[Eeglablist] Research fellow position in Electrophysiology and Neuroimaging

[Eishi Asano]

Dear All, I am recruiting a research fellow to join our laboratory in 
Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Wayne State University. We currently 
perform research projects to determine the long-term language outcome 
following brain surgery, and to determine how human brain works during 
speech. The funding has been approved by NIH, with a score of top 1.0 
percentile, for five years (see the summary below). We have 192-channel EEG 
Machines, Direct Cortical Stimulator, Eye Tracking System, 3T MRI, and PET. 
An applicant interested in working on our projects can email me with your 
CV. Email address is: eishi{at}pet.wayne.edu [Change {at} to @]. Thank you 
very much, Eishi

SUMMARY: The goals of this project are: (i) to generate an empirical model 
to predict the long-term language outcome following epilepsy surgery and 
(ii) to better understand ‘how’ the language system works during speech. 
About 1% of the general population has epilepsy, while one-fifth of epilepsy 
is medically intractable. Subsets of patients with intractable focal 
epilepsy benefit from surgical resection of the seizure focus with 
functionally-important areas preserved. Yet, in reality, accurate 
identification of language areas is difficult, especially in children, since 
electrical stimulation mapping lacks sufficient sensitivity, often takes 
hours to complete, and has a risk of stimulation-induced seizures. In the 
first funding period, we demonstrated that naming-related augmentation of 
gamma activity (50-120 Hz) on electrocorticography (ECoG) recording can 
delineate the language circuitry, and that surgical damage of sites showing 
such gamma-augmentation predicted the acute postoperative language outcome 
better than electrical stimulation mapping. An important next step is to 
determine how well the long-term language outcome can be predicted, since 
some but not all children recover language function well after the resection 
of language networks. To maximize the predictive performance, we will 
determine the language cortex and subcortical pathway, while combining ECoG 
gamma mapping with diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) fiber tractography. 
Furthermore, the prediction model will take into account the chronic effect 
of functional recovery in addition to the acute effect of damaged language 
networks on neuropsychological outcome measures. This project is significant 
since the results will be directly translatable into patient management, and 
our innovative multimodality technique has the potential to become a 
mainstream method to localize functionally-important brain structures.
   We will also determine the anatomical and functional connectivity within 
the language networks, using ECoG gamma mapping, DWI tractography and 
cortico-cortical evoked potentials (CCEPs). Theoretical models of human 
speech propose that phonologic and semantic information is transferred, via 
the arcuate fasciculus, between the temporal and frontal language areas. 
Yet, the exact location of each arcuate pathway for phonologic and semantic 
information has not been elucidated. Furthermore, directional efficiency of 
signal transferring in each pathway has not been clarified, although a 
modern theoretical model indicates the presence of bi-directional signal 
transferring between the frontal and temporal lobes. In this project, we 
will specifically determine if these sites involved in phonological and 
semantic functions are differentially connected via distinct arcuate 
fasciculus fibers. We will also determine ‘in which direction’ electrical 
signals propagate more efficiently within and across the two lobes involved 
in language. The model refined or revised by this empirical study will help 
in prediction of specific language symptoms following focal brain damage, 
and ultimately may better localize the therapeutic targets for improving 
different types of language impairments in neurological diseases.

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Eishi Asano, MD, PhD, MS (CRDSA)
Associate Professor, Pediatrics & Neurology, Wayne State University
Director, Neurodiagnostics, Children's Hospital of Michigan
3901 Beaubien Street, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.
Phone: +1-313-745-5547; FAX: +1-313-745-0955; E-mail: eishi{at}pet.wayne.edu 
[Change {at} to @]
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