# Center for Mesoscale Mapping

> **NIH NIH P41** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2024 · $1,259,600

## Abstract

Overview of the Proposed Resource – Abstract
The goal of the Center for Mesoscale Mapping is to drive the convergence of microscopic- and macroscopic-
scale evaluation of brain structure and function for human translational neuroscience, by developing and applying
tools to study the spatial distribution and temporal orchestration of mesoscopic events in the human brain. Our
Collaborators will, through a dynamic “push-pull” relationship, provide unique problems which drive the
development of these tools, and in return guide us in the design and optimization of our toolbox for practical use
in a variety of normal and disease settings. While there is still no formal consensus on the definition of
mesoscopic within the neuroscience community, we take as our guide the spatial and temporal scales at which
local groups of neurons act in coherent fashion – in the cortex, this includes the spatial scale of columns and
laminar structures (between ~0.1-1 mm), while in deeper structures includes the myriad of deep brain and
brainstem nuclei. Preliminary data from our own center, and of course others throughout the world, now support
the notion that we are on the threshold of being able to map, measure and perturb the human brain at these
scales, and do so comprehensively across wide swaths of the human brain. Temporally too, recent advances
suggest a convergence between temporal scales addressable with tools like fMRI, which can now investigate
delta frequency coherent phenomena, and advanced electromagnetic tools to measure and perturb coherent
electrophysiological activity at higher frequencies still. With this convergence in mind, the tools we proposed to
develop within the TRDs of the CMM will provide our Collaborative and Service User community with the
important “missing links” between the advances in human cognitive neuroscience at the “system level,” and the
enormous strides in cellular level circuit functional characterization. Our Collaborators will bring their own unique
challenges to help us define and further refine these tools, offering problems requiring distinct measures of
human brain structural and functional properties in a variety of normal and disease settings. Our Service Users
will utilize our tools to better understand human neural systems, and particularly human disease states from
multiple sclerosis to Alzheimer’s, to depression and epilepsy. Finally, our Center will seek to disseminate these
tools, through open-source software and hardware designs, industrial partnerships and “hands-on” teaching
courses for hardware, and to train a new generation of human neuroscientists in the use of our advanced tools
to explore the human brain at this next frontier.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10839979
- **Project number:** 5P41EB030006-05
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** BRUCE R ROSEN
- **Activity code:** P41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $1,259,600
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10839979

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10839979, Center for Mesoscale Mapping (5P41EB030006-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10839979. Licensed CC0.

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