On Friday 13 December 2019, Stephen LaConte from Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics is giving a lecture entitled "Directly testing the roles of resting-state networks with supervised learning-based real-time fMRI"
Stephen LaConte is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, College of Engineering, Virginia Tech, and also at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. Research in the LaConte lab is devoted to advanced neuroimaging acquisition and data analysis approaches, aimed at basic scientific discovery as well as understanding and rehabilitating neurological and psychiatric diseases. A major focus of the lab is an innovation in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that we developed and call “temporally adaptive brain state” (TABS) fMRI. The inception of TABS arose from two major recent advances in neuroimaging, namely 1) the recognition that multi-voxel patterns of fMRI data can be used to decode brain states (determine what the volunteer was “doing,” such as receiving sensory input, effecting motor output, or otherwise internally focusing on a prescribed task or thought) and 2) continued advances in MR imaging systems and experimental sophistication with fMRI that have led to the emergence of real-time fMRI as a viable tool for biofeedback.
Abstract: Spontaneous “resting-state” neural activity was initially thought to be noise, but the spatially distributed coherence patterns of these fluctuations produce known, reproducible networks. However, the functional roles of these networks are not known. In this brief talk, I will outline methods for real-time fMRI that my lab has developed to move beyond correlational studies try to directly examine the functional roles of these networks. In addition, I will show preliminary data from depression, attention deficit, and TBI participants that indicate that real-time fMRI might be able to characterize and ultimately help rehabilitate neurological and psychiatric illness.
The talk will be held on Friday 13 December 2019 at 9:15 in the Pav. B meeting room 340B (directions available at: https://www.drcmr.dk/about/contact-find-us).
