A new artificial intelligence-based technique for measuring fluid flow around the brain’s blood vessels could have big implications for developing treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The perivascular spaces that surround cerebral blood vessels transport water-like fluids around the brain and help sweep away waste. Alterations in the fluid flow are linked to neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s, small vessel disease, strokes, and traumatic brain injuries, but are difficult to measure in vivo.

A multidisciplinary team of mechanical engineers, neuroscientists, and computer scientists led by Associate Professor Douglas Kelley developed novel AI velocimetry measurements to accurately calculate brain fluid flow. The results are outlined in a study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“In this study, we combined some measurements from inside the animal models with a novel AI technique that allowed us to effectively measure things that nobody’s ever been able to measure before,” says Kelley, a faculty member in Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Read more about measuring this fluid system.

(Unsplash photo by Luca Discenza)

The ability to visually predict movement may be an important part of what it takes to make a great catch or grab a moving object. Such actions require precise interactions between our visual and motor systems.

“We were able to develop a method that allowed us to analyze behaviors in a natural environment with high precision, which is important because, as we showed, behavioral patterns differ in a controlled setting,” says Kuan Hong Wang, a Dean’s Professor of Neuroscience at the Medical Center. Wang led the DelMonte Institute for Neuroscience study in Current Biology with Jude Mitchell, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and Luke Shaw, a graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

“Understanding how natural behaviors work will give us better insight into what is going awry in an array of neurological disorders,” he adds.

Cricket-catching primates were key to the discovery.

Monday, June 26, 1–2 p.m. EDT
Virtual  

Aspiring research entrepreneurs and small businesses seeking non-dilutive funding opportunities can join experts from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Small Business Program and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. Learn more about non-dilutive Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) funding and resources to help small businesses advance and commercialize promising translational biotech and life sciences research technologies. Xiaohu (Tiger) Xie, scientific consultant from Eva Garland Consulting, LLC, will share tips for submitting a successful application as well as resources to help secure SBIR and STTR funding. The webinar is available through the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Learn more and register.

Monday, June 26, 1–1:40 p.m.
LeChase Hall, room 215

“Adaptive Teaching in English for Academic Purposes Profession: Reflections, Orientations, and Conditions”
Sponsor: MJ Curry

Tuesday, June 27, 10–11 a.m.
Wegmans Hall, room 2506

“Enforcing Low-Cost Security for ARM”
Advisor: John Criswell

Wednesday, June 28, 10–11 a.m.
Wegmans Hall, room 2506

“Systematic Optimizations for Efficient Mobile Visual Computing”
Advisor: Yuhao Zhu

Wednesday, June 28, 2–3 p.m.
Wegmans Hall, room 2506

“Discover and Mitigate Biases in Discriminative and Generative Image Models”
Advisor: Chenliang Xu

Thursday, June 29, 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m.
Helen Wood Hall

Hosted by the Environmental Health Sciences Center and the new Institute for Human Health and the Environment, the symposium will feature Richard Woychik, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, as well as other external and internal speakers. It will also include a poster session and flash talks selected from submitted abstracts; all types of research related to health and the environment are welcome. Learn more about the symposium, or register and submit abstracts online.

Thursday, June 29, 10–11 a.m. EDT
Virtual

“Reliable Computing Systems for Autonomous Machines”
Advisor: Yuhao Zhu

Thursday, June 29, 3–4 p.m.
Wegmans Hall, room 2506

“Temporal Representation Learning for Video-Language Understanding and Generation”
Advisor: Jiebo Luo

Thursday, June 29, 1–1:40 p.m.
LeChase Hall, room 141

“Identity Development and Citation Practices in the Theses of Master’s Students Who Use English as an Additional Language”
Sponsor: MJ Curry