Research
Description of Research Expertise
Research Interests:
brain development; brain connectivity and network; neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders; neuroimaging; small animal imaging;

Key words: brain development; cortical microstructure; developmental connectome; white matter tract; tractography; atlas; diffusion MRI; functional MRI; cerebral blood flow; big data; biomarker; Alzheimer's; autism

Research Summary

Research in the Huang lab focuses on the structural and functional connectivity as well as micro-structural quantifications and brain atlases using the latest noninvasive neuroimaging techniques. The research goal is to address the neuroscientific questions and identify diagnostic or therapeutic neuroimaging biomarkers. The neuroscientific questions include how the human brain functional networks emerge and what the structural and metabolic underpinnings of the brain networks are during development. The neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders include autism and Alzheimer’s. Brain atlases are made with tractography of the white matter tracts. Micro-structural quantification of neural structures uses the approaches of measuring diffusion properties of water molecules inside the brain at the level of micrometers. These studies are made possible with recent advancement of cutting-edge neuroimaging acquisition techniques and big-data analytics of brain images.