Resting state functional connectivity MRI in the rodent brain: applications to human disease

Resting state functional connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fcMRI) is a non- invasive technique that can be used to investigate the brain’s functional network organization in both healthy individuals and patients with psychiatric disorders. A crucial discovery that has emerged from the past decade of cognitive neuroscience is that using a network characterization of synchronized functional activity with rs-fcMRI can be leveraged to identify complex and reproducible topological systems-level organization of the brain. To progress on these fronts, the current work is separated into two projects which, 1) validate the use of rs-fcMRI in preclinical models and investigate how functional connectivity (FC) is shaped by its cellular and molecular substrates, and 2) apply these validated techniques to a preclinical animal model that can be then be compared to humans using the same non-invasive rs-fcMRI measurements.