Core 3: Neuro-Imaging Core

神经成像核心将获取和处理多模态成像数据，以显著提高我们对大脑中血清素能信号传导作用的理解。它将为其教职员工提供广泛的专业知识，以进行小鼠，新生儿，儿童和青少年的脑成像研究

The Neuroimaging core will acquire and process multimodal imaging data to enhance significantly our understanding of the effects of serotonergic signaling in the brain. It will provide the extensive expertise of its faculty and staff for conducting brain imaging research in mice, newborn babies, children, and adolescents using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), perfusion MRI, MR spectroscopy (MRS), and high density EEG. By applying validated and reliable imaging and statistical methods, the core will ensure uniformity, consistency, and economy of scale across all projects of the center. The Core will contribute significantly to accelerate our understanding of the disturbances in the brain caused by serotonin availability at various stages during eariy brain development. To quantify disturbances in various cortical and subcortical brain circuits, research projects will acquire and analyze multimodal MR data, and compute various brain measures, including EEG power and coherence, local volumes of brain regions, and between-region connectivity. These measures will be correlated with genotype data to discern the gene-brain-behavior correlates across species, and age ranges from infancy to adulthood. Furthermore, the core will ensure data integrity by (1) quantifying identical brain measures using the same imaging and statistical methods across all projects; (2) rigorously evaluating methods developed to address better the challenges in analyzing data from a wide age range of participants; and (3) exploiting economy of scale by applying common components of image and statistical analyses across all projects, thereby greatly enhancing the efficiency and productivity of the center.