DIRECT : Data-intensive REsearch in ConnecTomics

Human neuroscience is rapidly turning towards data-driven research thanks in large part to concerted efforts that collect and aggregate large openly-available datasets.

DIRECT is a collaboration focused on data-driven understanding of the human connectome. We develop and use tools that quantify different aspects of human brain networks and relate brain network properties to complex behavioral phenotypes. Our work bridges between human neuroscience and statistical learning.

We focus our investigations primarily on the measurements of the white matter contains the long-range connections between different brain regions. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a powerful imaging technology that provides non-invasive in vivo measurements of these connections. These measurements have provided compelling evidence that the biophysical properties of these connections account for individual variation in many important cognitive skills, and they predict clinical symptoms across a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders (reviewed in [^1] and [^2]). Want to learn about human connectomics? Read more here. Want to learn more about our statistical learning methods? Read more here

To make our work widely applicable, we develop an ecosystem of open-source software projects.

See the team.

If you are interested in these projects, feel free to contact us.

We are grateful for funding that supports our work.

[^1]: A. Rokem, H. Takemura, A. Bock, K.S. Scherf, M. Behrmann, B. A. Wandell, H. Fine, I. Bridge, and F. Pestilli. The visual white matter: The application of diffusion MRI and fiber tractography to vision science. Journal of Vision, 17(4):1–30, 2017. URL: https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2603187.

[^2]: Brian A Wandell. Clarifying human white matter. Annual review of neuroscience, 39:103–128, 2016. URL: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-neuro-070815-013815.