Scott Kolbe

My research aims to study how the brain processes information and how information processing breaks down in neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis. My lab uses MRI to measure the strength of connections between various parts of the brain. In particular, I am interested in connections between visual parts of the brain and areas that integrate sensory information or control attention. I have two main research studies. Project 1: Understanding early changes in brain connectivity in MS Patients with MS commonly exhibit lesions within the white matter of the brain. Axons within these lesions are commonly destroyed leading to disconnection of long-range connections in the brain. We are investigating whether patients show disrupted connectivity at the earliest stages of the disease using both structural (based on diffusion MRI) and functional MRI (correlated neural activity) measures of brain connectivity. We also intend to study how changes in connectivity progress over time, and whether such changes are relevant to disease severity. Project 2: Understanding changes in visual connectivity after an optic nerve lesion Vision is arguable the most sensitive human sense. Patients with MS commonly experience vision loss due to an optic nerve lesion, a condition known as optic neuritis. Patients generally recover vision in weeks to months but the degree of recovery is not always consistent with the degree of irreversible axonal damage sustained to the optic nerve. We believe that changes to the connectivity of the visual system could be important in determining recovery. We are investigating whether there are alterations to the functional connectivity of primary and higher order visual cortices after optic neuritis using functional MRI.