Title:  Functional Brain Connectivity Estimators: Understanding and Developing New Methodologies

Committee:

Dr. Vince Calhoun, ECE, Chair, Advisor

Dr. David Anderson, ECE

Dr. Constantine Dovrolis, CoC

Dr. Dobromir Rahnev, PSYCH

Dr. Robyn Leigh Miller, GSU

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to develop a framework to unify the different methodologies that are used for constructing a specific part of the brain functional networks (i.e., functional connectivity or the relationship between different parts of the functional networks). In addition, we will develop new methodologies for estimating functional connectivity and propose modifications for other methods already available in the field to improve them. Finally, we implement the proposed methods on real brain functional data to showcase these methods' applications for extracting biomarkers for both healthy (i.e., development of the human brain from early childhood to adolescence) and abnormal conditions of the human brain (e.g., Schizophrenia).