Guest Speaker: Dr. Burke Rossen from Washington University is a post-doctoral research fellow working with Drs. Matthew Glasser and David Van Essen.

Title: Integrating single-cell multiomics & spatial transcriptomics with MRI

Abstract: The human cerebral cortex supports extraordinary cognitive capacities, including unmatched social complexity and elaborate language, but also plays a central role in brain disorders, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s dementia, that may have only limited analogs in nonhuman primates. Advances in spatially resolved and single-cell transcriptomics have led to the discovery of hundreds of putative cell types whose diversity is presumably a critical substrate of brain function and evolution. The contextualization of these emerging findings requires accurate colocalization and comparison of these data with structural and functional neuroimaging. In this talk, I will present work in progress on the integration of single-cell multiomics and spatial transcriptomics with MRI-derived functional and architectonic maps in cerebral cortex, though an exceptionally well-characterized macaque case study. Preliminary observations include the interdigitation of task-contrast and default mode patches in lateral temporal cortex and transcriptional cell type composition boundaries in visual, somatomotor, and insular cortex. This work, when combined with parallel efforts in mouse, marmoset, and human, will yield new insights into the evolutionary expansion and diversification of neocortex.