BME Colloquium: David Boas, PhD

Neuro-Vascular Coupling in the Human Brain

David Boas, PhD, Professor

Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics

Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

EEG, MEG, PET, and fMRI are important tools in the study of the functioning human brain, providing measures of electrical, metabolic, and vascular responses to brain activation. Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is an optical method that images cerebral hemoglobin dynamics non-invasively in the adult human brain, particularly the total hemoglobin and oxygen saturation changes following brain activation. A greater understanding of the coupling between neuronal activity and vascular response is emerging from a multi-modal combination of these imaging methods in humans, and is complement by more invasive studies in animals.

I will present our groups efforts to develop NIRS technology and to combine it with fMRI, MEG, and EEG to explore neuro-vascular coupling. We have learned that cortico-cortical neuronal processing dominates the vascular response rather than the commonly held belief that thalamic inputs dominate. I will then motivate the need to understand neuro-METABLIC-vascular coupling by discussing our recent results that show the disassociation of blood flow responses and metabolic responses to brain activation. I will discuss methodology that we are developing to measure the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen which we are applying to study infant brain development.

Please join us at the SEAS Social in the Meliora immediately following the seminar.