Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the most common cause of disability in young adults. While much of this disablement is attributable to mental difficulties, the brain mechanisms underlying these difficulties are poorly understood. There is tremendous variability in TBI effects even among patients with similar injury characteristics. This wide range of behavioral outcomes implies variability in neural reorganization supporting these mental operations. We will explore the neural correlates of mental functioning following TBI with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique for studying dynamic brain function (i.e., functional neuroanatomy). Our focus is on executive functioning and memory, the primary cognitive deficits affecting real-life adjustment following TBI. The activation tasks will include two measures of response inhibition and three measures of memory. The functional neuroanatomy of response inhibition will also be examined pre- and post-rehabilitation using a training program that targets executive deficits. Each experiment capitalizes on an established paradigm from our previous behavioral research with brain-injured patients or our functional neuroimaging research with healthy adults. In addition to standard image analysis techniques emphasizing local brain activations, we will employ multivariate techniques that stress functional interactions across the brain. These techniques are necessary to characterize the task- and performance-related chances in brain connectivity fundamental to the neuropathology of TBI. These studies should impact the direct care of patients with TBI through the development of diagnostic imaging techniques that can be used to characterize brain-behavior relationships and assess functional neuroanatomical changes due to natural recovery and rehabilitation. Moreover, we expect these findings to increase the understanding of neural changes (i.e., neural compensation or re-organization) in response to brain injury in general.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD042385-02
Application #
6620896
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZNS1-SRB-R (01))
Program Officer
Nitkin, Ralph M
Project Start
2002-06-01
Project End
2007-05-31
Budget Start
2003-06-01
Budget End
2004-05-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$278,934
Indirect Cost
Name
Rotman Research Institute
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Toronto
State
ON
Country
Canada
Zip Code
Guild, Emma B; Levine, Brian (2015) Functional Correlates of Midline Brain Volume Loss in Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 21:650-5
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Heisz, Jennifer J; Vakorin, Vasily; Ross, Bernhard et al. (2014) A trade-off between local and distributed information processing associated with remote episodic versus semantic memory. J Cogn Neurosci 26:41-53
Levine, Brian; Kovacevic, Natasa; Nica, Elena Irina et al. (2013) Quantified MRI and cognition in TBI with diffuse and focal damage(?) Neuroimage Clin 2:534-541
Sheldon, Signy; Levine, Brian (2013) Same as it ever was: vividness modulates the similarities and differences between the neural networks that support retrieving remote and recent autobiographical memories. Neuroimage 83:880-91
Spreng, R Nathan; Levine, Brian (2013) Doing what we imagine: completion rates and frequency attributes of imagined future events one year after prospection. Memory 21:458-66
Raja Beharelle, Anjali; Kovacevic, Natasa; McIntosh, Anthony R et al. (2012) Brain signal variability relates to stability of behavior after recovery from diffuse brain injury. Neuroimage 60:1528-37
Soderlund, Hedvig; Moscovitch, Morris; Kumar, Namita et al. (2012) As time goes by: hippocampal connectivity changes with remoteness of autobiographical memory retrieval. Hippocampus 22:670-9
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Spreng, R Nathan; Drzezga, Alexander; Diehl-Schmid, Janine et al. (2011) Relationship between occupation attributes and brain metabolism in frontotemporal dementia. Neuropsychologia 49:3699-703

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