Events Calendar

Biomedical Engineering Speakers

Speaker: Neda Jahanshad, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, USC Keck School of Medicine

Talk Title: The Genetics of Human Structural Brain Connectivity

Abstract: Approximately half the variability in the gross structure of the human brain is influenced by genetics. Yet, the brain operates as a network, with adjacent and distal regions of the brain being physically connected to varying degrees. These connections, or perhaps misconnections in the brain, not only have the potential to cause miscommunication of information in the brain and put the brain at risk for diseases, they are too partially driven by common genetic differences. Discovery of genes that help influence brain structure may help target treatments and therapies. Using structural MRI as well as diffusion weighted imaging scans and analyses methods, we are able to model these connections and make inferences on the connectivity profile itself and topological aspects of the network. However, in order to identify and discover specific loci within our genomes that may explain less than one percent of the population variance in the degree of the brain's richly informative connectivity patterns, an extremely high degree of statistical power is needed. This power is readily achieved with large sample sizes, however such power is not seen in any single imaging study to date. We therefore need to reliably pool together inferences from brain scans from around the world, harmonizing much of the analysis procedure and ensuring the precision and reliability of the connectomic measures we evaluate. Here, we will further discuss the challenges that face the imaging genetics community, and potential advances that may be brought forth with biomedical engineering approaches.

Host: Brent Liu, PhD

Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta