Eggebrecht Awarded Grant to Expand Brain Imaging Resources

Adam T. Eggebrecht, PhD, associate professor of radiology for Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, was awarded a $4 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The five-year grant will support Eggebrecht and colleagues’ aims of expanding and disseminating powerful, intuitive cloud-based resources among the brain imaging community.

More and more researchers are employing noninvasive optical imaging methods that harness light to study brain function. And as the neuroimaging community grows, so does the need for robust and streamlined data collection, preprocessing, estimation of brain connectivity and relational analyses between brain connectivity and behavior. Eggebrecht and collaborators, including Muriah D. Wheelock, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, and Daniel S. Marcus, PhD, professor of radiology, will use the NIH Brain Initiative U24 funding to do just that.

Eggebrecht leads the Brain Light Laboratory — based in MIR’s Biophotonics Research Center — where he uses diffuse optics to create portable and wearable systems for unconstrained imaging of brain function. This method also enables the study of subjects who have implanted devices and may not be eligible for an MRI.