The Neurodevelopmental Project at CIBSR

The aims of the Neurodevelopmental project at CIBSR are to:

• Better understand the neuroanatomy and neurofunction associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.
  
• Better characterize cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development from birth through adulthood.

Our research uniquely combines functional brain imaging with high-resolution structural imaging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to better describe the neurodevelopmental process. One major project in process is our study of white matter development in healthy subjects by DTI.

Structural Imaging

In the structural imaging laboratory, we are attempting to characterize structural aspects of normal brain development. For example, normal brain development during childhood is a complex and dynamic process for which detailed scientific information is lacking. MRI techniques, combined with methods for advanced image analysis, offer the potential to begin to construct a quantitative map of normal paediatric brain development in viv. One such study examines brain development and IQ in children and adolescents (Reiss et al: Brain 1996).

Functional Imaging

In the functional imaging laboratory we are trying to learn more about the involvement of different brain regions in perceptual, cognitive and social processes.

We are currently exploring tasks involving:

• Attention and Impulse Control
• Cognitive Interference
• Visual Memory (encoding and retrieval)
• Visuo-spatial Working Memory
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Language Comprehension and Production
• Social Anxiety

These studies will inform us about which brain regions show activation differences across development, how brain activation changes with subjects' ability to perform the task, under what specific conditions their performance begins to fail and what brain regions are involved in these failures.

Neuropsychological assessments are used as additional measures to characterize and differentiate typically-developing children from specific patient groups

Studies of Functional Imaging

• Functional connectivity in the resting brain: A network analysis of the default mode hypothesis
  
  
• Regional analysis of hippocampal activation during encoding and retrieval: An fMRI study.
  
  
• fMRI Study of Development in Stroop Color-Word Task.
  
  
• Neural Basis of Protracted Developmental Changes in Visuo-Spatial Working Memory.
  
  
• Error-related Brain Activation During Go-NoGo Response Inhibition Task.
  
  
• Maturation of Brain Activation in Response Inhibition.
  
  
• Analysis of Distributed Neural System Involved in Spatial Information, Novelty, and Memory.
  
  
• Prefrontal Cortex Involvement in Processing Incorrect Arithmetic Equations.
  
  
• Relating Semantic and Episodic Memory Systems.

Studies

Publications

Participating