Home

 

The Center for Translational NeuroImaging (CTNI) brings to the Northeastern campus state-of-the-art technology and expertise in the area of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with the purpose of understanding the central nervous system in health and disease. High-field MRI offers the potential to visualize and quantify changes in brain function, plasticity, and chemistry as a consequence of environmental insults and genetic predisposition. As we grow from childhood through adolescence and into maturity, our brain changes. Insults like addictive drugs, environmental toxins or traumatic stress, combined with genetic risk can trigger changes in our neurobiology contributing to the pathophysiology of many psychiatric and neurological disorders.

With non-invasive imaging, we can follow these changes in the same animal over its entire lifespan. Translating our findings from animals to humans will help aid in early diagnosis and the potential for development of new therapeutics. The CTNI will be addressing a number of psychiatric and neurological diseases that impact the quality of life and contribute to the burgeoning cost of health care in our country. Faculty interests focus on a variety of neurobiological problems including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, PTSD, autism, drug addiction and violence. The spirit of global scientific cooperation and collaboration is paramount in these challenging times as we seek answers and solutions to our most devastating CNS disorders.

To this end, the CTNI is designed to be a “virtual” channel for research collaborations and education with video communications technology and remote data analysis and transfer capabilities that can enable colleagues from around the world to perform imaging studies on our MRI scanner.