Computational neuroimaging has shown great potential in mental health and clinical applications, for example, to understand neurodevelopment and aging, to study neuropathology in a variety of brain diseases, and to provide diagnostic information for early detection of brain disorders. Dr. Zhang and his colleagues have successfully applied their developed techniques in many neuroscience research projects such as neuroanatomy research, neurosurgical planning research, and study of the brains in health and disease.

Selected publications:

Neurosurgical Planning Research

• Fan Zhang, Thomas Noh, Parikshit Juvekar, Sarah F. Frisken, Laura Rigolo, Isaiah Norton, Tina Kapur, Sonia Pujol, William Wells, Alex Yarmarkovich, Gordon Kindlmann, Demian Wassermann, Raul San Jose Estepar, Yogesh Rathi, Ron Kikinis, Hans J. Johnson, Carl-Fredrik Westin, Steve Pieper, Alexandra J. Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2020. “SlicerDMRI: Diffusion MRI and Tractography Research Software for Brain Cancer Surgery Planning and Visualization.” JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics, 4, Pp. 299–309. Publisher's Version
• Fan Zhang, Pegah Kahali, Yannick Suter, Isaiah Norton, Laura Rigolo, Peter Savadjiev, Yang Song, Yogesh Rathi, Weidong Cai, William M. Wells III, Alexandra J. Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2017. “Automated Connectivity-Based Groupwise Cortical Atlas Generation: Application to Data of Neurosurgical Patients with Brain Tumors for Cortical Parcellation Prediction.” In International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Pp. 774-777. IEEE. Publisher's Version. NIH / NIBIB Travel Award; Oral Talk
• Shun Gong*, Fan Zhang*(co-first), Isaiah Norton, Walid I Essayed, Prashin Unadkat, Laura Rigolo, Ofer Pasternak, Yogesh Rathi, Lijun Hou, Alexandra J Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2018. “Free water modeling of peritumoral edema using multi-fiber tractography: Application to tracking the arcuate fasciculus for neurosurgical planning.” PloS one, 13, 5, Pp. e0197056. Publisher's Version
• Walid I. Essayed, Fan Zhang, Prashin Unadkat, G. Rees Cosgrove, Alexandra J. Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2017. “White matter tractography for neurosurgical planning: A topography-based review of the current state of the art.” NeuroImage: Clinical, 15, Pp. 659-672. Publisher's Version
• Lauren J. O'Donnell, Yannick Suter, Laura Rigolo, Pegah Kahali, Fan Zhang, Isaiah Norton, Angela Albi, Olutayo Olubiyi, Antonio Meola, Walid I Essayed, Prashin Unadkat, Pelin Aksit Ciris, William M. Wells III, Yogesh Rathi, Carl-Fredrik Westin, and Alexandra J. Golby. 2017. “Automated white matter fiber tract identification in patients with brain tumors.” NeuroImage: Clinical, 13, Pp. 138–153. Publisher's Version
• Isaiah Norton, Ibn Essayed, Fan Zhang, Sonia Pujol, Alex Yarmarkovich, Alexandra Golby, Gordon Kindlmann, Demian Wasserman, Raul San José Estepar, Yogesh Rathi, Steve Pieper, Ron Kikinis, Hans Johnson, Carl-Fredrik Westin, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2017. “SlicerDMRI: Open Source Diffusion MRI Software for Brain Cancer Research.” Cancer Research, 77, 21, Pp. e101–103. Publisher's Version
• Angela Albi, Antonio Meola, Fan Zhang, Pegah Kahali, Laura Rigolo, Chantal M.W. Tax, Pelin Aksit Ciris, Walid I. Essayed, Prashin Unadkat, Isaiah Norton, Yogesh Rathi, Olutayo Olubiyi, Alexandra J. Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2018. “Image Registration to Compensate for EPI Distortion in Patients with Brain Tumors: An Evaluation of Tract-Specific Effects.” Journal of Neuroimaging, 28, 2, Pp. 173-182. Publisher's Version
• Sidong Liu, Yang Song, Fan Zhang, Dagan Feng, Michael Fulham, and Weidong Cai. 2016. “Clique Identification and Propagation for Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation.” In International Conference on Brain and Health Informatics (BIH), Pp. 285–294. Springer. Publisher's Version. BIH 2016 Best Paper Award; Oral Talk
• Zhenrui Chen, Yanmei Tie, Olutayo Olubiyi, Fan Zhang, Alireza Mehrtash, Laura Rigolo, Pegah Kahali, Isaiah Norton, Ofer Pasternak, Yogesh Rathi, Lauren J. O'Donnell, and Alexandra J. Golby. 2016. “Corticospinal tract modeling for neurosurgical planning by tracking through regions of peritumoral edema and crossing fibers using two-tensor unscented Kalman filter tractography.” International journal of computer assisted radiology and surgery, 11, 8, Pp. 1475–1486. Publisher's Version

Healthy Population

• Leo Zekelman*, Fan Zhang*(co-first), Nikos Makris, Jianzhong He, Yuqian Chen, Tengfei Xue, Daniela Liera, Daniel L. Drane, Yogesh Rathi, Alexandra J. Golby, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2022. “White Matter Association Tracts Underlying Language and Theory of Mind: An investigation of 809 Brains from the Human Connectome Project.” NeuroImage, 246, Pp. 118739.
• JJ Levitt, Fan Zhang, M Vangel, PG Nestor, Y Rathi, M Kubicki, ME Shenton, and LJ O'Donnell. 2021. “The Organization of Frontostriatal Brain Wiring in Healthy Subjects Using a Novel Diffusion Imaging Fiber Cluster Analysis.” Cerebral Cortex, 31, 12, Pp. 5308–531. Publisher's Version

Brain Diseases

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • Fan Zhang, Weining Wu, Lipeng Ning, Gloria McAnulty, Deborahand Waber, Borjan Gagoski, Kiera Sarill, Hesham Hamoda, Yang Song, Weidong Cai, Yogesh Rathi, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2018. “Suprathreshold fiber cluster statistics: Leveraging white matter geometry to enhance tractography statistical analysis.” NeuroImage, 171, Pp. 341-354. Publisher's Version
  • Fan Zhang, Weining Wu, Lipeng Ning, Gloria McAnulty, Deborahand Waber, Borjan Gagoski, Kiera Sarill, Hesham Hamoda, Yang Song, Weidong Cai, Yogesh Rathi, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2017. “Supra-threshold Fiber Cluster Statistics for Data-driven Whole Brain Tractography Analysis.” In International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), Pp. 556-565. Springer. Publisher's Version
• Alzheimer's disease
  • Fan Zhang, Yang Song, Weidong Cai, Alexander G Hauptmann, Sidong Liu, Sonia Pujol, Ron Kikinis, Michael J Fulham, David Dagan Feng, and Mei Chen. 2016. “Dictionary pruning with visual word significance for medical image retrieval.” Neurocomputing, 177, Pp. 75–88. Publisher's Version
  • Fan Zhang, Yang Song, Weidong Cai, Sidong Liu, Siqi Liu, Sonia Pujol, Ron Kikinis, Yong Xia, Michael J Fulham, and David Dagan Feng. 2016. “Pairwise latent semantic association for similarity computation in medical imaging.” IEEE transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 63, 5, Pp. 1058–1069. Publisher's Version
• Autism
  • Fan Zhang, Peter Savadjiev, Weidong Cai, Yang Song, Yogesh Rathi, Birkan Tunç, Drew Parker, Tina Kapur, Robert T. Schultz, Nikos Makris, Ragini Verma, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2018. “Whole brain white matter connectivity analysis using machine learning: an application to autism.” NeuroImage, 172, Pp. 826-837. Publisher's Version
  • Fan Zhang, Peter Savadjiev, Weidong Cai, Yang Song, Ragini Verma, Carl-Fredrik Westin, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2016. “Fiber clustering based white matter connectivity analysis for prediction of Autism Spectrum Disorder using diffusion tensor imaging.” In International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Pp. 564–567. IEEE. Publisher's Version. Finalist for Best Student Paper Award; Oral Talk
• Psychosis
  • Fan Zhang, Kang Ik Kevin Cho, Yingying Tang, Tian Hong Zhang, Sinead Kelly, Maria Di Biase, Lihua Xu, Huijun Li, Keshevan Matcheri, Susan Whitfield, Margaret Niznikiewicz, William Stone, Jijun Wang, Martha Shenton, and Ofer Pasternak. 2021. “MK-Curve improves sensitivity to identify white matter alterations in clinical high risk for psychosis.” NeuroImage, 226, Pp. 117564. Publisher's Version
  • Saskia Steinmann, Amanda E. Lyall, Mina Langhein, Felix L. Nägele, Jonas Rauh, Suheyla Cetin-Karayumak, Fan Zhang, Marius Mussmann, Tashrif Billah, Nikos Makris, Ofer Pasternak, Lauren J. O'Donnell, Yogesh Rathi, Marek Kubicki, Gregor Leicht, Martha E. Shenton, and Christoph Mulert. 2021. “Sex-Related Differences in White Matter Asymmetry and Its Implications for Verbal Working Memory in Psychosis High-Risk State.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, Pp. 923. Publisher's Version
  • Maria A Di Biase, Suheyla Cetin-Karayumak, Amanda E Lyall, Andrew Zalesky, Kang Ik Kevin Cho, Fan Zhang, Marek Kubicki, Yogesh Rathi, Monica G Lyons, Sylvain Bouix, and others. 2021. “White matter changes in psychosis risk relate to development and are not impacted by the transition to psychosis.” Molecular Psychiatry, Pp. in press. Publisher's Version
• Major depressive disorder (MDD)
  • Ye Wu*, Fan Zhang*(co-first), Nikos Makris, Yuping Ning, Isaiah Norton, Shenglin She, Hongjun Peng, Yogesh Rathi, Yuanjing Feng, Huawang Wu, and Lauren J. O'Donnell. 2018. “Investigation into local white matter abnormality in emotional processing and sensorimotor areas using an automatically annotated fiber clustering in major depressive disorder.” NeuroImage, 181, Pp. 16-29. Publisher's Version
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
  • David J Robles, Ammar Dharani, Kenneth A Rostowsky, Nikhil N Chaudhari, Van Ngo, Fan Zhang, Lauren J O’Donnell, Lauren Green, Nasim Sheikh-Bahaei, Helena C Chui, and Andrei Irimia. 2021. “Older age, male sex, and cerebral microbleeds predict white matter loss after traumatic brain injury.” GeroScience, Pp. in press. Publisher's Version
  • Andrei Irimia, Di Fan, Nikhil N Chaudhari, Van Ngo, Fan Zhang, Shantanu H Joshi, and Lauren J O'Donnell. 2020. “Mapping cerebral connectivity changes after mild traumatic brain injury in older adults using diffusion tensor imaging and Riemannian matching of elastic curves.” In International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Pp. 1690–1693. IEEE. Publisher's Version
  • Di Fan, Nikhil N Chaudhari, Kenneth A Rostowsky, Maria Calvillo, Sean K Lee, Nahian F Chowdhury, Fan Zhang, Lauren J O'Donnell, and Andrei Irimia. 2019. “Post-traumatic cerebral microhemorrhages and their effects upon white matter connectivity in the aging human brain.” In Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Pp. 198–203. IEEE. Publisher's Version
• 22q11.2
  • Johanna Seitz-Holland, Monica Lyons, Leila Kushan, Amy Lin, Julio E. Villalon-Reina, Kang Ik Kevin Cho, Fan Zhang, Tashrif Billah, Sylvain Bouix, Marek Kubicki, Carrie E. Bearden, and Ofer Pasternak. 2021. “Opposing white matter microstructure abnormalities in 22q11.2 deletion and duplication carriers.” Translational Psychiatry, 11, Pp. 580. Publisher's Version
• Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD)
  • Xinfeng Yu, Xinzhen Yin, Hui Hong, Shuyue Wang, Yeerfan Jiaerken, Fan Zhang, Ofer Pasternak, Ruiting Zhang, Linglin Yang, Min Lou, and others. 2021. “Increased extracellular fluid is associated with white matter fiber degeneration in CADASIL: in vivo evidence from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging.” Fluids and Barriers of the CNS, 18, 1, Pp. 29. Publisher's Version
• Schizophrenia
  • Doron Elad, Suheyla Cetin-Karayumak, Fan Zhang, Kang Ik K Cho, Amanda E Lyall, Johanna Seitz-Holland, Rami Ben-Ari, Godfrey D Pearlson, Carol A Tamminga, John A Sweeney, and others. 2021. “Improving the predictive potential of diffusion MRI in schizophrenia using normative models—Towards subject-level classification.” Human Brain Mapping, 42, 14, Pp. 4658-4670. Publisher's Version
  • James J Levitt, Paul G Nestor, Marek Kubicki, Amanda E Lyall, Fan Zhang, Tammy Riklin-Raviv, Lauren J O'Donnell, Robert W McCarley, Martha E Shenton, and Yogesh Rathi. 2020. “Miswiring of Frontostriatal Projections in Schizophrenia.” Schizophrenia Bulletin, 46, 4, Pp. 990–998. Publisher's Version
  • Maria Angelique Di Biase, Fan Zhang, Amanda Lyall, Marek Kubicki, René CW Mandl, Iris E Sommer, and Ofer Pasternak. 2020. “Neuroimaging auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia patient and healthy populations.” Psychological Medicine, 50, 3, Pp. 403–412. Publisher's Version
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Alik S. Widge, Fan Zhang, Aishwarya Gosai, George Papadimitrou, Peter Wilson-Braun, Magdalini Tsintou, Senthil Palanivelu, Angela M. Noecker, Cameron C. McIntyre, Lauren O'donnell, Nicole C.R. McLaughlin, Benjamin D. Greenberg, Nikolaos Makris, Darin D. Dougherty, and Yogesh Rathi. 2021. “Patient-Specific Connectomic Models Correlate With, But Do Not Predict, Outcomes in Deep Brain Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.” Neuropsychopharmacology, Pp. in press. Publisher's Version
• Huntington's disease
  • Yi Hong, Lauren J O'Donnell, Peter Savadjiev, Fan Zhang, Demian Wassermann, Ofer Pasternak, Hans Johnson, Jane Paulsen, Jean-Paul Vonsattel, Nikos Makris, C-F Westin, and Yogesh Rathi. 2018. “Genetic load determines atrophy in hand cortico-striatal pathways in presymptomatic Huntington's disease.” Human Brain Mapping, 39, 10, Pp. 3871-3883. Publisher's Version
• Parkinson's disease
  • Jingqiang Wang, Fan Zhang, Changchen Zhao, Qingrun Zeng, Jianzhong He, Lauren J O'Donnell, and Yuanjing Feng. 2020. “Investigation of local white matter abnormality in Parkinson's disease by using an automatic fiber tract parcellation.” Behavioural Brain Research, 394, Pp. 112805. Publisher's Version

Other interesting project:

• NFL Players
  • Janna Kochsiek, Lauren J. O'Donnell, Fan Zhang, Elena M. Bonke, Nico Sollmann, Yorghos Tripodis, Tim L. T. Wiegand, David Kaufmann, Lisa Umminger, Maria A. Di Biase, Elisabeth Kaufmann, Vivian Schultz, Michael L. Alosco, Brett M. Martin, Alexander P. Lin, Michael J. Coleman, Yogesh Rathi, Ofer Pasternak, Sylvain Bouix, Robert A. Stern, Martha E. Shenton, and Inga K. Koerte. 2021. “Exposure to Repetitive Head Impacts Is Associated With Corpus Callosum Microstructure and Plasma Total Tau in Former Professional American Football Players.” Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 64, 6, Pp. 1819–1829. Publisher's Version