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Ultra-high Resolution Structural Connectome Atlases of the Animal Brain and their Associated Toolbox

Award Number: R01NS120954
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 02/15/2022
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 12/31/2026

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Ultra-high Resolution Structural Connectome Atlases of the Animal Brain and their Associated Toolbox - PROJECT SUMMARY A structural connectome can provide critical information for animal brain studies to study white matter bundles and correlate brain circuits with experimental findings. As more animal models for neurological disorders are widely used to understand the disease mechanism and test possible treatments, tractography atlases will help those studies to correlate white matter pathways with brain function or dysfunction. Here, we aim to construct tractography atlases at unprecedented details as structural connectome for mouse, rat, and rhesus macaque and developed associated toolboxes for novel tractography analytics. To achieve this goal, we have formed a multidisciplinary team between Duke Center for In Vivo Microscopy and the DSI Studio team at the University of Pittsburgh. At Duke CIVM, we will acquire the ultra-high resolution beyond-tensor diffusion MRI on the mouse, rat, and rhesus macaque brains to resolve complicated axonal structures. The image acquisition will be accelerated using compressed sensing and further reconstructed using a super-resolution approach. Besides MRI, the rat and mouse brain tissue will be processed by tissue clearing and scanned by light-sheet fluorescence microscopy to capture cell-level histology details of the entire brain. The diffusion MRI data will then be processed at the University of Pittsburgh to construct tractography atlases and develop novel automated tractography, shape analysis, and bundle analytics toolboxes. We will track whole-brain pathways and cluster them into bundles. Our neuroanatomist team will validate tractography against publicly available tracer data and aggregate the results in tractography atlases, which will be used to build their associated atlas- based automated tractography and associated analysis. The completion of this study will provide a mesoscale structural connectome with integrated histologic images at unprecedented quality as well as their associated toolboxes. The data and tools combined will serve as invaluable resources for animal studies to investigate brain disorders.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $564,225 )
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	001	4	8/5/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$56,422
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	4	2/20/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$507,803
														Subtotal = $564,225

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $553,740 )
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	001	3	4/25/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$39,960
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	3	12/12/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$513,780
														Subtotal = $553,740

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $570,808 )
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	001	2	1/30/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$57,080
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	2	12/23/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$513,728
														Subtotal = $570,808

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $597,844 )
2022	2022	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, THE	4200 5TH AVE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	1	1/31/2022	NEW	$597,844
														Subtotal = $597,844

Grand Total All Awards = $2,286,617

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Ultra-high Resolution Structural Connectome Atlases of the Animal Brain and their Associated Toolbox

Award Number: R01NS120954

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 02/15/2022

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 12/31/2026

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