on Collaborative Efforts in a Neuroscience Environment” and their outstanding jelly-bean tasting and construction skills.

ASPIRE, the Alzheimer's Association philanthropy magazine, featured our Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network (GAAIN) and its PI, Arthur W. Toga. The network facilitates data exploration and discovery for Alzheimer's and aging researchers while allowing data owners to maintain control over their material. Read the text of the article below.

Paul M. Thompson, the associate director of INI, has been named one of Clarivate Analytics' 2018 Highly Cited Researchers.

Not long after moving to southern California to start his postdoc with Hongwei Dong, Mike Bienkowski found himself at a meeting listening to neuroscientists debate the divisions of the hippocampus.

Currently, three institutions in the U.S. have begun using 7-tesla magnets for clinical applications, but mostly for neurological and musculoskeletal conditions. The challenge now is showing how much more 7-tesla MRI can contribute to patient care.

Paul Thompson and his team just launched the ENIGMA World Aging Center, which will use the consortium’s network and a $682,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging to perform a global study of brain aging. The collaboration will help pinpoint the factors that contribute to healthy aging versus those that increase our risk for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

On October 24, the ultra-high-field 7T Terra magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) of the Keck School of Medicine of USC received FDA approval for clinical use, opening up new avenues of care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and other diseases that affect the brain.

Now, the first neuronal-connectivity study to zoom in to the cellular level reports that the mouse hippocampus can in fact be divided into 22 discrete subregions. To find them, researchers led by Michael Bienkowski and Hong-Wei Dong at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, compared gene expression and connectivity cell by cell.

The Virtual Brain Segmenter (VBS), a virtual reality tool for processing brain scan images, has been named a finalist for the 2018 Auggie Breakthrough Awards, which honor innovative academic-industry collaborations in virtual and augmented reality.

VBS was developed by INI’s Dominique Duncan, PhD, Tyler Ard, PhD, Arthur W. Toga, PhD and the industry group RareFaction Interactive to transform a tedious step in the scientific process into an immersive experience. After collecting MRI data, researchers typically correct errors in scan images by hand, but VBS allows them to speed up the process with a VR headset, joystick and larger-than-life images of the brain.

In an experimental trial, published in the Journal of Digital Imaging in July, participants finished a correction task 68 seconds faster using VBS compared with the traditional method, a highly significant time savings considering the task rarely took more than three minutes to complete.

Now, Dr. Duncan is traveling in Munich, Germany to represent INI at the Auggie Breakthrough Awards ceremony, where winners will be chosen in several categories, including Most Innovative Breakthrough, Most Impactful Breakthrough and Best in Show. Fellow finalists include representatives from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford, the Mayo Clinic and international collaborators from Finland, Australia and beyond. Projects span the health sciences, communications, education, resource management and gaming.

Read more about the finalists in the official press release

Learn more about VBS from USC News

Researchers show structures, nerve connections and functions in vivid detail as part of the most detailed atlas yet of a person’s memory ban

Peer support group started by students for students lifts those who want a conversation with someone their own age.

In fiscal year 2017-2018, the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC received more than $30.5 million in active research funding.

A new preprint called “A systematic bias in DTI findings” could prove worrying for many neuroscientists. In the article, authors Farshid Sepehrband and colleagues of the University of Southern California argue that commonly-used measures of the brain’s white matter integrity may be flawed.

Earlier this month, six undergraduate students from California State University, Fullerton presented their summer research results to a room full of neuroscientists at the Mary and Mark Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI). The collaboration is part of CSUF’s Big Data Discovery and Diversity through Research Education Advancement and Partnerships (BD3 REAP) program, which trains underrepresented students in big data science.

“The program exposes these young investigators to what modern science is about these days, which is the collection of ever larger data sets,” said Jack Van Horn, INI’s director of education and leader of the collaboration. “They’re learning about the challenges of big data, and how they can manage, model, and understand it.”

Building on several semesters studying data science and analytics at CSUF, each student selected a big data neuroimaging project to pursue this summer with the guidance of INI faculty members and postdoctoral researchers. 

For their presentations, the students covered methods, results and next steps. Each created a slideshow and was encouraged to delve into the technical aspects of research performed. Focus areas included the Epilepsy Bioinformatics Study for Antiepileptogenic Therapy (EpiBioS4Rx), using gene expression to build an atlas of the hippocampus and the link between functional brain connectivity and familial Alzheimer’s disease.

The students received mentorship from INI faculty, including program director Jack Van Horn, Kay Jann, Tyler Ard, Dominique Duncan, Lirong Yan and Meredith Braskie.

“This has been a great opportunity for INI to expand its commitment to training the next generation of leaders,” said Arthur W. Toga, provost professor at USC and director of INI. “We were impressed by the students’ work and look forward to continuing our outreach efforts with CSU Fullerton.”

Above, the CSU Fullerton students and their INI mentors.

Two-thirds of AD patients are women, leading to the commonly held assumption that women run a higher risk of dementia. In Chicago, Arthur Toga of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, challenged that view with data gleaned from a meta-analysis of 58,000 participants in 27 AD studies.

USC offers numerous institutional training opportunities for postdocs, including parallel lines of research on aging and Alzheimer’s disease. But the new project, “Training for the Multiscale and Multimodal Analysis of Biomarkers in Alzheimer’s Disease,” differs from a traditional postdoctoral fellowship in its highly collaborative nature and its emphasis on both the informatics behind Alzheimer’s research and the use of multiple methodologies to study the disease.

The Virtual Brain Segmenter turns a tedious step in the scientific process into an immersive experience

Ryan Cabeen, postdoctoral scholar at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, has won the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging's 2018 VoTEM challenge for 3-D tractography.

Cabeen's winning visualization, shown above, depicts neural connectivity in the squirrel monkey and macaque. His work helps reconstruct fiber bundles, a challenge of diffusion MRI, in both phantoms and brain tissue. Below, Cabeen with one of the coolest trophies we've ever seen.

For more information about the VoTEM challenge, visit my.vanderbilt.edu/votem

A new virtual-reality (VR) software to correct segmentation errors on MRI scans was found to be faster, more accurate and enjoyable compared to a more commonly used system, report authors of a recent Journal of Digital Imaging study.

The Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute’s research will let clinicians evaluate the effectiveness of cell-based therapies used to treat various cancers Additional coverage for this study can be found at Health Imaging: https://www.healthimaging.com/topics/molecular-imaging/mri-enhances-cells-determine-effectiveness-therapy

One of the largest-ever brain morphometry studies of autism, led by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis autism spectrum disorders working group (ENIGMA-ASD), was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in April.

Most 8-year olds care more about toys and video games than neuropsychology — but not Joy Stradford. She often went to work with her mother, a special education teacher in New Jersey, and was both concerned for and intrigued by the disabled children she met.

For years, the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) has been a key contributor to the Autism Center for Excellence (ACE) Network, which aims to advance autism research by studying brain structure and aggregating and sharing data. Jack Van Horn, associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, directs ACE’s coordinating center.

Van Horn, along with INI’s Zachary Jacokes and Carinna Torgerson and Andrei Irimia of the USC Davis School of Gerontology, recently published an MRI study of the disorder in Nature Scientific Reports. The researchers studied brain structures of autism patients versus healthy individuals, comparing males and females; they found that sex differences in ASD appear to be linked to differences in white matter, specifically in parts of the temporal and parietal lobes. The results are an important step toward understanding why ASD is almost four times more common in boys than girls.

Now, INI researchers are also one step closer to understanding how autism affects the human brain across the lifespan. This month, one of the largest-ever brain morphometry studies of autism, led by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis autism spectrum disorders working group (ENIGMA-ASD), was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

INI’s Paul M. Thompson, director of the Imaging Genetics Center and principal investigator of ENIGMA, and Neda Jahanshad, assistant professor of neurology, contributed to the study.

“Autism is hard to treat because we lack a deep understanding of how children with autism develop differently, and how best to nurture their brain development,” said Thompson. 

“With our global alliance—now studying thousands of children across the world—we are starting to see distinctive brain features in children with autism, and learn how the brain adapts throughout life; we are beginning to have the power to rigorously test and verify factors that may be beneficial for different children.”

The study analyzed MRI scans to identify differences in cortical and subcortical structures between 1,571 patients with ASD and 1,651 healthy controls. Participants from 49 different imaging centers, aged 2 to 64, were included in the analysis. Researchers examined differences in subcortical volumes, cortical thickness and surface area.

ASD subjects had smaller volumes in several brain structures, including the pallidum, putamen, amygdala and nucleus accumbens; they also had decreased cortical thickness in the temporal cortex and increased thickness in the frontal cortex. Cortical development appeared to be most impacted during adolescence, when large differences in thickness were observed. The analysis has led to the first definitive maps of the affected brain regions.

The ENIGMA consortium performs some of the largest neuroimaging studies of rare genetic diseases and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, focusing on the interaction between brain health and genetics. The group currently investigates 22 diseases, with researchers in 37 countries analyzing data from more than 53,000 subjects.

A large number of people taking medications for Alzheimer's actually might not have the disease, according to early evidence from a study presented Wednesday. But detection may become easier if an experimental blood test ultimately proves accurate, said another report released on the same day.

Elegant visualizations of neuroscience data and phenomena are meant to help researchers better understand the brain, but these eye-catching images also have artistic value. This quarter, two of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute’s (INI) visualization specialists, Jim Stanis and Tyler Ard, contributed images to an on-campus exhibition, Neurological System Art.

Stanis, INI’s in-house medical and scientific animator, created “Synaptogenesis,” an image that shows neurons in the brain forming new connections: axons of each neuron grow to synapse with the dendritic spines on the dendrites of other neurons. Stanis used 3DS Max—an animation software package originally built to create visual effects for TV and film—to create 3D models of neurons and to animate the growth of dendrites and axons.

Ard, assistant professor of research at INI, created “Connected Self” using data from fellow INI assistant professor Yonggang Shi. The image shows two different MRI scans of the same subject, highlighting the axons that connect various parts of the brain to one another. Connectivity was measured with a technique called diffusion MRI tractography; different colors represent the orientation of axons in the brain.

Their work appears alongside two featured artists: J. Frederic May and Jane Szabo. In 2012, May suffered a severe stroke during open heart surgery, leaving him legally blind and experiencing visual hallucinations. He uses a data corruption software to create blurry and fragmented images that simulate his visual experience. Szabo has prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and explores self-portraiture and identity through her work. She received her MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

The exhibit is currently on display at the Hoyt Gallery in the Keith Administration Building (KAM).

Keck School of Medicine of USC surgeon and radiologist team up to test a new ultrahigh field imaging technology

USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) researchers have used machine learning to determine key sex differences in Magnetic Resonance Imaging data in a new study published online ahead of print in NeuroImage. Part of INI's Big Data for Discovery Science initiative, the study analyzed brain scans of more than 1500 healthy youths.

Researchers found that cortical thickness in two areas of the brain-the middle occipital lobes and the angular gyri-are major predictors of sex. Specifically, females demonstrate significantly thicker gray matter in these areas when multiple regions were included in the sex difference model. The team also developed a statistical learning model that accurately predicted sex based on brain morphology in more than 80 percent of participants.

"If we can establish a better understanding of sex differences in the brain, we'll be one step closer to personalized medicine," says Farshid Sepehrband, PhD, project specialist at INI and lead author of the paper. "Once we have a baseline of neuroanatomical sex differences, we can start to explore how and why some diseases-for example, autism-manifest differently in boys and girls." Understanding the anatomic differences between male and female brains could help doctors better diagnose and treat autism in the future.

The study was a collaborative effort among USC researchers, including INI's Sepehrband, Kirsten Lynch, Ryan Cabeen, Lu Zhao, Kristi Clark and Arthur W. Toga. USC faculty from the Viterbi School of Engineering's Information Sciences Institute and the Keck School of Medicine of USC's departments of pediatrics and preventive medicine also contributed to the research, along with Ivo Dinov, PhD, of the University of Michigan.

The code from the study is open-source and public via Github, where users can generate the same figures published in the paper. Sepehrband also used Plotly to generate an interactive plot of the results: hover over each plot point to see the sex difference statistics.

Manuscript: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.01.065

Source codes (Github):https://github.com/sepehrband/Mining_NeuroAnat

Interactive plot (Plotly): https://plot.ly/~sepehrband/50/neuroanatomy-of-sex-difference/

On Feb. 3, local teens converged on USC’s Health Sciences Campus for the Los Angeles Brain Bee, a day of exploration, networking and competition.

Judy Pa of Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI)  at Keck Medicine of USC  and Skip Rizzo of USC Institute for Creative Technologies went LIVE on February 27 to discuss the use of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to rewire our brains so we can stay healthy.

Brain scans from stroke patients are being downloaded by researchers around the world to predict the most efficient therapies

Consortium looks at biological factors that can predict health outcomes as part of a five-year study

Thousands of brain scans are studied to better understand patterns of differences in one of the largest imaging studies to date

The ENIGMA consortium was featured in Science Magazine, including the recent work of Paul Thompson, Chris Whelan and Sanjay Sisodiya. The latest study has identified key structural similarities across all major types of epilepsy, and is already starting to change how researchers think about the disorder.

Science Magazine article: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/world-s-largest-set-brain-scans-are-helping-reveal-workings-mind-and-how-diseases

USC News article: http://hscnews.usc.edu/study-all-major-types-of-epilepsy-found-to-share-structural-patterns-in-the-brain/

Paul Thompson, PhD, associate director of INI, has received a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) for his work on sex disparities in mental health.

LONI was featured in a two-part episode about how researchers are using data science to study the brain. The series covers the latest updates in data collection, brain imaging, LONI Pipeline, artificial intelligence and current challenges in the field. Hear from Director Arthur W. Toga, Professor Meng Law, and researchers Farshid Sepehrband and Ryan Cabeen.

https://dataskeptic.com/blog/episodes/2018/neuroimaging-and-big-data

Tyler Ard has created a new visualization tool, Neuro Imaging in Virtual Reality, that enables researchers to interact with large neuroimaging data sets in a new way. The intuitive software enables users to view, segment, and even virtually dissect the brain. Ard's presentation at the 2017 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting was featured in Spectrum.

The National Institutes of Health-funded research at several departments will use existing data to explore the issue

Arthur W. Toga joins other researchers on the five-year study backed by a $12 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers at the USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute will process 4,000 brain scans during the study.

On October 15, CNET highlighted Dr. Sook-Lei Liew's Rehabilitation Environment using the Integration of Neuromuscular-based Virtual Enhancements for Neural Training (REINVENT), which is used to treat patients who have suffered severe strokes. The brain-computer interface uses virtual reality to promote brain plasticity.

On Aug. 29, Medical News Today spotlighted a study by Scott Neu, PhD, assistant professor of research neurology, Arthur Toga, PhD, Provost Professor of ophthalmology, neurology, psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, radiology and engineering and Ghada Irani Chair in Neuroscience, and Judy Pa, PhD, assistant professor of neurology, that found that women with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's disease have a higher risk of developing the disease between ages 65 and 75 than men.

On Aug. 28, HealthDay spotlighted a study by Scott Neu, PhD, assistant professor of research neurology, Arthur Toga, PhD, Provost Professor of ophthalmology, neurology, psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, radiology and engineering and Ghada Irani Chair in Neuroscience, and Judy Pa, PhD, assistant professor of neurology, that found that women with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's disease have a higher risk of developing the disease between ages 65 and 75 than men.

A new Alzheimer's disease study examines how cognitive and physical activity can help brains stay healthy.

Arthur Toga saw the disease ravage his family, so he's worked to transform what scientists know and think about the memory-erasing illness that affects 1 in 3 seniors.

An international network of neurologists, geneticists and researchers led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC is cracking the human genetic code so that one day people could check their "brain health" in the same way they screen their cholesterol level.

The human brain contains distinct geographic regions that communicate throughout the day to process information, such as remembering a neighbor’s name or deciding which road to take to work. Key to such processing is a vast network of densely bundled nerve fibers called tracts. It’s estimated that there are thousands of these tracts, and, because the human brain is so tightly packed with cells, they often travel winding, contorted paths to form their critical connections. That situation has previously been difficult for researchers to image three-dimensional tracts in the brain of a living person.

On Thursday, the University of Southern California opened the doors to its newest hub of research, the Stevens Hall for Neuroimaging. This state of the art center hopes to foster collaboration between neuroscientists around the world.

ABC News Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV quoted Bradley Williams of the USC School of Pharmacy and Arthur Toga of Keck Medicine of USC about a recent pharmaceutical development in treating Alzheimer's disease.

The human brain is the most complex computational device in the known universe (for now). It's so powerful that it has managed to design its greatest rival--the supercomputer.

The USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute has received a $21.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to study epilepsy, a condition that is currently incurable.

Whether or not brain size matters is a question that has received only tentative and highly qualified answers. Hoping to be more definite, an international team of scientists addressed the question again, but this time they did so while ensuring their study had something previous studies lacked—size.

In the world's largest MRI study on brain size to date, USC researchers and their international colleagues identified seven genetic hotspots that regulate brain growth, memory and reasoning as well as influence the onset of Parkinson's disease.

Medical Theory has come up a long way to curing people from several diseases. With the help of numerous researches and theories, the hypothesis of medical is kept on being more fruitful over time. However, all the studies and tests haven’t yet discovered all the conditions related to psychiatric and neurological issues. The issues of psychiatric and neurological imply to the mental health problems which can top a cluster of disorders, including mental, personality, behaviour, and social interactions. Like physical disorders, psychiatric and neurological issues are a little bit tricky to diagnose precisely, and hence overwhelmed the treatment and healing methods.

Electrifying brain circuits could treat neurological and psychiatric symptoms not because it causes neurons to fire but it creates an environment that makes it more or less likely for neurons to fire, researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have found.

Rather than taking medication, a growing number of people who suffer from chronic pain, epilepsy and drug cravings are zapping their skulls in the hopes that a weak electric current will jolt them back to health. Here's the issue: Until now, scientists have been unable to look under the hood of this DIY therapeutic technique to understand what is happening.

Once a year, the world, politicians and citizens, alike, acknowledge the impact of Alzheimer's disease and the toll it takes on populations worldwide. On this World Alzheimer's day, the thought of ourselves, our families, our collective memories lost to this neurodegenerative disease, are recognized.

Professor Paul Thompson, of Imaging Genetics Center Lab, University of Southern California in Los Angeles, was second speaker of the second day. He is the head of "ENIGMA" and provided information about the project; "ENIGMA" helps our understanding of structure, functions, and brain diseases through data from brain mapping and genetics; three company contribute to the project and so far, more than 50,000 people from 35 countries have participated; the project is in fact convergence of the brain mapping community to establish one of the greatest data bank in the history of science. The ultimate objective is to decode the genetics of the brain,” he told the congress.

More here:

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/119830/Enigma-brings-Iran-major-international-project

New data on an uncharted dark spot of the mouse brain map reveals how connections between brain cells form networks responsible for movement and motor learning — tasks that go awry in conditions such as Huntington’s disease.

New brain map could enable novel therapies for autism,Huntington's disease

The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) received its new research-dedicated Siemens Magnetom 3T Prisma MRI scanner March 21, bringing industry-leading brain imaging technology to USC’s Health Sciences Campus.

The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute will bring together scientists from around the world to further understanding of the brain. Longtime benefactors Mark and Mary Stevens’ $50 million gift will accelerate the institute’s already dramatic progress toward mapping the healthy brain and illuminating neurologic diseases such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.

What would we be able to see, Toga pondered, if we could use computer-enabled imaging to view how the brain works? Toga has devoted his career to answering that question. As director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, he has built one of the largest data collections of human brain images in the world. By combining the power of computer science with the study of brain science, his team at the institute—which comprises researchers across disciplines like neuroscience, physics, engineering and math—can map brain image data in an unprecedented way.

The nation's first Training Coordination Center aims to spot trends among enormous amounts of data.

Seeking to strengthen partnerships between two of USC’s oldest schools, scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences recently gathered to discuss new research and areas for future collaboration.

To the untrained eye, it looked like a seismograph recording of a violent earthquake or the gyrations of a very volatile day on Wall Street — jagged peaks and valleys in red, blue and green, displayed on a wall. But the story it told was not about geology or economics.

A USC project to visualize and analyze connectivity networks in the mouse brain is among 15 new awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) tied to the development of biomedical Big Data applications.

Congratulations to Dr. Hongwei Dong and his team for winning 1 of only 4 BD2K Targeted Software Development awards in the field of Data Visualization.

The gift will streamline the translation of basic research into new therapies for brain injury and disease.

A Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is a USC alumnus and his wife are donating $50 million to a USC brain research institute in hopes of treating such disorders as Alzheimer’s disease, autism and traumatic brain injuries, university officials announced..

Professor Hong-Wei Dong leads a team working on an ambitious NIH-funded Mouse Connectome Project at the USC Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics, Keck School of Medicine of USC. The first major milestone research paper entitled, Neural Networks of the Mouse Neocortex, was published in Cell on Feb, 2014 (Zingg et al., 2014, Cell, 156). This article was selected as one of the Top 10 research articles in Cell: Best of 2014. This paper is also on the full historical "40 years of Cell" time line as one of the only two landmark papers of 2014 (http://www.cell.com/40/timeline). More information on the Mouse Connectome Project can be found at http://www.mouseconnectome.org/.

In a rare distinction for one university, neuroimaging world leaders and USC Professors Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will receive two major research center awards to advance their exploration of the human brain.

Calling the world's wealth of health data a formidable "engine of discovery," the National Institutes of Health on Thursday awarded $32 million in grants in a bid to make huge biomedical data sets accessible to researchers the world over.

Dr. John Van Horn is quoted in this article: The new study has "direct relevance to our outstanding of major brain disorders", says neuroscientist John Van Horn of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Researchers at the University of Southern California are painstakingly mapping the mouse brain, a project with significant implications for understanding how structures in the human brain communicate and how disruptions in their interactions may affect the development of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.

On Sept. 13, 1848, at around 4:30 p.m., the time of day when the mind might start wandering, a railroad foreman named Phineas Gage filled a drill hole with gunpowder and turned his head to check on his men. It was the last normal moment of his life.

Our (temporary) data center won the 2014 Electrical Excellence Award sponsored by the Los Angeles County Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Congrats to the engineers and contractors on this amazing project.

Glowing new images of the mouse brain represent the most comprehensive mapping yet of the mammalian cortex.

A February 20 story on the MIND Guest Blog featured a comprehensive "roadmap" of the brain's neural connections developed by John Darrell Van Horn, PhD.

The journal article entitled "The hubs of the human connectome are generally implicated in the anatomy of brain disorders" was published in Brain on June 19, 2014. A summary of resulting news coverage is listed below.

Scientific American MIND, May 10th, 2014 Issue (interviewed)

National Geographic, May 10th, 2014 (interviewed)

Science News, May 12th, 2014 (interviewed)

USC Annenberg News, May 12th, 2014

iOp.com, May 11th, 2014

Science Daily, February 11, 2014

Article featured on the Frontiersin.org website, February 14th, 2014

FastCoDesign.com highlights the progress of the Human Connectome Project in an article entitled "8 Mind-Blowing Images Of The Brain At Work."