Lasse Knudsen
"Validation of laminar fMRI in the primary motor cortex and its application in patients with ALS”

About the PhD thesis:

The cortex of the brain consists of six layers, each with different roles in processing neuronal inputs and outputs. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with submillimeter spatial resolution offers a tool to study brain activation across these layers non-invasively in humans.

In the present PhD project, it was tested whether the sensitivity and specificity of layer-dependent fMRI signals could be improved using advanced data processing to increase its utility at commonly available 3T MRI scanners. To further our understanding of laminar fMRI signals, the method was subsequently used to study laminar activation patterns in the primary motor cortex in response to different types of sensorimotor stimulation. Finally, the method was uniquely applied in a patient with late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to assess the capability of laminar fMRI for elucidating ALS pathology at the meso-scale.

This work contributes with a setup for laminar fMRI that reduces the need for rare and expensive 7T MRI scanners. Additionally, it adds to our understanding of different sensorimotor modalities’ contribution to laminar activation in the primary motor cortex and showcases its utility to investigate the fatal disease of ALS at unprecedented resolution in humans.  

Opponents: 

• Chairman: Associate Professor, Steffen Ringgaard, Department of Clinical Medicine, The MR Research Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus Denmark
• Associate Professor, Jozien Goense, Department of Psychology and Department of Bioengineering, Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
• Associate Professor, Kristoffer Hougaard Madsen, DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

PhD supervisors:

• Main supervisor: Clinical Professor, Jakob U. Blicher, Department of Neurology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
• Chinese main supervisor: Professor, Yang Yan, State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
• Associate Professor, Torben E. Lund, CFIN, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
• Senior Consultant, Christopher J. Bailey, CFIN, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
• Professor, Zhang Peng, State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

The defense can be followed on site in the AUH auditorium, C114-101, Entrance: C, C110
or via Zoom: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/61578854668

ALL ARE WELCOME

Contact

Lasse Knudsen
lknud@cfin.au.dk
https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/persons/lknud%40cfin.au.dk