Computational Neuroanatomy of Baby Brains

Speaker: Dr. Gang Li

Time:    16:00-17:00, Sep. 26

Location: SIST 1C101

Host:    Dr. Yuyao Zhang

Abstract:

The first postnatal years are an exceptionally dynamic and critical period of structural, functional and connectivity development of the human brain. The increasing availability of non-invasive infant brain MR images provides unprecedented opportunities for accurate and reliable charting of dynamic early brain developmental trajectories in understanding normative and aberrant growth. However, infant brain MR images typically exhibit reduced tissue contrast, large within-tissue intensity variations, and regionally-heterogeneous, dynamic changes, in comparison with adult brain MR images. Consequently, the existing computational tools developed typically for adult brains are not suitable for infant brain MR image processing. To address these challenges, infant-tailored computational methods have been proposed for computational neuroanatomy of infant brains. In this presentation, I will introduce our pioneered infant-dedicated computational tools for cortical surface-based analysis of early brain development. Several components in our tools capitalize on deep learning techniques. I will also show some neuroscience applications of our tools in revealing the dynamic, nonlinear and region-specific development of baby brains.

Bio:

Dr. Gang Li is an assistant professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). His research interest is developing intelligent computing and analysis methods for neuroimaging, which He has published more than 150 papers in the international journals and conference proceedings, including Cell, PNAS, Cerebral Cortex, Journal of Neuroscience, NeuroImage, Brain Structure and Function, Human Brain Mapping, Medical Image Analysis, IEEE Trans. on Medical Imaging, IPMI, MICCAI and so on. His papers have been cited more than 3,000 times with a H-index 33 in google scholar. Dr. Gang Li has hosted many NIH scientific projects and was awarded with NIH Career Award.

Sist seminar 18204