MRI: Acquisition of a high-density EEG/TCS device for the observation and modulation of brain activity

MRI：获取高密度 EEG/TCS 设备用于观察和调节大脑活动

• 批准号: 1530930
• 负责人: Bart Krekelberg
• 金额: $ 20.88万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University Newark
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1530930&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; density; EEG; TCS

Brains influence who people are; how people see, hear, and smell, how they move, touch, and talk, how they remember and forget, how they feel, expect, and plan. Understanding how the brain, with all its neurons and interconnections, generates complex behavior is a tremendous scientific challenge and modern technology is indispensable in this endeavor. This project will make a new state-of-the-art instrument available at Rutgers University - Newark. The instrument allows brain researchers to not only measure brain activity in humans with unsurpassed spatio-temporal fidelity, but also modulate that activity by passing small electrical currents through the scalp. The instrument will be used by a broad range of researchers, and offer training opportunities to students across departments of Psychology, Biomedical Engineering, and Neuroscience, and at all levels; ranging from high-school summer interns to postgraduate research fellows. The impact of this training is expected to be particularly broad at Rutgers University - Newark due to its exceptionally diverse student body and the large number of programs focused on increasing the participation of underrepresented minorities.The new instrument can record and modulate electrical brain activity inside a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Its 256 small electrodes have the capability to perform high-density electroencephalography as well as high-density transcranial current stimulation. This addresses three shortcomings of standard approaches in cognitive brain research. First, the instrument will complement the slow, but spatially precise recording of brain activity based on functional imaging with the simultaneous measurement of rapidly changing electrical activity. This will allow researchers to study the fundamental physiology of perception, thought, and action in humans. Second, the instrument can modulate brain activity in a safe and noninvasive manner. This creates a powerful research paradigm to investigate the causal role of brain areas. Third, the new instrument will help build bridges between animal and human neuroscience approaches by obtaining experimental data noninvasively in humans that can be compared more directly with those obtained in animals. Specific new projects will focus on improving perception using transcranial stimulation, the role of oscillations in memory formation and sleep, the interaction among prefrontal and striatal areas in reward processing, and the rapid neural control of the heart, to name just a few. The transformative aspect of the research enabled by this device is the combination of high spatial and temporal resolution brain imaging and the focus on active manipulations of brain activity that allow researchers to move beyond correlation and towards a causal understanding of brain function.

大脑影响着人们是谁;人们如何看到，听到，闻到，他们如何移动，触摸和说话，他们如何记住和忘记，他们如何感受，期望和计划。了解大脑及其所有神经元和相互连接如何产生复杂的行为是一项巨大的科学挑战，现代技术在这一奋进中不可或缺。该项目将在罗格斯大学-纽瓦克提供一种新的最先进的仪器。该仪器使大脑研究人员不仅能够以无与伦比的时空保真度测量人类的大脑活动，而且还可以通过使小电流通过头皮来调节这种活动。 该仪器将被广泛的研究人员使用，并为心理学，生物医学工程和神经科学各部门的学生提供培训机会，以及各级;从高中暑期实习生到研究生研究员。罗格斯大学-纽瓦克分校的学生群体极其多样化，而且有大量项目致力于提高代表性不足的少数族裔的参与度，因此预计这种培训的影响将特别广泛。新仪器可以在磁共振成像扫描仪内记录和调节脑电活动。它的256个小电极能够执行高密度脑电图以及高密度经颅电流刺激。这解决了认知脑研究中标准方法的三个缺点。首先，该仪器将补充基于功能成像的缓慢但空间精确的大脑活动记录，同时测量快速变化的电活动。这将使研究人员能够研究人类感知，思维和行动的基本生理学。其次，该仪器可以以安全和非侵入性的方式调节大脑活动。这创造了一个强大的研究范式来调查大脑区域的因果作用。第三，新仪器将有助于在动物和人类神经科学方法之间建立桥梁，通过非侵入性地获得人类的实验数据，可以更直接地与动物中获得的数据进行比较。具体的新项目将侧重于使用经颅刺激改善感知，记忆形成和睡眠中振荡的作用，奖励处理中前额叶和纹状体区域之间的相互作用，以及心脏的快速神经控制，仅举几例。该设备实现的研究的变革方面是高空间和时间分辨率脑成像的结合，以及对大脑活动的主动操纵的关注，使研究人员能够超越相关性，并对大脑功能进行因果理解。