Our Research Updates in Archways give a snapshot of the Rice ARCHES Initiative researchers' current work, research progress, and future directions. Art & Science at the MOH Conference This month Dr....
Our “Project CHROMA Personnel” series in Archways highlights the key researchers behind the Rice ARCHES Initiative. Russell Ku This month Dr. Melia Bonomo from the Department of Bioengineering interviews...
Our “Project CHROMA Personnel” series in Archways highlights the key researchers behind the Rice ARCHES Initiative. Vincent Lai This month Vincent Lai, who previously worked with Project CHROMA as the...
Our Mini Review series in Archways does a brief dive into research topics at the intersection of the arts and health. Research on Music Therapy This month, Amara Anyanwu, a Research Assistant in the BMED Lab...
Our Mini Review series in Archways does a brief dive into research topics at the intersection of the arts and health. Research on Music Listening in Cochlear Implant Users This month, Dr. Melia Bonomo, a...
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This month, Melia Bonomo from the Department of Physics & Astronomy introduces us to neuroimaging in Project CHROMA.
In Project CHROMA, we’re interested in understanding how a music intervention can affect cognition. To study this, we need to be able to image the brain and quantify changes that occur as a result of participating in the creative arts.
There are numerous potential neuroimaging methods — the decision about which one to use depends on the required length and time scales of the application (see image below from Sejnowski et al., 2014). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive method that has been widely used to study patients with mild cognitive impairment, in order to both characterize brain changes and predict clinical outcomes.
For our project, we are utilizing functional MRI (fMRI) to measure changes in blood-oxygen levels across the brain, which is a proxy for functional brain activity. It is important to note that neurovascular coupling (the relationship between local neural activity and changes in blood flow) is an ongoing area of research — we recommend this post from Nature Education that explores the signal that fMRI is measuring in more detail.
During Project CHROMA, neuroimaging is carried out at the Houston Methodist Translational Imaging Center on a Philips Ingenia 3T scanner. There are three parts to the imaging: (1) a high-resolution structural MRI scan for anatomical reference, (2) an fMRI scan while the participants are completing a cognitive task, and (3) an fMRI scan while participants are resting awake. We will then compare each subject’s functional brain activity data obtained from fMRI before and after the music intervention.
Check back in the coming weeks to learn more about the in-scanner task, why we’re interested in resting state imaging, and how we analyze the data!
For more in-depth reading:
ML Ries, CM Carlsson, HA Rowley, MA Sager, CE Gleason, S Asthana, and SC Johnson (2008), Magnetic resonance imaging characterization of brain structure and function in mild cognitive impairment: a review. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 56(5): 920-934.
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