IMAGING BRAIN MATURATION AND NEUROBEHAVIORAL CORRELATES

这项建议的主要目标是使用结构磁共振成像(SMRI)定位和分期儿童和青春期之间的结构性成熟大脑变化，并将这些大脑变化与通过学习和记忆认知心理测试和功能磁共振成像(FMRI)评估的认知能力改善联系起来。正常儿童和青少年的神经发育尚未得到很好的了解，但在文献中关注这一主题的少数研究显示了与年龄相关的地区性脑形态变化。这些成熟变化的特点是个体之间的差异很大，即使在狭窄的年龄段内也是如此。在提高认知能力的规范研究中也发现了这种可变性，认知测量和一些大脑测量之间也发现了相关性。值得注意的是，这些关系并不倾向于通过年龄来调节，这表明不能很好地通过时间年龄来衡量的成熟因素与大脑结构及其神经行为相关性的可塑性有关。通过这项拟议的研究计划获得的对正常大脑发育的更多了解将有助于科学努力了解患有各种神经发育障碍的儿童的异常大脑成熟和认知障碍，了解患有各种神经发育障碍的儿童的异常大脑成熟和认知障碍。这项建议详细说明了一项教学研究计划，使候选人能够在获取和分析sMRI和fMRI数据方面获得新的技能，并在指导下进行研究，以解决以下具体目标：(1)通过采用测量工具来分析来自300名正常儿童和青少年的现有高分辨率成像数据，这些工具将提供关于整个发育过程中结构变化的本地化信息。(2)根据sMRI数据对个体进行分类，以便能够进行不同发育阶段的合理比较。根据假设，实际年龄只与根据大脑结构变化模式进行分类的受试组大致相关。(3)在一项小型前瞻性研究中，使用sMRI和现代认知心理学测试来详细评估学习和记忆能力，以研究大脑成熟与神经行为的相关性。(4)评估神经行为评估。假设分离的大脑区域将参与不同的认知功能(例如，言语记忆和空间记忆)，而相似的大脑区域将参与记忆的fMRI研究，以及sMRI/记忆相关性研究。

The primary objectives of this proposal are to localized and stage structural maturational brain changes between childhood and adolescence using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), and to relate these brain changes to improving cognitive abilities assessed with cognitive psychological tests of learning and memory and functioning MRI (fMRI). Neurodevelopment in normal children and adolescents is not yet well understood, but the few studies in the literature that have focused on this topic have shown regionally specific age-related changes in brain morphology. These maturational changes are characterized by great variability between individuals, even within narrow chronological age ranges. Such variability is also found in normative studies of improving cognitive abilities, and correlations have been found between cognitive measures and some brain measures. Notably, these relationships do not tend to be mediated by age, suggesting that maturational factors that are not well indexed by chronological age are involved with the plasticity in brain structure and its neurobehavioral correlates. The increased understanding of normal brain development obtained through this proposed program of research will be useful in scientific endeavors to understand aberrant brain maturation and cognitive impairments in children with various neurodevelopmental disorders, understand aberrant brain maturation and cognitive impairments in children with various neurodevelopmental disorders. This proposal details a plan for didactic study, enabling the candidate to acquire new skills in acquisition and analysis of sMRI and fMRI data, with supervised research to address the following specific aims: (1) To analyze existing high resolution imaging data from 300 normal children and adolescents by adapting measurement tools that will provide localized information about structural change throughout development. (2) To categorize individuals based on sMRI data in such a way to enable reasonable comparisons across developmental stages. It is hypothesized that chronological age will only roughly correlate with groups of subjects that are categorized by patterns of changing brain structure. (3) To investigate neurobehavioral correlates of brain maturation in a small prospective study using sMRI, and modern cognitive psychological tests for detailed assessment of learning and memory abilities. (4) To assess neurobehavioral assessment. It is hypothesized that dissociative brain regions will be involved in distinct cognitive functions (e.g., verbal memory vs. spatial memory), and similar brain regions will be implicated in the fMRI studies of memory, and the sMRI/memory correlation studies.