CSCI Research

About

Dr. Frank provides the expertise and leadership to make the Center a central research resource for the UCSD research community and drive the core research program focusing on advancing MR computation and imaging. The CSCI is an interdisciplinary endeavor, involving physicists, radiologists, neuroscientists, physiologists, marine biologists, and others. CSCI is involved in a wide network of collaborations with other investigators at UCSD and at affiliated institutions, such as the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, SIO, Birch Aquarium, and SDSU.

Active Grants

(NIH) High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging with MRI
Major goals:  To develop novel data acquisition and analysis methods for the determination of local white matter structure in both normal and alcohol compromised subjects using high angular resolution diffusion weighted imaging and validate the findings using both numerical simulations and a rat model at high fields and subsequent histological analysis of white matter.
Principal Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D.
           
(NSF) Digital Fish Library
Major goals: To image the Marine Vertebrates Collection (MVC) of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), create web-based image analysis tools that allow the data to be viewed and analyzed remotely over the web, integrate this digital data and the resulting processed data with existing marine biology databases,  and create a high-school level educational tool, called the "Digital Dissection Tool", that integrates the teaching of marine biology with that of computer imaging techniques used in basic science research by allowing students to perform digital dissections on high resolution 3D MRI data of specimens in the MVC.
Principal Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D.

(NIH) Software for the Analysis and Visualization of High Angular Resolution DTI Data
Software for the Analysis and Visualization of High Angular Resolution DTI Data
Major goals: to produce a quantitative DTI analysis and visualization tool to aid neuroscientists in their ongoing assessment of degenerate white matter diseases.
Principal Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D.

(NIH) CNS HIV Anti-Retroviral Therapy Effects Research (CHARTER)
Major goals: To assess the long-term effects of potent anti-retroviral therapy on HIV-induced disease of the nervous system.
Principal Investigator: Grant, Igor, Ph.D
Co-Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D

(NIH) Transmural Deformation
Major goals:  To examine the role of transmural heterogeneity with a combination of sophisticated computational models and in-vivo experiments in the dog.
Principal Investigator: Omens, Jeffrey, Ph.D
Co-Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D

(NIH) Stimulant Dependence: Neural Mechanisms of Relapse
Major goals: To determine the neural substrates that underlies the prediction of relapse in stimulant users.
Principal Investigator: Paulus, Martin, Ph.D
Co-Investigator: Frank, Lawrence R, Ph.D

(NIH/San Diego State University) Behavioral and MRI Evaluation of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure
Major goals: to address the question of whether subjects suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) exhibit changes in diffusion parameters in affected white matter regions that reflect underlying structural changes.
Principal Investigator: Riley, Edward, Ph.D
Co-Investigator: Frank, Lawrence R, Ph.D

(NIH) National Center for Muscle Rehabilitation Research
Major goals: Create “The Medical Rehabilitation Research Infrastructure Program in Muscle” at the University of California, San Diego consisting of six cores, Muscle Molecular, Biology, Muscle Histology, Muscle Biomechanics, Muscle Imaging, Clinical Muscle Studies and Program Administration.  The program is structured to foster cooperation and synergy across cores and providing leverage of the tremendous scientific expertise available at UCSD for the benefit of the rehabilitation profession in the short term and long term benefit of their patients.
Principal Investigator: Lieber, Richard, Ph.D
Co-Principal Investigator: Frank, Lawrence R, Ph.D

(NIH/NDIA) FMRI and Cognition in Adolescent Cannabis Use
Major Goals: The goals of this study are to understand the extent to which changes in adolescent marijuana useaffects brain function, brain structure, and cognition over a 3-year follow-up period.
Co-Investigator: Frank, Lawrence R, Ph.D

(NIH/NIAAA) fMRI and Cognition of Youth at Risk for Alcoholism
The major goals of this project are to evaluate brain functioning characteristics that predate the onset of alcohol use disorders using functional magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological assessment methods.
Principal Investigator: Tapert, Susan, Ph.D
Co-Investigator: Lawrence R. Frank, Ph.D