2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Neuroimaging: Discoveries from Fetus to Adult

Advances in neuroimaging have led to new opportunities to gather data on brain structure and function in humans that were previously unattainable. These advances have provided opportunities to decipher the mysteries of brain development before and after birth through childhood, as well as during periods of age-dependent change, including adolescence and in the elderly. The information has led to new concepts of the early roots of risk for mental and neurological disorders and vulnerabilities that arise in the aging process. In fetal development, the assembly of circuits that will serve complex brain functions can be tracked, along with defining those circuits and individuals who are at great risk for brain disruption. These same brain regions undergo dramatic changes in childhood and into adolescence, and neuroimaging findings are revealing relationships between such changes and cognition, decision-making, and reward. In aging, neuroimaging methods can monitor decline in a circuit-specific fashion. The technology revolution also has led to new ideas of individual vulnerability to Alzheimer’s and other diseases that target these same brain regions. Experts will discuss the technical challenges of imaging across the lifespan; bioethics issues regarding the use of brain structure-function information; and how “big science” efforts are helping to resolve the biological basis of healthy and unhealthy brain maturation and aging.