A new collaborative ultra-high field MRI facility for dementia and neuroscience research

在过去的20年里，磁共振成像（MRI）彻底改变了对大脑和痴呆症等大脑疾病的研究。然而，传统的MRI扫描仪有其局限性。因此，我们将建立一个“超高场”磁共振成像，它提供了一个重要的一步，在如何清楚地研究大脑的结构，功能和化学。这种新的扫描仪将致力于应对痴呆症的挑战，并得到科学工作的支持，以了解正常的大脑和先进的分析。它将成为英国痴呆症平台的主要贡献者，这是一种独特而激进的方法，将全国各专科中心和制药公司合作伙伴的医学研究联合起来，共同对抗痴呆症。新的“7 T”扫描仪将建在阿登布鲁克斯医院旁边的剑桥生物医学园区。这是剑桥大学和医学研究理事会的认知和脑科学单位（CBSU）之间的合作，与NHS密切合作。我们将使用新的扫描仪来检测和识别主要的脑部疾病，如阿尔茨海默氏症，中风和帕金森氏症。随着人口老龄化，痴呆症患者的人数可能会从目前的80万人增加。迫切需要在这些疾病的最早阶段，甚至在症状出现之前识别人们，以便测试对抗痴呆症的治疗方法。剑桥非常适合这项研究，因为i）它现有的痴呆症和MRI大脑扫描的专业知识，ii）它在了解痴呆症和健康老龄化过程的国家倡议中的关键作用，iii）它与主要制药公司合作开发新的治疗方法，iv）存在跟踪数十年正常衰老的大型队列研究，以及研究志愿者群体，由于遗传或生活方式，有患痴呆症的风险。MRI是一种非常通用的技术。核磁共振扫描仪可以被“调整”来测量灰质（大部分脑细胞的家园）、白色物质（大脑的布线）、大脑中的主要化学物质以及痴呆症的微观影响。MRI还可以测量大脑功能，使研究人员能够绘制出注意力、记忆力或语言所需的大脑区域。新的扫描仪可以提供整个大脑的更多细节，使研究人员能够了解大脑的整体工作方式，同时仍然可以看到亚毫米级的细节。这一细节对于阿尔茨海默氏症和帕金森氏症等疾病很重要，对于这些疾病，脑干的小而深的部分至关重要，但难以用常规MRI看到。此外，磁共振成像提供的更多细节为大脑组织的一个重要层面打开了窗口：大脑表面的薄层，直到最近才用侵入性记录进行研究。有了新的扫描仪，我们可以安全地研究人类大脑组织的这一基本水平。这将加速我们对大脑基本工作的科学理解。这一研究利用了剑桥庞大的大脑研究人员群体，以调查以下问题：i）大脑变化导致某些人有成瘾的风险; ii）大脑网络与肥胖有关; iii）大脑正常情况下是如何衰老的，以及为什么有些人随着年龄的增长而变得有弹性; iv）大脑在青少年时期是如何成熟的，而精神分裂症等重大精神疾病通常是在青少年时期开始的。其他医学研究人员将使用扫描仪来了解i）头部受伤后大脑的恢复，ii）与疼痛有关的大脑系统，iii）中风和其他与大脑血液供应受损相关的疾病。大脑研究的深度和广度是剑桥大学及其合作伙伴计划与医学研究理事会一起投资这项突破性技术的原因。超高场MRI将推动基础和医学研究，以改善国民健康。

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has revolutionised the study of the brain and brain diseases like dementia over the last 20 years. Conventional MRI scanners have their limitations however. We will therefore build an "ultrahigh-field" MRI, which offers a major step forward in how clearly one can study the brain's structure, function and chemistry. This new scanner will be dedicated to the challenge of dementia, supported by scientific work to understand the normal brain and advanced analysis. It will be a major contributor to the UK Dementia Platform, a unique and radical approach to join up medical research across the country's specialist centres and drug company partners in the fight against dementia. The new "7T" scanner will be built on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, next to Addenbrookes Hospital. It is a collaboration between Cambridge University and the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBSU), working closely with the NHS. We will use the new scanner to detect and characterise over time the major brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Stroke and Parkinson's Disease. With our ageing population, the number of people suffering from dementia is likely to increase from the current level of 800,000. The need is urgent to identify people in the earliest stages of such diseases, or even before symptoms, in order to test treatments that combat dementia. Cambridge is ideally suited for this research, because of i) its existing expertise in dementia and MRI brain scanning, ii) its key role in national initiatives to understand dementia and the healthy ageing process, iii) its collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies to develop new treatments, and iv) the existence of large cohort studies that track normal ageing over decades, and groups of research volunteers who, because of genetics or lifestyle, are at-risk of dementia. MRI is a very versatile technology. MRI scanners can be "tuned" to measure the grey matter (home to most of the brain cells), white matter (the wiring of the brain), the major chemicals in the brain and microscopic effects of dementia. MRI can also measure brain function, allowing researchers to map the brain areas needed for attention, memory or language. The new scanner gives much greater detail across the entire brain, allowing researchers to understand how the brain works as a whole while still seeing detail at a sub-millimetre scale. This detail is important for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, for which small and deep parts of the brainstem are critical but difficult to see with conventional MRI. Moreover, the increased detail offered by ultrahigh field MRI opens the window on an important level of organisation in the brain: the thin layers of the surface of the brain, which have until recently only been studied with invasive recordings. With the new scanner, we can safely study this fundamental level of brain organisation in humans. This will accelerate our scientific understanding of the basic workings of the brain. This draws on the very large community of brain researchers in Cambridge, to investigate, for example, the i) brain changes that put some people at risk of addiction, ii) brain networks linked to obesity, iii) how the brain normally ages, and why some people are resilient as they get older, and iv) how the brain matures through teenage years, when major mental illness like schizophrenia normally begin. Other medical researchers will use the scanner to understand i) recovery of the brain after head injury, ii) the brain systems implicated in pain, and iii) stroke and other disorders associated with impairments in the brain's blood supply. The depth and breadth of brain research is why the University of Cambridge and partners are planning to join together with the Medical Research Council to invest in this breakthrough technology. The ultrahigh-field MRI will advance both basic and medical research, to improve the health of the nation.