Biology subjects

Morales Carrasco, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Morales Carrasco, C..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Precision Functional Neuroimaging Reveals Individually Specific Auditory Responses in Infants

Adaptively responding to salient stimuli in the environment is a fundamental feature of cognitive development in early life, which is enabled by the developing brain. Understanding individual variability in how the brain supports this fundamental process is essential for uncovering neurodevelopmental trajectories and potential neurodevelopmental risks. In the present study, we used a precision functional imaging approach to probe activation in response to salient auditory stimuli and its relation to brain functional networks in individual infants. A minimum of 60 minutes of fMRI BOLD data with an auditory oddball paradigm were collected in ten infants with a mean postmenstrual age of 48 weeks. Results demonstrate the feasibility of performing a precision functional imaging study to investigate individual specific responses to salient stimuli in infants. While responses to the auditory oddball were consistent between individuals in auditory processing areas, responses across the rest of the brain differed across individuals in their magnitude and shape. Individual specific response patterns appeared to be relatively stable and differed from other participants response patterns, despite fluctuations across runs. Commonalities and differences between individuals demonstrated in this sample contribute to our understanding of how the developing brain instantiates processing of salient stimuli. Our findings suggest that during early development, early unimodal processing is well conserved across individuals, however subsequent perceptual processing is still being personally defined. In this context, individual specific response patterns could be a promising target for biomarkers of normative brain and cognitive development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Multi-echo Acquisition and Thermal Denoising Advances Infant Precision Functional Imaging

The characterization of individual functional brain organization with Precision Functional Mapping has provided important insights in recent years in adults. However, little is known about the ontogeny of inter-individual differences in brain functional organization during human development. Precise characterization of systems organization during periods of high plasticity is likely to be essential for discoveries promoting lifelong health. Obtaining precision fMRI data during development has unique challenges that highlight the importance of establishing new methods to improve data acquisition, processing, and analysis. Here, we investigate two methods that can facilitate attaining this goal: multi-echo (ME) data acquisition and thermal noise removal with Noise Reduction with Distribution Corrected (NORDIC) principal component analysis. We applied these methods to precision fMRI data from adults, children, and newborn infants. In adults, both ME acquisitions and NORDIC increased temporal signal to noise ratio (tSNR) as well as the split-half reliability of functional connectivity matrices, with the combination helping more than either technique alone. The benefits of NORDIC denoising replicated in both our developmental samples. ME acquisitions revealed longer and more variable T2* relaxation times across the brain in infants relative to older children and adults, leading to major differences in the echo weighting for optimally combining ME data. This result suggests ME acquisitions may be a promising tool for optimizing developmental fMRI, albeit application in infants needs further investigation. The present work showcases methodological advances that improve Precision Functional Mapping in adults and developmental populations and, at the same time, highlights the need for further improvements in infant specific fMRI.

neuroscience↗