Early Life Imaging

The MINDS lab is at the cutting edge of early life neuroimaging. Our studies focus on the development of the brain’s functional organization in fetuses, neonates, and infants. The lab’s research in this area involves developing state-of-the-art tools and analytic pipelines to meet the challenges of imaging early brain development with advances in image acquisition, image analysis, and statistical analysis. The lab applies its expertise in connectomics, big data, and machine learning to the study of the brain as it goes through its most rapid and unparalleled development. It is through these studies that we attempt to examine both typical and atypical neurodevelopment trajectories.
The lab is one of a few in the country that use functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine fetal brain development. Examining functional brain development in utero has the potential to provide insight into the potential prenatal origins of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Previous and ongoing studies in the lab have a focus on preterm birth, prenatal exposures (including exposure to prenatal stress and maternal inflammation), and genetic risk for autism spectrum disorder). Our studies of fetal, neonatal, and infant functional brain development have the goal of developing early and actionable perinatal biomarkers of future mental health risk.