The University of Minnesota has already used unique imaging techniques to map out brain activity in healthy adults; now it has received a $6.9 million federal grant to extend this work into the brains of the very young and the very old, and to support other institutions studying people with chronic diseases.

Using sophisticated MRI techniques, the researchers will compare the "activity maps" of brains over the next five years to understand how they function differently in people of different ages and disability levels.

"We will know much more about the brain circuitry and how that circuitry is affecting brain functioning, brain diseases," said Kamil Ugurbil, one of the lead researchers at the U and the director of its Center for Magnetic Resonance Research.

The university initially received a grant five years ago as part of a consortium with Washington University in St. Louis and other institutions. One of the university's contributions was in the MRI technique that made it possible to map out brain activity, and to create an initial database of 1,400 people whose brains were scanned.

Already, this has resulted in published studies about correlations in brain activity by people with the same characteristics — such as those who exercise or abuse drugs.

"People can answer a lot of questions about the incidence of environment, the incidence of genetics" and how they impact brain activity, he said.

Ugurbil's team will use the new grants to focus on brain activity in children and in the elderly, but another research team on campus will be studying people with Alzheimer's disease. The U will also support 300 institutions that are starting this kind of research.

Ugurbil said this kind of brain activity mapping could be very instructive for mental illnesses, which are currently diagnosed based on symptoms rather than physical tests.

"I don't think we will find cures [using this approach] in the next five years," he said, "but we will be in much better position to create interventions or talk about the best interventions."

Jeremy Olson • 612-673-7744