[BIC-announce] CREATE-MIA Seminars: Friday, February 20

[Krys Dudek]

CREATE-MIA Seminars -  All welcome!
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“Deep Brain Stimulation of the Basal Ganglia and Thalamus Used to Improve Movement in Parkinson’s Disease"

Abbas F. Sadikot, MD, PhD, W.V. Cone Laboratory, Professor Department of Neurology & Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill

Location:	McConnell Engineering Building, Room 437
Date:	Friday, February 20, 2015
Time:	2:00 pm

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“Intrinsic brain networks and their role in neurodegenerative disease"

Alain Dagher, MD, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill

Location:	McConnell Engineering Building, Room 437
Date:	Friday, February 20, 2015
Time:	3:00 pm

Abstract
The talk will cover two recent exciting discoveries in neuroscience: (1) the imaging of intrinsic brain networks (2) evidence that neurodegenerative processes target these networks, which may act as conduits for the transneuronal spread of disease-causing misfolded proteins. Human functional brain imaging has shown that the brain is organized in large-scale networks. These have been identified mainly from resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI) and diffusion tractography (DTI), but also using structural covariance MRI data, MEG, PET and EEG. Intrinsic brain networks consist of usually spatially distinct brain regions that are heavily interconnected and tend to show correlated activity (as measured by fMRI); they are very reproducibly detected, underpin specific brain functions, and allow for efficient parallel and fault-tolerant processing. More recently, the use of graph theory for the analysis of MRI data has yielded specific insights into the organization of these networks. Graph theory is the mathematical framework for analyzing graphs, defined by a set of nodes and edges. Several interesting properties of graphs can be computed to yield insights into the normal organization of the brain, and into mechanisms of neurodegeneration.

Second, recent evidence suggests that some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease, may involve prion-like spreading of misfolded proteins via neuronal projections. These proteins (tau, beta-amyloid, alpha-synuclein) are thought to cause further protein misfolding, and disease propagation via intrinsic brain networks.

We will review brain imaging evidence supporting this network spread hypothesis.

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Krys (Christine) Dudek
Program Administrator, NSERC CREATE Program for Medical Image Analysis
Centre for Intelligent Machines
3480 University Street
McConnell Engineering Building, Room 410
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3A 2A7

kdudek at cim.mcgill.ca
514.398.6319

www.cim.mcgill.ca/create-mia

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