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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortices unaffected in FASD (and ADHD).

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Increased Speed Semi-automated Increased Reliability

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.

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

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.