CAREER: Brain Electric Source Imaging

9875344HeBrain活动在大脑的三维空间分布，并随着时间的推移而演变。最近医学成像技术的进步，如功能磁共振成像，极大地提高了我们以高空间分辨率成像大脑功能的能力。然而，目前还没有一种单一的脑成像技术能够同时提供近毫米精度的激活组织区域定位和亚秒级的时间精度来表征激活模式随时间的变化。虽然脑电提供了极好的时间分辨率来表征快速变化的大脑活动模式，但传统的脑电技术由于无法提供关于大脑活动的空间信息而受到限制。因此，开发能够对脑活动进行高时空分辨率非侵入性成像的技术具有重要意义。为职业生涯规划提出了一个连贯的研究和教学计划。研究的重点是开发脑电源成像(BESI)方法，以实现人脑的高分辨率时空映射。BESI方法学的成功发展将极大地推动生物医学工程领域的发展，并对神经学和神经外科领域产生重要影响。为了实现拟议的研究目标，将致力于以下目标：(1)边界元素头部建模-开发工程方法以将真实形状的非均匀头部中的皮质电位与头皮电位联系起来，(2)脑源图像重建-开发从头皮电位重建皮质电位并在现实环境中确定最佳系统参数的成像算法，(3)实验验证-在现实的头部模型中对提出的BESI方法进行实验验证，以及(4)初始临床测试-根据癫痫患者的术中皮质记录初步测试所提出的BESI方法。与BESI研究紧密联系的创新教学计划，计划包括：(1)发展两门新课程(A)“神经工程”(研究生课程)，及(B)“神经工程导论”(高级/研究生课程)，(2)开发网上神经工程课件，以促进有效教学和远程学习，以及(3)启动和发展神经工程新课程。

9875344HeBrain activity is spatially distributed in three dimensions of the brain and evolves with time. Recent advances in medical imaging technology, such as functional MRI, have greatly increased our ability to image brain functions with high spatial resolution. However, no single brain imaging technology is currently capable of providing both near millimeter precision in localizing regions of activated tissues and sub-second temporal precision for characterizing changes in patterns of activation over time. While electroencephalograms offer excellent temporal resolution to characterize rapidly changing patterns of brain activation, conventional EEG techniques are limited due to their inability to provide spatial information regarding brain activity. Thus, it is of great importance to develop technologies, which can non-invasively image brain activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. A coherent research and teaching plan is proposed for the CAREER program. The focus of the research is to develop Brain Electric Source Imaging (BESI) methodologies to achieve high-resolution spatio-temporal mapping of the human brain. The successful development of BESI methodologies will significantly advance the state-of-the-art in the field of biomedical engineering, and have an important impact on the fields of neurology and neurosurgery. In order to achieve the proposed research objectives, the following aims will be addressed: (1) Boundary Element Head Modeling - to develop engineering methods to link the cortical potential with the scalp potential in a realistically shaped inhomogeneous head, (2) Brain Source Image Reconstruction - to develop imaging algorithms reconstructing cortical potentials from scalp potentials and determine optimal system parameters in a realistic setting, (3) Experimental Validation - to validate experimentally the proposed BESI methods in a realistic head phantom, and (4) Initial Clinical Testing - to initially test the proposed BESI methodologies from intraoperative cortical recordings in epilepsy patients.An innovative teaching plan, tightly linked with the BESI research, will include: (1) development of two new courses (a) "Neural Engineering" (Graduate course), and (b) "Introduction to Neural Engineering" (Senior/Graduate course), (2) development of internet-based neural engineering courseware facilitating effective teaching and distance learning, and (3) initiation and development of a new curriculum in Neural Engineering.