▶ Obesity
Obesity is a worldwide problem that is responsible for inducing insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers. Obesity is a multi-factorial disease that is affected by environmental, genetic, and behavioral factors. Especially, the behavioral factor is highly associated with altered brain structure and function. Thus, investigating the brains of individuals with obesity using state-of-the-art neuroimaging analysis techniques might provide complementary information about obesity.
▶ Neurodevelopment
Neurodevelopment is important for overall maturation in cognitive and educational functions and brain health more generally. Understanding how the brain network organization changes during development provides mechanistic insights into maturational processes, their biological underpinnings, and their effects on behavior and cognition. As such, we study typical and atypical neurodevelopmental processes. In particular, autism is a persistent neurodevelopmental condition showing atypical sensory processing and deficits in high-level cognitive and social functions. Autism patients show idiosyncratic functional connectivity patterns in sensorimotor and default-mode networks and perturbed functional hierarchy in those networks. Understanding how structural and functional alterations in autism may consolidate the diverse behavioral phenotype and identify pathological mechanisms of autism.
▶ Neurodegeneration
Alzheimer’s disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder that impairs memory and disrupts both cognitive and bodily functions. The neurodegenerative process often begins before clinical symptoms become apparent and typically progresses through a stage of mild cognitive impairment. Despite its profound global health impact, curative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease remain unavailable, underscoring the urgent need to develop reliable biomarkers for risk assessment. We investigate the multiscale characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease using MRI, PET, and genetic data to uncover the biological underpinnings of this disorder.
▶ Migraine
Migraine is a neurological disorder that affects approximately 20% of the global population. Although often considered a benign condition, migraine is associated with an increased risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, and mortality. Investigating how brain structure and function differ in individuals with migraine compared to healthy controls is a critical first step toward developing effective treatment strategies. The next step involves identifying the underlying causes of these brain alterations. Quantitative neuroimaging analysis techniques play a key role in achieving these goals.