1. Cross-cultural FASD: Brain Imaging (U24 Core) Progress 2005
Elizabeth R. Sowell, Ph.D. (and Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D.)
UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging

2. Areas of Progress FMRI Task Development and Pilot Imaging Studies
New Data Collection: UCLA and San Diego
Tool Development
Phantom work continues

3. FMRI Task Development and Pilot Imaging Studies
Task 1: Orthographic Processing
Subjects look at blocks of words or false fonts, and determine if the string contains an ascender or “tall letter.”
This task was selected because it activates posterior parietal language cortices.

4. Posterior parietal language cortices affected in FASD (but not ADHD)

5. Orthographic Processing Task
Posterior parietal activation in two young adult subjects.

6. FMRI Task Development and Pilot Imaging Studies
Task 2: Visual-Spatial Working Memory
A filled circle stimulus was presented in one of 5 distinct visual-spatial locations. Subjects are asked to respond to stimulus location in 1-back and 2-back conditions
This task was selected because it activates dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and cerebellum.

7. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortices unaffected in FASD (and ADHD).

8. Cerebellum (vermis shown here) abnormal in FASD
O’Hare et al. In Press, NeuroReport

9. Visual-Spatial Working Memory
Cerebellar activation in two young adult subjects.

10. We have shown that the selected tasks do indeed activate the regions of interest. These are only two of five tasks, all of which were selected to allow double dissociations between affected and unaffected (from a brain structure standpoint) cortical regions. Analyses will be focused on combining functional and structural data to determine functional activation abnormalities independent of brain dysmorphology.

11. New Data Collection: UCLA and San Diego
UCLA: Subject recruitment underway in collaboration with Mary O’Connor.
Bruin Buddies letter (FASD).
Start with kids still with biological family
Add in LA Family (Controls).
Successful with our colleagues studying language development in normal kids

12. We scanned our first normally developing 11 year old boy
on Tuesday (June 21, 2005).

13. New Data Collection: UCLA and San Diego
San Diego: 19 subjects have been scanned according to Sarah Mattson.
Discussions have begun on potential image analysis strategies.

14. Tool Development New surface and image analysis software
Semi-automated surface curve drawing
Incorporation of BrainSuite and tools developed for cortical surface pattern matching will allow image analysis on PCs
Speed of brain surface analyses increased dramatically
Reliability increased significantly

15. Increased Speed
Semi-automated
Increased Reliability

16. These images represent the difference in surface location between 10 subjects analyzed with software developed by another research group, and the same 10 subjects analyzed with the Brain Suite software developed by Dr. Shattuck. Note the difference is expressed in percentage points according to the color bar.

17. Phantom Work Continues
Phantom may be too big
San Diego head coil too small
UCLA protocol wrap-around artifact
San Diego scanning inadequate (off center)
Can rescan
Developing new protocol for scanning phantom
Work on correction protocols will continue

18. Plans for the next year
During the next year we plan to continue data collection at the UCLA and San Diego locations. Work will continue on the phantom data to ensure comparability across these two sites, and further work will continue on software development. We will facilitate installation of image analysis software for use by the San Diego group and support its use. Data analysis should begin within the next year as is consistent with the original specific aims of the Imaging Core.