# How Does the Functional Organization of the Human Brain Arise in Development?

> **NIH NIH DP1** · MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2020 · $1,082,900

## Abstract

The last twenty years of brain imaging research has for the first time revealed the functional organization of the
human brain in detail. We now know the function and location of dozens of regions of the brain that were not
known 20 years ago. Many of these regions are involved in very specific components of cognition, such as the
visual perception of color and motion, the visual recognition of faces, places, and bodies, and even high-level
mental processes like understanding the meaning of sentence or thinking about what another person is
thinking. Yet this tantalizing new map of the human mind and brain raises a pressing, unanswered question:
How does all this precise functional organization get wired up in infancy and childhood? When and how does
each little patch of cortex take on its distinctive adult function? Is the function of a given cortical region
determined by the pre-existing connectivity of that region to the rest of the brain? How plastic is cortical
organization in the event of early brain injury? To answer these questions, we will conduct extensive,
longitudinal anatomical and functional scanning of children from birth through age 5. This work was not
possible until now because it requires several very recent technical advances, including the new “connectome”
scanner at MGH that offers the resolution connectivity maps of the human brain of any scanner in the world,
new methods of anatomical imaging in neonates, functional imaging in young infants, and longitudinal
registration of brain images from the same person from birth to adulthood. These methods will enable us to test
whether the cortical location of each functional region, when scanned at age 4-8, can be predicted from the
distinctive connectivity of the same region (registered within subjects across age) at birth. By further including
children with focal perinatal strokes, we can test the plasticity of specific cortical regions, versus white matter
connections of those regions, in the eventual development of adult functional organization. This work will
answer fundamental questions about how the human brain gets wired up over infancy and childhood that are
also of great clinical relevance given the high prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders in which this
development goes awry.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10014643
- **Project number:** 5DP1HD091947-05
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** NANCY KANWISHER
- **Activity code:** DP1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,082,900
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-30 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10014643

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10014643, How Does the Functional Organization of the Human Brain Arise in Development? (5DP1HD091947-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10014643. Licensed CC0.

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