UMSN receives grant for visionary brain mapping project

When the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced an opportunity for “bold and risky” projects aimed at finding new ways to understand the complexities of the human brain and behavior, University of Michigan School of Nursing Professor Ivo Dinov, Ph.D., and a team of colleagues were ready to take on the challenge.

NSF wanted interdisciplinary researchers to cross boundaries and create novel ways to learn about the brain in action. The agency awarded $16 million to 19 research teams across the United States. Dinov’s collaborative proposal, which brings together researchers from Indiana University, Northwestern University and the Advanced Computational Neuroscience Network, was awarded $650 thousand dollars for a three-year project.

The central goals are focused on examining the neural and cognitive systems to better understand the brain’s physical structure and connections, disease, behavior and decision making.  The project includes developing algorithms for precise identification of brain connection patterns and generating new methods to better understand neural connections through characterizing similarities and variations in white matter (brain wiring) tracts.

“We are looking for mechanisms to represent data that comes from imaging, genetics, clinical and other independent sources,” said Dinov, who is also a member of U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.  “Aggregating it, harmonizing it and jointly modeling the information is challenging. Nobody knows how to analyze all this data so it is a risky, high potential yield, project.”

It’s an immense undertaking that comes without guaranteed results.

“To some people, it sounds like science fiction,” explained Dinov. “It’s not very common that organizations are willing to fund risky projects like this but it could be transformative to what we know about the brain.”

Dinov will lead the U-M team which will focus on the statistical analysis and computing aspects of the project, as well as the visualization elements.

“One of the unique aspects of this project is that we have neuroscientists, computational scientists, mathematical statisticians, linguistic and semantic analysts,” said Dinov. “It’s a very trans-disciplinary approach aimed at understanding how the brain functions and how it’s structurally, functionally and physiologically organized.”

While Dinov understands this project may not find all the answers they are looking for, he is confident in producing quality science that will lead to new opportunities.

“My hope is that at the end of the project we will have a good understanding how to jointly model these heterogeneous data sets,” he said. “When you start with the raw data the protocol goes through hundreds of steps. At the end, this protocol generates unique results that may have substantial scientific value and social impact. We’ll also develop and share interactive tools for three-dimensional data renderings and interrogation that anyone can use.”