Basic information
Investigator: Ing. et Mgr. Jaroslav Hlinka, Ph.D.
Main recipient: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Co-recepient: The Institute of Computer Science, CAS
Research period: 1/1/2023 – 31/12/2025
Total budget: 7,363,000 CZK
NIMH budget: 4,809,000 CZK
Supported by: Czech Science Foundation (GACR)
Annotation
Symmetry of the human brain (and the lack thereof) has been a matter of prominent debate since the report of the left-hemispheric dominance of language by Broca in 1865. Functions including memory, perception, learning, spatial cognition, attention, emotion processing and motor skills show degree of hemispheric specialization, and disrupted brain anatomy and more recently connectivity asymmetry has been associated with neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. However the origin, character and consequences of brain asymmetry are far from understood. Recently, the use of large datasets and graph theory has been identified among key future directions in brain symmetry research. The outstanding challenges include relating structural and functional symmetries, bridging the gap between global symmetries (such as bilateral symmetry) and local symmetries, providing normative description of brain symmetries, and relation of inter-individual differences in brain connectivity (a)symmetry to cognitive and clinical characteristics such as in aberrant lateralization in schizophrenia.