Brain-Development Projects

MSI PIs are among the co-leaders of two projects that recently received grants totaling $26 million from the National Institutes of Health.

MSI PI Sylia Wilson (assistant professor, Institute of Child Development) is a co-leader on a $6 million grant that establishes the U of M as a data collection site for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development  (HBCD) Study. The HBCD researchers are studying the impact of substance use and other risk and protective factors on brain and behavioral development in infants and young children.

Professor Wilson uses MSI resources in support of studies of twins and families to determine the risks for and consequences of psychopathology and the brain.

MSI PI Damien Fair (professor, Institute of Child Development; co-director, Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain) is co-leading the $20 million second grant, which will develop an integrated, collaborative analytic infrastructure for the HBCD Study.

Professor Fair uses MSI to support research projects that use functional MRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI to study the mechanisms and principles that underlie the developing brain.

A story about these grants and the HBCD Study appears on the U of M News website: University of Minnesota Receives NIH Funding to Study Early Child Brain Development.