Using fMRI in awake human infants to study functional development of cortex

使用清醒人类婴儿的功能磁共振成像研究皮层的功能发育

• 批准号: 9224329
• 负责人: Rebecca R Saxe
• 金额: $ 23.85万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-21 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9224329
• 关键词: Address; Adult; Affect; Anatomy; Biological; Birth; Brain; Categories; Cereals; Child; Color; Custom; Data; Data Analyses; Data Quality; Data Set; Development; Developmental Process; Diagnosis; Dimensions; Dissociation; Environment; Experimental Designs; Face; Foundations; Frequencies; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Geometry; Gestational Age; Head; Human; Infant; Language Tests; Learning; Location; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Measures; Methods; Modeling; Motion; Multivariate Analysis; Neurodevelopmental Disorder; Parents; Participant; Pattern; Persons; Positioning Attribute; Pregnancy; Premature Birth; Premature Infant; Procedures; Process; Property; Protocols documentation; Rehabilitation therapy; Research; Resolution; Scanning; Semantics; Stimulus; Techniques; Testing; Texture; Toy; Visual; Visual Cortex; Work; aged; awake; base; cognitive development; cranium; data acquisition; design; developmental disease; experience; experimental study; flexibility; high risk; human data; in utero; innovation; millimeter; movie; nervous system disorder; neuroimaging; novel; preference; response; scaffold; statistics; theories; visual learning

Project Summary In the last two decades, functional neuroimaging has providing a stunning window into the function of the human brain. When a person looks around the world, for example, systematic patterns of activity emerge in the cortex, related to both visual properties (e.g. the size or position) and also conceptual properties (e.g. object versus human versus natural scene) of the experience. These patterns of cortical activity are remarkably consistent across different adults, but very little is known about when, or how, they develop. Understanding the timing and mechanism of typical brain development is a necessary foundation for identifying the cause of neuro-developmental disorders that affect cognitive development, and for assessing the efficts of early rehabilitation. One reason these questions remain unanswered is the limited methods available for neuroimaging in awake human infants. To measure functional responses in the whole cortex with high spatial resolution, the ideal technique is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); however, it is extremely challenging to acquire high-quality fMRI data from infants while they are awake. One challenge is participant motion. Moving a millimeter is enough to destroy a MR image. Infants cannot be instructed to lie still, and cannot be held tightly because their skulls are soft (and because they must be comfortable during the experiment). The first aim of the proposed research is to address the challenges of fMRI in infants, and collect high quality data from awake human infants while they watch dynamic, bright colored, infant-friendly movies. Technical innovations necessary to achieve this aim include novel flexible experimental designs, custom-built coil sized for an infant's head, a special protocol for scanning the infant with a parent in the MRI, custom-written quiet MRI sequences, and special procedures for data analysis. The second aim is to compute and compare the responses to 60 blocks of movies (including children's faces and bodies, toys, natural scenes, and textures) in twenty full-term infants aged 4-8 months and in adults. The patterns of responses across movies can also be used to compare the predictions of alternative theories of both initial state and learning mechanisms in infant cortex. Finally, when cortex changes over development, a fundamental question is whether this change is driven by learning from visual experience, or by maturation of the biological mechanism. Because visual experience is extremely limited in utero, a natural dissociation of these factors occurs in the case of moderately preterm birth. Measuring the development of cortical responses in full-term and moderately preterm infants will also provide an important foundation for studies of infants born very preterm, who are at high risk for neurological and developmental disorders.

项目摘要 在过去的二十年里，功能性神经影像学为人类大脑的功能提供了一个令人惊叹的窗口。例如，当一个人环顾世界时，大脑皮层中会出现系统性的活动模式，这些模式既与视觉属性（例如大小或位置）有关，也与体验的概念属性（例如物体与人与自然场景）有关。这些皮质活动模式在不同的成年人中非常一致，但对它们何时或如何发展知之甚少。了解典型大脑发育的时间和机制是确定影响认知发育的神经发育障碍的原因以及评估早期康复效果的必要基础。这些问题仍然没有答案的一个原因是有限的方法可用于清醒的人类婴儿的神经成像。要以高空间分辨率测量整个皮层的功能反应，理想的技术是功能磁共振成像（fMRI）;然而，在婴儿清醒时获取高质量的fMRI数据极具挑战性。一个挑战是参与者的运动。移动一毫米就足以破坏MR图像。婴儿不能被指示静静地躺着，也不能被紧紧地抱着，因为他们的头骨是软的（而且因为他们在实验过程中必须感到舒适）。这项研究的第一个目标是解决婴儿fMRI的挑战，并从清醒的人类婴儿那里收集高质量的数据，同时他们观看动态，明亮的彩色，婴儿友好的电影。实现这一目标所需的技术创新包括新颖的灵活实验设计，为婴儿头部定制尺寸的线圈，在MRI中扫描父母的婴儿的特殊协议，定制编写的安静MRI序列以及数据分析的特殊程序。第二个目标是计算和比较的反应60块电影（包括儿童的脸和身体，玩具，自然场景和纹理）在20个足月婴儿4-8个月和成人。电影中的反应模式也可以用来比较婴儿皮层初始状态和学习机制的替代理论的预测。最后，当大脑皮层在发育过程中发生变化时，一个基本的问题是，这种变化是由视觉经验的学习驱动的，还是由生物机制的成熟驱动的。由于视觉体验在子宫内是非常有限的，这些因素的自然分离发生在中度早产的情况下。测量足月和中度早产儿大脑皮层反应的发展也将为研究极早产儿提供重要基础，极早产儿具有神经系统和发育障碍的高风险。