The National Institutes of Health awarded Penn State researchers a $1.85 million grant to develop a new way to test if dysfunctions in certain areas of the brain lead to mental health complications and brain disorders. If successful, the research could lead to better mental health treatments.

Like the internet, the brain is a highly inter-connected system. It contains many different sections, known as hub regions, which maintain normal brain function and enable complex behavior. Many mental health experts believe altered brain network properties are an underlying cause of mental illness.

The co-investigators on the grant are Nanyin Zhang, Huck Professor of Brain Imaging in Penn State’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Yingwei Mao, associate professor of biology… Continue reading.