From fetal development through our senior years, the brain is changing. Some brain changes are slow, unfolding over decades and years. Yet other brain changes are rapid, unfolding over weeks, days, and even hours, and happen at the timescales of critical developmental windows. VKC researcher Sophia Vinci-Booher, Ph.D., recently published a paper in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences titled “Dense longitudinal neuroimaging reveals individual brain change trajectories”* in which she explains a novel way of studying the growth and development of our brains during periods of “rapid brain change” to create a full understanding of the changes it undergoes throughout the lifespan. Fellow VKC member James Booth, Ph.D., serves as co-author.
Sophia Vinci-Booher, Ph.D.
“This is the first paper to describe the emerging trend in the human neurosciences called dense longitudinal neuroimaging (DLN),” said Vinci-Booher. “DLN studies can capture the process of brain change by looking at the brain multiple times throughout a critical window of change, such as a learning intervention. The goal is to get a very precise timeline of rapid brain change to provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the intervention response.
“We’re not used to thinking of the brain as changing rapidly because we are only now starting to investigate change during these critical windows, but there are many times throughout one’s life that the brain can be expected to change rapidly relative to the timelines of conventional longitudinal studies.”
The opportunity to view images of the brain more frequently during windows of rapid change will complement current understanding of long-term brain change, providing a closer and more detailed understanding of the intricacies of brain development.
“A conventional longitudinal neuroimaging study might have a brain scan once per year to evaluate changes that occur at that extended timeline. However, there are important changes that occur at shorter timelines; they are relatively rapid,” said Vinci-Booher. “Rapid brain changes occur during lifespan transitions, such as sensitive developmental windows and pregnancy, but also during interventions and recovery from trauma, among others.”
Dense longitudinal neuroimaging and its repeated assessment of the brain during pivotal periods in development could make significant discoveries, especially as it relates to the differences in brain development between neurotypical individuals and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“As a precision neuroimaging approach, DLN studies focus on individual-level changes rather than group-level or population-level changes. Focusing on individual-level changes can highlight heterogeneity in a way that group- and population-level changes cannot,” said Vinci-Booher. “There is a growing consensus that many intellectual and developmental disabilities are highly heterogeneous, meaning that what appears to be the same disability may arise from different mechanisms in different individuals.
“For example, the start of formal schooling is a major transition that occurs at a shorter timeline than what can be captured at conventional longitudinal timelines. A DLN study would acquire a brain scan and other behavioral measures every day or two the week before the first day of school and the week after the first day of school to develop a precise timeline of the brain changes around that transition point within individuals.”
Vinci-Booher hopes that targeting critical windows of change with dense longitudinal neuroimaging may allow researchers the ability to create better models of trajectories and cycles of brain change.
Dense longitudinal neuroimaging is also making impacts in studies that extend beyond development and learning, such as recovery from brain injury and the cyclical changes associated with seasonal and biological rhythms.
Across these domains, DLN studies promise to provide theoretical and applied advancements that will, ultimately, serve to optimize intervention approaches for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
All authors were supported by NIH grant R01HD114489.
*Vinci-Booher, S., Ren, X., Kay, K., Yu, C., Pestilli, F., & Booth, J. R. (2025). Dense longitudinal neuroimaging reveals individual brain change trajectories. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.09.005
Top photo by Adobe Stock
