Functional MRI Imaging in Traumatic Brain Injury

CENTER-TBI is a large European project that aims to improve the care for patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The work undertaken in Cambridge will examine the role of MRI in routine TBI imaging and this project will focus on the role of resting state functional MRI in TBI imaging. There is now abundant evidence from functional MRI suggesting that the resting brain is organised in coherent long range networks. The functionality of these networks is easily inferred since they typically track the functional anatomy of networks identified during activation studies. For this reason, the translational potential of resting networks, particularly in patients unable to participate in stimulus driven experiments (e.g. TBI), seems immense but is mostly unrealised. This project will evaluate the usefulness of resting state functional MRI imaging in TBI for understanding and tracking disease processes and prognosticating cognitive recovery. Additionally we will aim to relate functional connectivity patterns to cognitive measures, vulnerability for depression and to functional outcome in general. Experience in neuroimaging, in particular MRI analysis, is required for this project. Some programming experience (e.g, Linux, Matlab, Python) is desirable.