[UCR_DataScience] Data Science talk by Prof. Vasileios Christopoulos, Friday October 14th, 12:15-1:15pm, MRB Seminar Room

[tsotras at cs.ucr.edu]

Our next Data Science seminar will be next Friday, October 14th, 2022 at
the MRB Seminar Room (1st floor).

Please note that this seminar will start at **12:15pm**.


**** Pizza and refreshments will be provided ****

To keep track of the number of attendees, please *register* at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/data-science-talk-tickets-437558307677


The talk will be given by Prof. Vasileios Christopoulos, Department of
Bioengineering, UCR

Title:
Functional Ultrasound Imaging (fUSI): A game changer in neuroscience and
medicine


Abstract:

Recent advances in neuroimaging technology have significantly contributed
to a better understanding of human brain organization, and the development
and application of more efficient clinical programs. However, the
limitations and tradeoffs inherent to the existing techniques, prevent
them from providing large-scale imaging of neural activity with high
spatiotemporal resolution, deep penetration, and specificity in awake and
behaving participants.

Recently, functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) was introduced as a
revolutionary technology that provides a unique combination of spatial
coverage, unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution (~100 μm and ~100
ms) and compatibility with freely moving animals. While fUSI is a
hemodynamic technique, its superior spatiotemporal performance and
single-trial sensitivity offer a substantially closer connection to the
underlying neuronal signals than achievable with other hemodynamic methods
such as fMRI. In addition, the relative simplicity and portability of
ultrasound have allowed fUSI to be performed in awake and behaving
animals, providing minimally invasive neural imaging in species ranging
from mice to humans. In vivo fUSI was first reported in 2011 by imaging
cerebral blood volume (CBV) changes in the micro-vascularization of the
rat brain during whisker stimulation. Since then, this technique has been
applied to brain activity imaging during olfactory stimuli, resting state
connectivity, behavioral tasks on freely moving rats, non-human primates
(NHPs) and other animals. However, one of the great advantages of fUSI is
the ability to detect hemodynamic changes of only 2% without averaging
over multiple trials. The ability to rely on the accuracy of a
single-trial is necessary if one intended on using functional ultrasound
signal to detect moment-to-moment variations of the blood flow.

By taking advantage of the excellent sensitivity of fUSI, our team
performed single-trial motor experiments in awake and behaving non-human
primates (NHPs). We recorded from outside the dura and above the posterior
parietal cortex (PPC), while animals performed memory-delayed reach and
eye (saccade) movements. We then used fUSI signal from the delay period
before movement to decode the animal’s intended direction and effector. We
showed for the first time that fUSI is capable of capturing the
preparatory motor activity in NHPs that precedes movement responses – a
prerequisite to brain-machine interfaces (BMIs), a key application that
could benefit from this technology. These results are a critical step in
the development of neuro-recording and brain interface tools that are less
invasive, high resolution, and scalable.

Recently, we took the next major leap in fUSI by extending this technology
to study the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric diseases in pre-clinical
(pharmaco-fUSI, mouse model of schizophrenia) and clinical trials (i.e.,
patients with traumatic brain injury, chronic back pain and others) and to
develop modern neuromodulation strategies. Overall, fUSI provides
researchers with truly revolutionary capabilities to study the central
nervous system in a wide range of species, opening new avenues to
understanding basic mechanisms of neuropsychiatric diseases and developing
new treatments.


------------------------------------
Sponsored by the UCR Data Science Center, the purpose of the Data Science
Seminar is to foster collaborations between "core" Data Science faculty
(from CSE/ECE/Stat Departments) and faculty/visitors from other sciences
that face Data Science problems in their research. These informal
gatherings are open to interested faculty and graduate students. Each
meeting will start with a talk describing research problems and then a
discussion will follow for questions, open problems, ideas for possible
collaborations etc.

A full list of previous seminars appears at:
http://datascience.ucr.edu/seminars

Please forward this email to other colleagues or graduate students in your
lab that may be interested.

Moreover, if you are interested in giving a Data Science related talk,
please contact me.

Sincerely,
Vassilis Tsotras
Professor, CSE Department
Director, Data Science Major