Brain Connectivity to be Studied at Medical College

The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a four-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to study brain connectivity, the means by which signals are conveyed between regions of the brain. With this grant, researchers will develop new technologies in functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI).
James S. Hyde, PhD, the James S. Hyde Professor of Biophysics and director of the National Biomedical Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Center, is the primary investigator for the grant.
Dr. Hyde, together with his then PhD graduate student Bharat Biswal, discovered fcMRI in 1995. With fcMRI, the entire brain can be probed, and the effects of disease and injury are studied in the cortex of the brain. This grant will enhance the ability of scientists to understand the role of the central nervous system in disease, at the highest resolution to date.
Brain connectivity is an emerging field in neuroscience that is expanding rapidly. Brain connectivity is also suspected to be a key indicator in some diseases such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Hyde’s research has been carried out in collaboration with hand surgeons in the Medical College’s Department of Plastic Surgery who are interested in the effects of nerve injury and repair on brain reorganization.