Multimodal Neuroimaging Investigations of Human Brain Function

About the research

Understanding the human brain is one of the great challenges of 21st century science. Only recently have noninvasive technologies become widely available to characterise brain structure and function in healthy subjects and in patients. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the cornerstone of much of this research, but new techniques and technologies are needed to provide the detail necessary to understand the link between brain and behaviour.

Multimodal neuroimaging combines multiple MRI techniques that are sensitive to different aspects of brain structure and function, with other modalities such as electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), as well as brain stimulation techniques (TMS, TDCS, TACS). This combination of methods promises to provide a much more complete picture of the complex dynamics of the brain, a prerequisite if we are to understand neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders such as epilepsy, sleep disorders, schizophrenia and dementia.

This collaboration between the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign brings together complementary expertise in Neuroscience, MRI Physics and Psychology to develop the next generation of multimodal neuroimaging tools. These new techniques will provide the improved physiological specificity and spatiotemporal resolution needed to characterise the full complexity of the brain.

Researchers

Birmingham
Dr Andrew Bagshaw
Dr Stephen Mayhew
Dr Karen Mullinger
Dr Joe Galea
Dr Sam Lucas

Illinois
Dr Florin Dolcos
Professor Gabriele Gratton
Professor Monica Fabiani
Dr Diane Beck