David W Shattuck
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Studies of brain disease in mice and rats depend heavily on imaging, from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the living brain to microscope images of thin tissue slices. Yet most brain-image analysis software was built for humans, so animal researchers often have to adapt tools that don't fit their data.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Computer Science
- Topics
neuroimaging
rodent MRI
mouse brain
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Develop rodent MRI processing tools that align structural, diffusion and functional scans within each animal, extract the brain from whole-head scans and classify tissue types.
- Build tools that align microscopy of cleared, sectioned rodent brain tissue to a reference atlas and automatically count cells, follow axons, trace dendrite branching and count dendritic spines, using deep learning segmentation where suitable.
- Create a statistical toolbox for testing neuroimaging measures from MRI and microscopy, and integrate all components into a platform with command-line tools and a graphical viewer for terapixel-scale data.
- Evaluate the software in mouse studies of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a model of multiple sclerosis, and of normal aging, with feedback from outside small-animal imaging experts.
More about the research
This project builds a free, open-source software suite designed specifically to process, analyze and visualize rodent brain images.
Why it matters
Researchers testing treatments for brain diseases in rodents need reliable, purpose-built tools to measure what changes in the brain. Free software that analyzes rodent MRI and microscopy together could make preclinical studies of conditions such as multiple sclerosis and brain aging faster and more consistent. This could improve understanding of neurological diseases and their potential treatments.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Nian Wang
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Measure whole-brain myelin loss, iron imbalance and axon damage over time in cuprizone-treated Thy-1 YFP-16 mice, using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and diffusion MRI models (DTI, NODDI, DKI).
Adam R. Abate
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop gigapixel PCR (gPCR), which pairs microfluidic-free self-assembled droplets with capillary electrophoresis readout, to quantify over 100 pathogen DNA targets in one reaction. Validate it against SeraCare reference standards.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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