image: Georgia State Distinguished University Professor Vince Calhoun has been honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM).
Credit: Courtesy: Georgia State University
ATLANTA — Distinguished University Professor Vince Calhoun has been honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM).
Calhoun is the founding director of the collaborative Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS Center). Based at Georgia State University, the TReNDS Center focuses on expanding understanding of the human brain using advanced analytic approaches with an emphasis on translational research, like the development of predictive biomarkers for mental and neurological disorders.
Calhoun traveled to Seoul, South Korea, for the OHBM 2024 Annual Meeting, where he was honored for achievements in the field of neuroimaging and discoveries about the organization and function of the human brain.
“I’ve been part of this organization since almost the beginning of my career, and I’m honored to be recognized,” Calhoun said. “This award is the result of great work with many talented people, including my students, postdocs, scientists and collaborators. So, this award really comes from a big group effort.”
With appointments at Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Emory University, Calhoun is the author of more than 1,000 full journal articles and is recognized internationally as a leader in computer science and neuroscience research, according to rankings compiled by Research.com. Calhoun is also ranked among the top 2 percent of scientists in the world, according to an annual study which ranks scientists worldwide by their impact.
Calhoun founded the TReNDS Center in 2019, and one key research focus of the center is the use of neuroinformatics tools and big data. Human brain mapping helps scientists better understand how the brain functions in both health and illness. The research can benefit those suffering from certain illnesses and even lead to new treatments.
Educated as an engineer, and with years of multidisciplinary research to his credit, Calhoun said he is mostly inspired by collaboration.
“The TReNDS Center is all about building collaborations and trying to get people out of their silos. Atlanta is a great area because everybody is so open to working together,” Calhoun said.
Using networks, conductivity and correlation, Calhoun’s work focuses on bringing this multimodal information together to develop biomarkers of brain health or brain disorders. That brings together different pieces of a research puzzle that are complementary, like brain structure, brain function and wiring, to view them as one complex problem.
“If you’re a computer scientist or an engineering researcher, you might have a lot of advanced methods, but you’re not trained about the brain. As a neuroscientist, typically you don’t have a lot of skills in the computational side of things. So, getting these types of people to work together is a really fruitful way to advance research,” Calhoun said.
Some of Calhoun’s recent work is focused on optimizing the way researchers divide up the brain based on how it functions over time or what a subject is doing in any given moment. This is a field of study Calhoun has coined “dynamic fusion.”
“Dr. Calhoun is at the forefront of brain-mapping research, and we commend his unwavering commitment to excellence and significant contributions to this field,” said Donald Hamelberg, Georgia State’s interim vice president for research and economic development. “The TReNDS Center exemplifies the collaborative and multidisciplinary approach that is essential for advancing research.”
Researchers at the TReNDS Center are making progress establishing how brain disorders — including schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and ADHD — look in scans. They are also working to identify signals of brain health.
“In addition to brain disorders, we’re also looking at how the brain develops and ages to identify signatures of brain health. So that’s the other side of the coin. We don’t just want to see what’s wrong. We also want to say, ‘How do we keep the brain healthy?’” Calhoun explained. “If we can identify those signatures early, there might be a chance to impact the course of an individual’s life.”
With secondary appointments in Computer Science, Math, Neuroscience and Physics at Georgia State University, Calhoun holds additional appointments at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering) and Emory University (Neurology, Radiology, Psychiatry, Biomedical Engineering).
Calhoun is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Biomedical and Medical Engineers, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) and the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He serves on the IEEE BISP Technical Committee and is also a member of IEEE Data Science Initiative Steering Committee as well as the IEEE Brain Technical Committee.