Training in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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DESCRIPTION (provided by application): The purpose of this application is to request support to create a permanent course to train graduate students, post docs, medical professionals, and basic science faculty on the use of functional MRI for psychological studies of normal and brain-injured individuals. Our aims are these: (a) to train basic researchers on the use of fMRI so that they can conduct imaging studies at their home institutions; (b) to train medical residents in the fields of psychiatry, neurology, radiology, and physical medicine on fMRI so that they can apply the techniques to their own research programs concerning mental health issues; (c) to advertise the course widely to attract a diverse body of participants from throughout the mental health research community in the United States and to support these students financially so that they can attend the course. The proposed course has the following features: A two-week curriculum of lectures and laboratories covering (a) the physics of MRI and fMRI, (b) the types of data acquisition routines available, (c) experimental design for blocked and event-related paradigms, (d) post-processing routines that are used on fMRI data, (e) coverage of parametric and nonparametric techniques for data analysis, (e) interpretation of brain activations, and (f) a hands-on experiment in which students collect and analyze data. In addition, we plan to offer an optional set of two evening sessions the first week of the course that will include instruction on reading structural MRI images to identify normal brain structures and to identify some typical brain abnormalities in injured brains.