New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) is one of the 3 major hubs of New York University global network. Being a premier research institution in the Middle East, NYUAD took on an ambitious plan to establish an integrated center for neuroscience with significant investments in non-invasive brain recording and imaging approaches, including magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalogram (EEG) and state-of-the-art Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology (MAGNETOM Prisma 3T – Siemens) to support several ongoing research studies focusing on language, working memory and vision.
Latest MRI acquisition strategies are combined with cutting-edge processing techniques that allow comparison between patient population and healthy subjects. Anatomical structural localization is supported by “functional MRI” scans (fMRI) to localize activity in the motor, auditory, visual, memory and language areas.
Representative applications from different investigators at NYUAD are summarized below:
1. Mapping the Human Connectome
Building on the seminal work by the Human Connectome Project (HCP) Consortium, we will able to compare our structural and functional MRI scans to the large database in the HCP project containing MRI and behavioral data from 1200 healthy subjects.
Fig. 1. HCP-style Human MRI data acquired in Abu Dhabi. Images on the left show anatomical images (T1 and T2-weighted) scans segmented to different anatomical regions (colored panel). Graph on the right shows
comparison of left cortical volume from 2 healthy subjects (green triangle) and HCP’s 1200 subjects (black dots) using the MAGNETOM Prisma 3T – Siemens.
Figure 1 shows comparison of the left cortical volumes obtained from high resolution segmented T1- and T2-weighted scans (MAGNETOM Prisma 3T – Siemens) overlaid on the left cortical volumes from the HCP’s 1200 subjects scans. Although preliminary, this demonstrates the potential of our new capabilities in UAE to obtain the equivalent of “normal growth charts” of adult brains. Future work will focus on expanding the existing datasets to include older population (above 36 years old) which can provide physicians with powerful normative data on structural growth.
2. Language Processing in the Brain
The Neuroscience of Language Lab (NeLLab) led by Liina Pylkkänen, Professor of Linguistics and Psychology, and Alec Marantz, Professor of Linguistics and Psychology, explores how natural language is implemented in the brain. This research is conducted at sister facilities in New York and Abu Dhabi.
In collaboration with several local entities, including the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), the NeLLab seeks to answer questions about how the brain mediates the most critical aspects of our communication system, and which properties of the mind/brain accomplish the seemingly effortless processing of language, ranging from the analysis of speech sounds to the construction of meaning.
The research uses advanced magnetoencephalography (MEG), a cutting-edge, non-invasive technology that is supplemented by EEG and MRI. For example, a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, shows
how Arabic-English bilingual brain, language switching engages prefrontal executive control mechanisms when listening to switches within a classic laboratory task but not when listening to switches within a natural
conversation, recorded on the NYU Abu Dhabi campus.
While our extant neurobiological understanding of language is heavily based on English, the mission of the NeLLaB is to branch out to the rich language diversity of the UAE to reveal a more comprehensive neural basis of language.
Fig. 2. Brain basis of language switching in the Arabic- English bilingual. Commonly observed prefrontal effects of switching are only observed during somewhat artificial laboratory tasks (A) and not when the switches occur within a fully natural conversation (B). This suggests that, contrary to much prior literature, language switching is in fact not an effortful process for fluent bilinguals.
3. Working Memory and the Brain
The lab of Kartik Sreenivasan, Assistant Professor of Psychology, aims to understand the neurobiological mechanisms that support the ability to form and carry out goals. This work focuses on the dynamic and flexible neural coding of short-term memory representations as well as the networks involved in keeping memory representations robust to interference. To study these phenomena, the lab employs a multimodal approach that includes methods such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), human electrophysiology and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). One area the Sreenivasan Lab studies is the role of subcortical nuclei in cognition. Recently, they examined the contributions that the superior colliculus - a brain region that is largely implicated in eye movements - makes to human working memory. In this study, research subjects remembered a location in space over a blank delay. Functional MRI data collected from the superior colliculus during the memory delay was used to predict where subjects were remembering. This suggests that the superior colliculus contains goal-related memory information and may make important contributions to cognition. This work has the potential to update existing models of cognition as well as inform clinical work on disorders related to the superior colliculus such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and spatial neglect.
4. Perception, Learning and Memory
Olivia Cheung, Assistant Professor of Psychology, research demonstrates how the human brain perceives the visual world and how perception is influenced by experience and learning. She studies this question by examining how visual and conceptual knowledge interact to influence our representations of objects, faces and scenes. The techniques she uses include a combination of behavioral and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) methods. To explore how visual and conceptual information of animate and inanimate categories are represented in the occipitotemporal cortex, a recent study in her lab controlled for image statistics between images of animals and tools, while manipulating spatial frequency, visual shape and semantic category of the images presented in the scanner. Using multi-voxel pattern analysis, the results reveal that the representation of object categories in the occipitotemporal cortex is likely sensitive to semantic category information beyond physical differences of animate vs. inanimate categories. This novel finding suggests that semantic knowledge, in addition to visual features, is represented in the high-level visual cortex and has implications on modifying current understanding of visual object recognition.
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