| Start Date: | 11/7/2016 | Start Time: | 9:00 PM |
| End Date: | 11/7/2016 | End Time: | 11:00 PM |
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Event Description
BIOMED PhD Research Proposal (1st DU-SJTU Dual PhD)
Title:
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for the Objective Assessment of Schizophrenia
Speaker:
Adrian Curtin, Dual PhD Candidate, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU)
Advisors:
Hasan Ayaz, PhD, Associate Research Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems
Jijun Wang, PhD, Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU)
Shanbao Tong, PhD, Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU)
Abstract:
Schizophrenia is a severe and disabling mental disorder that is characterized by deficits in cognitive processes, perception, and emotional responsiveness. Cognitive performance deficits pre-date psychosis and manifest themselves in a broad range of tasks, including attention, working memory and verbal domain. These long-lasting impairments are part of the reason that schizophrenia presents a significant burden on not only patients, but their families and society as a whole. Because the onset of schizophrenia occurs predominately during the transition into adult life, the social and occupational impact of the disorder can persist for the entirety of a patient’s lifetime. Current antipsychotic therapies do not adequately address the full profile of patient symptoms and despite the introduction of innovative neurostimulation techniques, patient responses remain highly heterogeneous. There is a distinct clinical need for technologies which can be used to optimize current pharmacological therapies and evaluate the impact of neurostimulation techniques.
Dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex is considered to be a hallmark of schizophrenia and measurement of this biomarker has great potential in helping clinicians tailor treatments to individual patients. Prefrontal cortex activity can be effectively monitored by using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) which non-invasively measures cortical hemodynamic responses using near-infrared light with safe portable and wearable sensors. Results from our collaborative study support fNIRS’ ability to combine with performance measures to create neural efficiency biomarkers that can predict treatment response with the goal of improving treatment through personalization. Twenty-eight (28) schizophrenia patients and 16 healthy controls participated in a cross sectional study and 16 patients were assessed for longitudinal changes following treatment. Integrated fNIRS and behavioral measures indicate that patients who improved throughout the course of treatment (based on clinical outcome scores) had distinct improvements in neural efficiency trends when compared to patients that did not respond to treatment, confirming that brain function changes parallel the clinical outcomes.
In an additional study, the capability of fNIRS to monitor evoked responses to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) was validated for High Frequency and Theta Burst Stimulation in 16 healthy participants in the Left-DLPFC, an area typically targeted during neurostimulation therapies in schizophrenia. Additionally, we observed the ability of TMS to improve task-based neural-efficiency metrics, suggesting that the cognitive benefits of TMS can be detected by fNIRS.
In the proposed study, we aim to combine our findings from task-based evaluation of patient status and our technique for online monitoring of TMS therapy to identify predictive correlates of effective TMS stimulation, as well as track the influence of TMS stimulation on established clinical outcomes. |
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Location:
Med-X Building, Room 218, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Shanghai, China |
Audience:
Undergraduate StudentsGraduate StudentsFacultyStaff |
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