The purpose of this core is to provide infrastructure resources for projects in the grant utilizing MagneticResonance Imaging, and to develop resources that may be shared for the current projects as well as futureprojects relevant to developmental disorders in fronto-striatal circuits. There will be four primary componentsof the Imaging Core: a technical sub-core, focused on testing and ensuring high image quality andintegrating new technological developments developments including novel pulse sequences, parallel imagingtechnology, a head gradient set, rapid reconstruction algorithms, and simultaneous EEG/fMRI,as well assupporting structural MRi and DTI acqiuisition. A design and analysis sub-core will provide expertise fordesigning and implementing fMRi experiments, and analysis of fMRI, structural MRI and DTI data, andanalysis. A behavioral training/desensitization unit will use a simulated MRi environment with biofeedback todesensitization pediatric subjects to the environment and track head motion to maximize the likelihood ofsuccessfully scanning difficult populations. Finally, an analysis and databasing unit will conduct fMRIanalyses for CIDAR projects and manage and maintain a structural MRI database. Structural and DTI dataacquired in the Imaging core will feed into all of the human projects (1,3,and 4) to test specific hypothesis ofstructural and functional connectivity in front-striatal circuits. The infrastructure resources provided by theImaging Core is integral to projects 3 and 4 and benefits subjects entering Project 1; these resources will beavailable for future pediatric imaging studies that may access the UCLA CIDAR in future years. An imagingcore dedicated to promoting research into the neurobiology of ADHD and Tourette's will enable us to tacklesome of the more difficult problems in pediatric imaging, namely, the technical difficulties in image acquisitionin orbito-frontal retgions; analysis of developing brains that may contain structural differences orabnormalities; variability in brain development in children; and practical difficulties in scanning children withdisorders of cognitive control. Having core resources at every stage of the imaging study, from design andimage acquisition through data analysis, will enable investigators who are not imaging experts to apply thesemethods to other developmental disorders, and will provide resources to evaluate the effects of newtreatments, both behavioral and pharmacological, on brain function in developmental disorders.
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