Neuroimaging and Big Data

Last year, Kyle had a chance to visit the Laboratory of Neuroimaging, or LONI, at USC, and learn about how some researchers are using data science to study the function of the brain. We’re going to be covering some of their work in two episodes on Data Skeptic. In this first part of our two-part episode, we'll talk about the data collection and brain imaging and the LONI pipeline. We'll then continue our coverage in the second episode, where we'll talk more about how researchers can gain insights about the human brain and their current challenges. Next week, we’ll also talk more about what all that has to do with data science machine learning and artificial intelligence. Joining us in this week’s episode are members of the LONI lab, which include principal investigators, Dr. Arthur Toga and Dr. Meng Law, and researchers, Farshid Sepherband, PhD and Ryan Cabeen, PhD.

Guests

Arthur Toga: Dr. Arthur Toga has been at the leading edge of the complex frontier of brain imaging for over two decades. His research focuses on neuroimaging, informatics, mapping brain structure and function, and brain atlasing. Dr. Toga developed multimodal imaging and data aggregation strategies and applied them in a variety of neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. His work in informatics includes the development and implementation of some of the largest and most widely used databases and data mining tools linking disparate data from genetics, imaging, clinical and behavior, supporting global efforts in Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease. His work includes measurement of the dynamic brain during development and aging and as a result of insult. For example, his studies include changes following traumatic brain injury and sensory deprivation on the connectome. In addition to this, Dr. Toga and his team are just initiating studies to answer fundamental question in the relationship between eye disease and its relationship to the central visual processing; specifically, they are attempting to answer questions such as, How does the precise topography of eye disease map onto changes in brain? Is acquired retinal and optic nerve damage in diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration related to local effects upon the structure and function of central pathways? Are any of these effects of vision loss on central pathways reversible? His work, combining advanced retinal imaging with the brain-mapping techniques developed in the Human Connectome Project (HCP) using novel yet robust analytical methods, may help answer these questions.

Dr. Meng Law

Farshid Sepherband, PhD

Ryan Cabeen, PhD