In early August, Vice President for Research Shashank Priya visited Dr. Damien Fair, co-director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB), a unique University of Minnesota institute that seeks to advance brain health from the earliest stages of development across the lifespan, supporting each person’s journey as a valued community member.
MIDB serves as a key data collection, management, and analysis site for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a large, multi-institution project with 25 study sites across the country funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Fair and collaborators Christopher Smyser from Washington University in St. Louis and Anders Dale from the University of California San Diego are leading the aspect of the HBCD project that is creating and maintaining a large dataset that will enable researchers to analyze brain development in substance-exposed and non-substance-exposed infants and children. At MIDB, Dr. Fair also leads the Developmental Cognition and Neuroimaging Lab (DCAN), an interdisciplinary research team focused on unraveling the fundamental workings of the developing brain.