MRI: Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy System for Advanced Neuroimaging

North Dakota State University Fargo, Fargo ND

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Mark E. McCourt, of North Dakota State University, along with departmental colleagues, will undertake research to study the neural mechanisms of human sensation, perception, cognition, emotion, and action using the newly acquired state-of-the-art Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. fNIRS is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique for investigating brain function through the measurement and analysis of infrared light that has been transmitted through the scalp, skull and cortical tissue. McCourt and colleagues will use fNIRS to measure brain activity in neurologically normal people of all ages, as well as in special populations such as those with schizophrenia, depression, autism, or other psychiatric or neurological conditions. The project integrates basic research goals with postgraduate, graduate, undergraduate, and public education. Scientific publications based on the use of fNIRS technology have increased exponentially over the past decade, and fNIRS neuroimaging is rapidly becoming an essential scientific tool for understanding brain-behavior relationships. The fNIRS system will dramatically augment the research capability and activities of Dr. McCourt as well as six additional junior and senior researchers. Researchers will use the fNIRS system to compare audiovisual multisensory integration (MI) within the dorsal (action) and ventral (perception) processing streams; measure how the neural representation of real-world objects (e.g. faces) changes over the course of development in children ages 6 months-5 years; discover the cortical mechanisms responsible for encoding the retinal intensity distribution to represent brightness (the apparent intensity of a region of space) versus lightness (the apparent reflectance of a surface); examine the neural basis for learning homophones (words with different meanings that are perceptually equivalent) in preschool-age children; study the neural mechanisms of selective attention and visual working memory in neurologically normal participants as well as in those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia; use the fNIRS system to disclose the origin of the smooth pursuit eye movement signal which is essential for obtaining unambiguous depth information from motion parallax; and study the neural mechanisms that make visual perception of objects near the hands quantitatively different than the perception of the same objects at other locations. The availability of fNIRS technology will greatly enhance training opportunities and research competitiveness for faculty and students alike.