Center for Mesoscale Mapping

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston MA

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Abstract The goal of the Center for Mesoscale Mapping (CMM) is to drive the convergence of microscopic- and macroscopic-scale evaluation of brain structure and function for human translational neuroscience, by developing and applying tools to study the spatial distribution and temporal orchestration of mesoscopic events in the human brain. Our Collaborators will, through a dynamic “push-pull” relationship, provide unique problems which drive the development of these tools, and in return guide us in the design and optimization of our toolbox for practical use in a variety of normal and disease settings, while our Service Users present a variety of use- cases for our developing technologies. Considering the needs of our CPs and SPs to address specific neuroscience and translational research questions, we have identified four TR&D projects that aim to provide the community with a synergistic set of new technologies to map the human brain at the relevant spatiotemporal scales. In TRD1, our goal is to push the design and validation of tools for linking microscopic and mesoscopic scales, a unique challenge given the traditional differences between acquisition tools for one vs. the other. In TRD2, we propose new acquisition and reconstruction technologies for mesoscale functional (fMRI) and quantitative MRI (qMRI) with high efficiency and fidelity. In TRD3, we turn our attention from fMRI and qMRI towards diffusion imaging, again targeting aggressive mesoscale spatial resolution. Finally, in TRD4, we extend our focus from mapping brain activity to actively stimulating it using methods we propose to develop that significantly enhance the ability to precisely target the brain using mesoscopic information with electromagnetic brain stimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES). Synergies also exist between the TRD’s. As just a few examples, TRD1 will provide TRDs 2 and 3 with enhanced ex vivo imaging for validation, high-resolution QSM validation data, and better cross-subject registration of diffusion/functional/QSM data, and parameter estimation network for in vivo use, while TRD2 will aid TRD1’s registration efforts by improved 400-450um QSM data for in vivo vessel labeling, and TRD3 by contributing mesoscale microstructure data in vivo for parameter estimation and layer segmentation. TRD4 will benefit from the mesoscopic multimodal imaging data produced by the other TRDs for refining its hardware and software tools for precise targeting of neurostimulation.