The goals of the POWRE grant are two-fold: first, to assist the investigator in acquiring expertise in the newly emerging technology of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and second, to combine that expertise with her background and strength in visual psychophysics and computation modeling to study mechanisms underlying visual motion perception and their modulation by learning. The major training components of the grant include the investigator's participation in tutorials, seminars, NMR training sessions and course work, and collaborative research and developing skills in fMRI data analysis, developing fMRI specific activation paradigms, and methods of representation of fMRI activations. The broad scope of the research component of this proposal, to be carried out at the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH-NMR), is on combining fMRI and psychophysics to study functional plasticity in the normal adult human visual system, specifically the mechanisms and neural circuitry underlying learning motion discrimination in humans. Cortical fMRI signal changes (in both the cerebral and cerbellar cortices) can be reliably measured, and will be used to ask specific questions about practice and stimulus attributes-related changes in human brain functional anatomy. The approach of the proposed experiments will also serve as validation for the learning technique as a powerful psychophysical tool to investigate specificity and dynamics of the neural circuitry underlying visual perception and its modulation by attentional mechanisms. The POWRE funding mechanism will provide the investigator, already a senior scientist and educator specialized in human vision, the opportunity to bring that knowledge to bear in the design and interpretation of neurobiologically relevant imaging experiments. It will also give her the opportunity to become proficient in fMRI techniques and to gain additional knowledge that she will subsequently apply in her research and teaching. The MGH-NMR is a superb training site for accomplishment of these goals. The results of this training will significantly increase the candidate's visibility in the neuroscience and human brain mapping community. Also, it will allow her to play a key role in the efforts of the Biomedical Engineering Department at her home institution to develop a strong neurosciences track in the graduate program in biomedical engineering.
