Broadcast — Non-invasive mapping of the human brain

The Cutting Edge lectures are organized to foster communication between scientists in different disciplines as well as between scientists and the public.

By Alan Evans (MNI and Depts of Neurology and Neurosurgery and Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill)

Alan Evans is the director of the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre's ACE NeuroImaging Laboratory and the Montreal Consortium for Brain Imaging Research - and, as a specialist in three-dimensional modeling of the living brain, his goal is to understand neurological pathologies inside-out. "Ultimately, we're trying to understand the natural history of a disease," he says. "What parts of the brain exhibit abnormal changes in cortical thickness, for example, over the duration of Alzheimer's disease? How does that brain map relate to behaviours, such as a decline in language skills?