Descripción del proyecto
Un método novedoso para dilucidar la conectividad encefálica
La neurociencia cognitiva y el estudio de las encefalopatías son dos campos que requieren la comprensión de la conectividad de las regiones encefálicas. Para determinar dicha conexión funcional, se debe estimular una región encefálica y medir la respuesta de la otra. Los métodos actuales, sin embargo, poseen una baja resolución o no pueden ofrecer las funciones de estimulación y medición al mismo tiempo. Para abordar esta cuestión, en el proyecto STIMUSURE, financiado con fondos europeos, se combinarán la magnetoencefalografía con la estimulación magnética transcraneal, una técnica utilizada tradicionalmente para estimular las células nerviosas en la región del encéfalo que participa en el control del estado de ánimo y la depresión.
Objetivo
Current methods for directly measuring the connectivity between brain regions are lacking. A causal measurement of a functional connection between two brain regions requires stimulation of the first region whilst measuring the response from the other. Stimulation with high spatio-temporal resolution can be delivered with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), but there are no suitable methods for simultaneously measuring the response with high spatio-temporal resolution. The state-of-the-art functional neuroimaging modalities have either too low spatial resolution, too low temporal resolution, or, in case of magnetoencephalography (MEG), are considered incompatible with TMS. With STIMUSURE, we aim to solve this incompatibility issue between TMS and MEG and build the first TMS–MEG device. During this two-year project, I will design magnetic shielding to enable TMS inside a magnetically shielded room (MSR) and build TMS-compatible resilient optically pumped magnetometers (OPM) based on nonlinear magneto-optical rotation (NMOR) technique. Unlike earlier ultra-sensitive magnetic field sensors, these NMOR-OPM sensors can tolerate the magnetic field pulses due to TMS. Ultimately, such a device would allow accurate measurement of the functional connectivity and quantifying its task-specific modulation, which would benefit both cognitive neuroscience and the study of brain disorders.
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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
B15 2TT Birmingham
Reino Unido