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Lifespan Informatics & Neuroimaging Center

Innovation in data science and translational neuroscience to understand brain development and mental illness

RESEARCH

  Our research uses advanced analytics to integrate complex brain images and rich behavioral data.   Ultimately, we seek to map normal brain development and understand how alterations in brain maturation increase risk of psychiatric illness.

Research
RecentPubs

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

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Juliette Brook, Taylor Salo

bioRxiv

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Data resource for studying mood and sleep variability

Brain development during adolescence and early adulthood coincides with shifts in emotion regulation and sleep. Despite this, few existing datasets simultaneously characterize affective dynamics, sleep variation, and multimodal measures of brain development. Here, we describe the study protocol and initial release (n = 10) of an open data resource of neuroimaging paired with densely sampled behavioral measures in adolescents and young adults. All participants complete multi-echo functional MRI, compressed-sensing diffusion MRI, and advanced arterial spin-labeled MRI. Behavioral measures include ecological momentary assessment, actigraphy, extensive cognitive assessments, and detailed clinical phenotyping focused on emotion regulation. Raw and processed data are openly available without a data use agreement and will be regularly updated as accrual continues. Together, this resource will accelerate research on the links between mood, sleep, and brain development.

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Audrey Luo

bioRxiv

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Two Axes of White Matter Development

Despite decades of neuroimaging research, how white matter develops along the length of major tracts in humans remains unknown. Here, we identify fundamental patterns of white matter maturation by examining developmental variation along major, long-range cortico-cortical tracts in youth ages 5-23 years using diffusion MRI from three large-scale, cross-sectional datasets (total N = 2,710). Across datasets, we delineate two replicable axes of human white matter development. First, we find a deep-to-superficial axis, in which superficial tract regions near the cortical surface exhibit greater age-related change than deep tract regions. Second, we demonstrate that the development of superficial tract regions aligns with the cortical hierarchy defined by the sensorimotor-association axis, with tract ends adjacent to sensorimotor cortices maturing earlier than those adjacent to association cortices.

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Golia Shafiei

bioRxiv

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Reproducible Brain Charts (RBC)

Major mental disorders are increasingly understood as disorders of brain development. Large and heterogeneous samples are required to define generalizable links between brain development and psychopathology. To this end, we introduce the Reproducible Brain Charts (RBC), an open data resource that integrates data from 5 large studies of brain development in youth from three continents (N=6,346; 45% Female). Confirmatory bifactor models were used to create harmonized psychiatric phenotypes that capture major dimensions of psychopathology. Following rigorous quality assurance, neuroimaging data were carefully curated and processed using consistent pipelines in a reproducible manner. Critically, all RBC data – including harmonized psychiatric phenotypes, unprocessed images, and fully processed imaging derivatives – are openly shared without a data use agreement via the International Neuroimaging Data-sharing Initiative. Together, RBC facilitates large-scale, reproducible, and generalizable research in developmental and psychiatric neuroscience.

News

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News
Ted
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ted satterthwaite

Ted is the McLure Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His research uses multi-modal neuroimaging to describe both normal and abnormal patterns of brain development, in order to better understand the origins of mental illnesses.

Lifespan Informatics and Neuroimaging Center

Richards Research Labs, 5th Floor

3700 Hamilton Walk

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Email: sattertt@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

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