Accessibility Help

All posts

Tools of the Trade II

By meb16 | Published January 22, 2020
Our “Tools of the Trade” series in Archways highlights the research technology and methodologies used by the Rice ARCHES Initiative.

Modularity of the Brain

This month Fengdan Ye from the Department of Physics & Astronomy discusses an analysis method being used to study brain activity in Project CHROMA.

In recent years of neuroscience research, it has become more and more popular to view the whole human brain as a functional network. The structure of the human brain network has been studied in relation to cognitive performance, as well as disease progression. Modularity is one of the many ways to quantify the structure of a human brain network, and it’s a concept I have been working with throughout my PhD.

What is modularity? To understand that, we first need a clear picture of what a whole-brain network looks like. A network consists of nodes and links. In our case, the nodes are different brain regions. These regions are usually defined from existing divisions of the human brain, which can be based on either anatomical or functional features of the brain. For example, Brodmann areas are brain regions defined based on the microscopic cellular composition of the brain. The links between these regions can be defined in many different ways. One popular way is to derive the links from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Specifically, the Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) imaging method in fMRI gives information on the level of activity of any brain regions at any given time. A link exists between two brain regions, if they show synchronized activity across a period of time. A link is absent if the activity of two brain regions is not coordinated.

Modularity quantifies how modular the brain network is. The higher the modularity, the more modular the network is. For example, let’s assume we have six brain regions A through F. If brain regions A, B, and C are all linked to each other, and D, E and F are all linked to each other, but there is no link between the first group (ABC) and the second group (DEF), then the network is very modular. Under the context of BOLD imaging, this means the brain has two distinct functional modules: one consists of ABC and the other DEF. The regions within each module always activate together, but regions across modules do not communicate functionally. On the other hand, if there are links between all six regions, then the network is less modular because it is harder to define which regions work more closely with each other. Below is another example of low- and high-modularity networks:

Image: Comparison of networks that have the same number of nodes (circles) and links (connecting lines) but different modularity (M) because of the network organizations.

In research, people not only look at the modularity value of a brain network, but also the compositions of the identified modules. This method has shed light on human cognitive and behavioral function, as well as prognosis and progression of diseases, such as stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. 

For more in-depth reading:

O Sporns and RF Betzel (2016), Modular Brain Networks. Annu Rev Psychol, 67:614-640. 

G Chen, HY Zhang, C Xie, G Chen, ZJ Zhang, GJ Teng, and SJ Li (2013), Modular reorganization of brain resting state networks and its independent validation in Alzheimer’s disease patients. Front Hum Neurosci, 7:456.

Posted in Blog Posts | Comments Off on Tools of the Trade II

Research Update: December 2019

By meb16 | Published December 6, 2019
Our Research Updates in Archways give a snapshot of the Rice ARCHES Initiative’s current work, research progress, and future directions.

Connecting with Our Community

This month Dr. Angie LeRoy, a post-doctoral Research Fellow on our team in the Department of Psychological Sciences, discusses community engagement.

In Project CHROMA, we are recruiting individuals over the age of 70 and/or diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment to participate in our study of how music creativity can benefit cognition and social/emotional wellbeing. As part of our efforts to integrate the community with our research goals, we make a concerted effort to enhance our visibility at community events. 

We feel that connecting with community members is important, not only to recruit community members to participate in our study, but also to give back to our community through communicating empirical research findings. In doing so, we hope to educate the public about the most recent research in the area of health psychology, with a specific focus on preventing poor health outcomes among our aging population.

Image: Dr. LeRoy presents at the Annual Rice Alzheimer’s Buddies Symposium.

Recently, I did a public educational talk about Alzheimer’s Disease and Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, at the annual Rice Alzheimer’s Buddies Symposium. I also discussed strategies that we may be able to use to slow down the progression to Alzheimer’s by early intervention. For example, through the use of music—as we are doing with the Rice ARCHES Initiative. 

We received positive feedback from the audience, which consisted of people of all ages and demographics. After the talk, some nursing students who were inspired by hearing about our work, approached our information booth to ask more about the study and inquire about volunteering to work on the project. 

Moving forward, our team will continue to prioritize connecting with community members to enhance our visibility and spread awareness!

Image: Team members engage with the community at the BMED Lab’s information booth.
Posted in Blog Posts | Comments Off on Research Update: December 2019

Tools of the Trade I

By meb16 | Published November 19, 2019
Our “Tools of the Trade” series in Archways highlights the research technology and methodologies used by the Rice ARCHES Initiative.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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.  

Image: Comparison of neuroimaging methods from T Sejnowski, P Churchland, and J Movshon (2014), Putting big data to good use in neuroscience. Nat Neurosci 17, 1440–1441 doi:10.1038/nn.3839

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.


Posted in Blog Posts | Comments Off on Tools of the Trade I

Want to receive updates by email whenever there’s a new Rice ARCHES post?

The opinions expressed in materials on this website are those of the author(s) and do not represent the views of the National Endowment for the Arts Office of Research & Analysis or the National Endowment for the Arts. The Arts Endowment does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information included in this material and is not responsible for any consequences of its use. This NEA Research Lab is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts (Award#: 1855491-38-C-19).