CAREER: Unique brain structures in human cortex: From structure to function and cognition

人类大脑包含独特的神经解剖学结构和皮质回旋，这在其他哺乳动物的大脑中是不存在的。研究这些与人类大脑功能和认知相关的结构尤其重要，因为它提供了关于区分人类的大脑独特部分的贡献的见解。尽管科学家们已经研究人类大脑超过了世纪，但我们仍然缺乏关于这些“独特的大脑结构”或UBS的基本知识，这些结构是人类大脑特有的。主要的研究目标是建立一个坚实的神经解剖学基础，以更好地了解这些瑞银相对于儿童和成人的大脑功能和认知之间的关系。该项目的重点是研究人类大脑皮层中认知和功能表征的个体差异如何与这些UBS的神经解剖特征的个体差异相关。具体而言，本研究定量研究了被称为三级沟或卷积的皮质折叠中的UBS形状，这是人脑微观结构和功能特性之间的中尺度联系。 这些研究探索了这些UBS在不同脑叶之间的关系，这些脑叶与儿童和成人的认知和功能性大脑结构有关，并揭示了人类发育过程中UBS的变化。这项研究的结果提供了第一个全面的瑞银数据库，其中还包括个人参与者的功能和认知措施。该项目通过创建新的分析工具来加速，这些工具采用机器学习算法来自动快速地定义这些UBS。该项目的一个关键的科学和教育组成部分是，新的瑞银数据库免费提供给大脑绘图，大脑连接和功能神经成像领域的神经科学家，也是一个互动的基于浏览器的学习工具，可推广到高中和大学生。这些研究加深了我们对人类特定认知方面的神经解剖学基础的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The human brain contains unique neuroanatomical structures and cortical convolutions that are absent in the brains of other mammals. Studying these structures relative to human brain function and cognition is especially important as it provides insight regarding the contributions of distinctive parts of the brain that distinguish humans. Although scientists have been studying the human brain for over a century, we still lack basic knowledge about these “unique brain structures” or UBS, that are specific to the human brain. The main research goals are to build a solid neuroanatomical foundation to better understand the relationship between these UBS relative to brain function and cognition in both children and adults. The focus of this project is to investigate how individual differences in cognition and functional representations in the human cerebral cortex relate to individual differences in neuroanatomical features of these UBS. Specifically, this research quantitatively investigates the UBS shapes in cortical folding called tertiary sulci or convolutions, which serve as a meso-scale link between microstructural and functional properties of the human brain. These studies explore the relationship among these UBS across different lobes of the brain relative to cognition and functional brain architecture in both children and adults and reveal the changes in UBS that arise during human development. The results of this research provide the first comprehensive UBS database which also includes functional and cognitive measures in individual participants. This project is accelerated by creating new analytic tools that employ machine learning algorithms to automatically and rapidly define these UBS. A key scientific and educational component of the project is that the new UBS database is freely available to neuroscientists in the fields of brain mapping, brain connectivity and functional neuroimaging and also as an interactive browser-based learning tool generalizable to high school and college students. These studies deepen our understanding of the neuroanatomical basis for human-specific aspects of cognition.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.