High Performance Gradient System for Advanced Neuroimaging Research

摘要

ABSTRACT This grant will support the purchase of an ultrahigh-performance GE MAGNUS head gradient system to our 10+ year old research-dedicated 3-Tesla MRI system (GE MR750) in the Waisman Brain Imaging Lab (WBIL) at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW-Madison). The design of the MAGNUS head-only gradient system minimizes peripheral nerve stimulation, which uniquely enables extremely high gradient amplitudes and slew rates (200 mT/m and 500 T/m/s on each axis). The MAGNUS upgrade will provide major boosts in neuroimaging performance including reduced echo planar distortion and blurring, routine high-quality connectome brain imaging protocols with significantly higher spatial resolution, and extreme diffusion-weighted imaging capabilities. The MRI system upgrade also includes improvements to the system RF electronics through 64 low-noise digital receivers, reduced volume transmit coil with decreased RF power deposition, and a new 32-channel receiver head coil. The MAGNUS scanner will be a unique, high-end brain imaging research resource at UW-Madison for more than 18 investigators and 25 current projects, most of which are NIH- funded. Major areas of research that will be positively impacted include studies of aging and dementia, affective neuroscience, neurodevelopment and intellectual and developmental disorders, neurological disease, and basic neuroscience. The UW-Madison MAGNUS scanner will also be a cutting-edge neuroimaging research resource for new projects that will develop and apply next generation techniques to investigate brain structure, microstructure and function at finer scales and higher sensitivity than currently possible on any other human MRI scanner platform.