Defining the relationship between structure, function, and behaviour in the brain

Impact

Description of impact

By clearly defining the relationship between structure, function, and behaviour in the brain, we gain fundamental research insight into not just what the brain does, but precisely how and why, vastly improving the ability to develop targeted interventions for the betterment of society. These findings will be beneficial for research involving brain development, education, and disease states, as the indirect cascading effects of a focal disruption in brain function and cognition can have network-wide effects. An in-depth knowledge of how structure impacts function specific to the task-based functional brain networks related to behavioural cognitive domains and how these networks interact may prove valuable in assessing the appropriate educational strategies for various developmental impairments. Furthermore, this research will aid in the surgical assessment of patient cases where there are often lesions impacting focal regions of the brain. In these cases the surgeon needs to know the full impact of their surgical resection, and the development of models relating structure to function and behaviour will allow for more comprehensive predictions of the functional and behavioural outcomes of surgical interventions. As this research develops these methods may accurately predict individual functional connectivity patterns and cognitive capacity from structural connectivity for patients unable to perform standard behavioural and fMRI paradigms (e.g., non-responsive patients). Extending the methods to the cognitive domain by comparing semantic networks between human brains and AI large language models, I will contribute to bridging the gap between psychology and AI research to help each discipline benefit from the unique expertise of the other.