A joint effort towards understanding human neurocognitive development - Collaboration between UCSD and UiO

Rapid development of techniques for acquisition and analyses of MRI data over the last 10 years now makes it possible to study human brain development in vivo with high accuracy. This opens up new and exciting possibilities to understand the general princ iples of brain maturation, and how this maturation governs the tremendous improvement in cognitive functions from early childhood, through adolescence and into young adulthood. To be able to do research at the international front row within this field, it is necessary to have access to the best available tools for MRI analyses. The main objective of the present proposal is to strengthen an existing collaboration with one of the world's leading labs for MRI research - the MultiModal Imaging Laboratory (MMI L), and establish a new collaboration with Center for Brain Development, both at UCSD. Such collaborations are a prerequisite if the Center for the Study of Human Cognition (CSHC) at UiO is to maintain its position as a lab of high international standard. The secondary objective is to conduct the largest, most advanced and most encompassing study of human brain development to date. At CSHC, we presently run a large study of 700 children followed longitudinally with a range of different measures, recruited through the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study. MMIL runs the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognitive, and Genetics (PING) study of 1400 children. We now plan to coordinate data acquisition protocols and data analyses pipelines to allow pooling of data fr om the two studies, making the largest study of human brain development to date. The range of measures included, in combination with the analyses methods that will be used for the MRI data, will yield unprecedented possibilities to address fundamental que stions of brain development, and give us important insights into the important interplay between genetic and environmental factors affecting brain and neurocognitive development.