This stream is no longer active. 

Principal Investigators: Dr. Jeffery Luci and Dr. Neal Rutledge

Can we develop new diagnostic techniques for use on the brain?

The Brain Pathology stream is concerned with the causes and effects of chronic diseases and acute conditions that affect the brain and central nervous system.  We use genetic analysis, MR imaging, and standard clinical diagnostics to probe things like oncogenesis, white matter diseases, and traumatic brain injury.  The students enrolled will learn skills routinely used in computational biology, biomedical imaging processing, functional brain mapping, biostatistics and other related fields of neuroscience.  It will be common to work with both academic and clinical researchers in neurosurgery, genetics, psychology, and neuroscience. 

This Research Stream will begin with brain tumor anatomy and physiology and progress through imaging and analysis of brain diseases, including brain tumors. The spring will progress through a series of group meetings and independent activities that will develop student understanding of brain anatomy and function, identification of brain pathology and methodologies for imaging. Students will then work in small groups on case studies developed by doctors and surgeons at NeuroTexas Institute, presenting their diagnosis in a board-like format. Students will also work to develop and present for review independent research proposals for summer or fall work in areas including image analysis, bioinformatics, histochemistry/pathology, live animal studies, and potentially human fMRI studies. Course format will include one hour of formal group meeting per week with 6-8 hours of independent project or small group work outside of class each week.