To be sure a team of scientists are in the process of developing a tool that can simulate how brain activity and behavior is influenced by the structure of the brain. This research involves looking into and understanding the relationship and interplay between the structure of the brain and the person’s ability to carry out language-related tasks.

A group of scientists led by University of Buffalo (UB) mathematician Sarah Muldoon are fully behind this approach and feel that it shows real promise for future studies. “We are creating these personalized brain network models to understand what the brain is doing, based on how connected different regions of a person’s brain are to one another,” says first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, UB, and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Kanika Bansal.





The study involved the researchers creating models of the brains of 10 individuals. These were based on diffusion spectrum images that captured the actual wiring of the subject’s brains. The researchers then used these models to learn just how easily the brain could jump into an active state when stimulated. They also discovered which regions of the brain became synchronized when simulated. More importantly, the research revealed some of the relationships that exist between the characteristics of the brain and the person’s ability to carry out language-demanding tasks.

This kind of research could seriously help spur advancements in neuroscience. “It’s important to create biologically inspired ways to predict individual responses to brain stimulation,” says John Medaglia, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Drexel University and co-author of the study. “The attractive idea here is that we can examine complex activity in each person’s brain networks. Then, we can define relatively simple measures that are strongly related to real-world performance,” he says.





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