Research

Google Scholar Citations: 143 (2025-08-06)

Publications * indicates equal contribution

  • Functional connectivity of the brain across rodents and humans Journal
    Nan Xu, Theodore J. LaGrow, Nmachi Anumba, Azalea Lee, Xiaodi Zhang, Behnaz Yousefi, Yasmine Bassil, Gloria P. Clavijo, Vahid Khalilzad Sharghi, Eric Maltbie, Lisa Meyer-Baese, Maysam Nezafati, Wen-Ju Pan, Shella Keilholz
    Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2022
    Abstract

    Review of resting-state fMRI features across rodents and humans, comparing acquisition, preprocessing, and analysis choices that influence functional connectivity. The paper surveys time-averaged and time-varying metrics (e.g., sliding windows, quasi-periodic and co-activation patterns), links them to structural connectivity, and discusses applications to neurological and psychiatric disorders. It closes with open problems to make rodent-to-human translation more reliable.

  • Relationship between the frequency profile of BOLD fluctuations and calculated metrics of complexity in the Human Connectome Project Journal
    Shella Keilholz, Eric A. Maltbie, Xiaodi Zhang, Behnaz Yousefi, Wen-Ju Pan, Nan Xu, Maysam Nezafati, Theodore J. LaGrow, Ying Guo
    Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2020
    Abstract

    Using Human Connectome Project data, the authors test whether parcel-wise complexity metrics (correlation dimension, approximate entropy, Lyapunov exponent) mainly reflect neural dynamics or are driven by basic BOLD properties. They find these complexity measures are reliable across scans and strongly tied to each region’s frequency profile, indicating that frequency content can confound interpretations of “complexity” in rs-fMRI.

  • Toward a reproducible, scalable framework for processing large neuroimaging datasets Journal
    Erik C. Johnson, Miller Wilt, Luis M. Rodriguez, Raphael Norman-Tenazas, Corban Rivera, Nathan Drenkow, Dean Kleissas, Theodore J. LaGrow, Hannah P. Cowley, Joseph Downs, Jordan K. Matelsky, Marisa J. Hughes, Elizabeth P. Reilly, Brock A. Wester, Eva L. Dyer, Konrad P. Kording, William R. Gray-Roncal
    GigaScience, 2020
    Abstract

    Presents a modular ecosystem of containerized tools and workflows for petascale neuroimaging, enabling reproducible end-to-end processing across modalities like electron microscopy and X-ray microtomography. The framework standardizes storage, execution, and optimization and is demonstrated on synapse-level connectome estimation and large-scale cell density mapping.

  • Sparse Recovery Methods for Cell Detection and Layer Estimation Preprint
    Theodore J. LaGrow, Michael G. Moore, Judy A. Prasad, Alexis Webber, Mark A. Davenport, Eva L. Dyer
    bioRxiv, 2018
    Abstract

    Introduces an automated pipeline for estimating cellular densities and identifying laminar transitions in neuroanatomical images. The method combines patch extraction, cell detection, and sparse approximation for count data using total-variation regularization to robustly recover layer boundaries and density profiles across cortical and retinal samples.

  • Approximating Cellular Densities from High-Resolution Neuroanatomical Imaging Data Conference
    Theodore J. LaGrow, Michael G. Moore, Judy A. Prasad, Mark A. Davenport, Eva L. Dyer
    IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2018
    Abstract

    Proposes ArCaDe, an automated approach to estimate spatially varying cell densities and detect laminar structure in cortical and retinal tissue. By modeling counts with a sparse, TV-regularized estimator and coupling it with patch-wise cell detection, the method recovers cytoarchitectonic transitions without manual annotation.

  • Do You Know Where Your Research Is Being Used? An Exploration of Scientific Literature Using Natural Language Processing Journal
    Theodore J. LaGrow, Jacob Bieker, Boyana Norris
    Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal, 2017
    Abstract

    Demonstrates an NLP pipeline that identifies software and methods referenced in arXiv articles and uses the extracted names to explore usage patterns across research areas. The study argues that automated extraction at scale complements traditional literature surveys for tracking technologies and methods in scientific work.

Talks

  • Approximating Cellular Densities from High-Resolution Neuroanatomical Imaging Data
    Graduate and Postdoc (GaP) Seminar Series, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, September 26th, 2018
  • Approximating Cellular Densities from High-Resolution Neuroanatomical Imaging Data
    40th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Honolulu, HI, July 19th, 2018
  • Approximating Cellular Densities from High-Resolution Neuroanatomical Imaging Data
    Biomedical Engineering Seminars, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, April 6th, 2018
  • Do You Know Where Your Research Is Being Used? An Exploration of Scientific Literature Using Natural Language Processing
    7th Annual Oregon Undergraduate Research Symposium, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, May 17th, 2017