PI: Ronald Cohen
Institution: University of Florida

Overview:

Chronic obesity is a major public health issue, leading to diabetes, vascular diseases, and even have severe consequences on the brain. This includes reduced cognitive function and altered brain structures (Raji 2010, Ho 2010), even in the absence of stroke. Patients who undergo bariatric surgery experience dramatic weight loss, but also improved neurocognitive functioning within weeks of surgery. Within a year, improved metabolic functioning is seen and a reduction in type-2 diabetes. This SP investigates those who have undergone bariatric surgery and weight loss to discover whether brain structure and function improve along with neurocognitive functioning using multimodal neuroimaging collected across multiple sites. Expertise from LONIR regarding multi-site image curation, and longitudinal brain mapping is essential for this project. This SP will use the LONIR framework to ensure a secure repository for the series of multimodal brain images being collected. Longitudinal image analysis requires the measures evaluated be highly reproducible to avoid the over incorporation of noise or drawing biased conclusions. The SP will also use advanced connectomics methods developed in TRD2 and take them beyond structure to observe whole brain level changes infunctional connectivity pre- and post-surgery.