Functional MRI Core Facility

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Space Utilization: The Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility (FMRIF) currently occupies approximately 5000 sq ft of space in Building 10, divided between the B1level scanner bays, control rooms and electronics/machine rooms for 3TA/3TB, 3TC, and the Siemens 7T-Classic, (about 1800 sq ft, 1100 sq ft and 1300 sq ft respectively) and office space within the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) center. On the first floor are the Functional MRI Facility and the Section on Functional Imaging Methods suites (approximately 800 sq ft total) for office space and shared conference space for all staff employed full-time by the facility. Staff: The FMRIF staff consists of: the facility director, four staff scientists to keep the scanners running, six MRI technologists, an information technology specialist, and an administrative laboratory manger. Investigators: The functional MRI facility supports the research of over 30 Principal Investigators translating to over 300 researchers overall. Over 70 research protocols are active and making use of FMRIF scanners. Each scanner has scheduled operating hours of 105 hours per week. Papers published using the core: A strong measure of the utility of a core facility is the quantity and quality of scientific papers published by investigators using the facility. We have kept careful records of papers published and their corresponding citations, such that we have been able to create a core facility h-index. Since its inception in 2000 until August 2020, a total of 1,222 peer-reviewed publications from intramural investigators have used data acquired in the FMRIF core facility. The total is distributed among 700 papers from NIMH, 345 papers from NINDS, and 148 from the other institutes. These papers have been cited a total of 140,641 times for a combined h-index of 185. In other words, 185 papers using the FMRIF have been cited at least 185 times. Core Projects of the Staff Scientists: Linqing Li Dr. Li helped providing service for a TMS-fMRI coil test and safety verification and application. The project was interrupted early this year due to pandemic, however, last month, the TMS group requested another service for resuming this procedure. He has restored and updated the procedure for the coil installation and MRI protocol evaluation on phantom. Dr. Li has also been very active scientifically. He has been collaborating with Dr. Yuhui Chai on high resolution functional pulse sequence development. He has also been continuing his ongoing development on DANTE-prepared EPI for both imaging blood volume changes as well as towards baseline CMRO2 mapping. Vinai Roopchansingh Dr. Roopchansingh has continued the development of a system that enables neuro-feedback data the GE and Siemens systems. This system has been made publicly available at https://pypi.org/project/afniRTI/ He has also received, tested, and deployed several versions of research EPI prototype sequences from GE including a multi-band EPI prototype being used by SFIM on FMRIF 3TB. Recently, he implemented a multi-band, multi-echo enabled prototype from GE. FY 2020 involved multiple larger purchasing acquisitions. He recently completed the procurement for a maintenance agreement for all of our GE scanners, which will provide coverage for the next 5 years. His is also in the process of procuring a 32-channel head coil from Nova Medical for us, and in the midst of the procurement for a commercial option to replace our current web platform that makes DICOM data available to our users. It should be noted that Dr. Roopchansingh's response to COVID-19-related scheduling and management of the technologists as research slowly returns to the FMRIF has been exemplary. He formulated a return to work plan, and personally oversees scanning requests and technologist schedules to make sure operations ramp up smoothly and safely. Sean Marrett Dr. Marrett collaborated on pulse sequence debugging, testing and a data collection using VASO methods and variants with Dr. Laurentius Huber of Maastricht University with the goal of whole-brain layer-specific MRI. Data was collected on both the FMRIF-7T (VB17) as well as the more modern NMRF-7T (VE12). This included the tests of the MAGEC-VASO methods. FMRIF was given approval for supplementary funding for an upgrade of our current FMRIF-7T (now more than 10 years old in design) , and a 2nd a new, modern human 7T system which will replace one of our GE MR750 3T scanners. Dr. Marrett has been the main point of contact for these new 7T projects. Dr. Marrett deployed an eye-tracker and screen assembly for the 3T systems in collaboration with the Section on Instrumentation and Dr. Danny Pine. FMRIF continues to work closely with Dr. Peter Molfese (CMN/SFIM) to support concurrent high-density EEG data collection. FMRIF was given approval and supplementary funding for a new scientific imaging database. This project was initiated by Dr. Marrett and is now being led by Dr. Roopchansingh. This will be integrated with long-planned improvements to our data storage area network (SAN) that is the backbone of the FMRIF computing and data archiving network and will increase the capacity and speed of access to storage significantly. Andy Derbyshire Dr. Derbyshire continues to be the FMRIF lead in the FMRIF/NIBIB insertable head gradient project. In the last year this has included planning/construction and, increasingly early experimental work. The upgrades to the chilled water supply and modifications to the penetration panels etc. of 3TB were completed to accommodate the insertable head gradient (Pierpaoli/NIBIB). The insertable head gradient unit was delivered at the end of 2019 with the first installation and demonstration of the unit being performed by the Brian Rutt's team (Stanford/U. Western Ontario) in early 2020. The insertable head-gradient provides 120mT/m max gradient with 1200T/m/s slew rate (to be compared with 50mT/m 200T/m/s clinical gradients) allowing a single slice of 3-echo, non-accelerated EPI at 2mm resolution to be acquired in less than 100ms. The 10kW of heat generated in the coil by running this sequence continuously is being successfully removed by the cooling system comprising chilled water through hollow conductors. He provided support installing and maintaining the Siemens Pulse Sequence development environment for the various platforms within the MR Center, including support for the FMRIF7T (VB17), NMRF7T (VE12U), 3TD/Skyra (VD13A and VE11C) and Prisma (VD13D) platforms as well as assistance with pulse-sequence programming related issues. He is continuing to work with Pascal Sati (Riech/NINDS) in the development of their susceptibility contrast 3D-EPI pulse sequence for detection of the central vein in MS lesions. He is the FMRIF representative on the NMR Safety Committee. We support for the NMRF Human Safety Class (which includes educating users about MR Safety in general as well as the Rules and Polices for human scanning in the NMR Center). The Safety Class team is developing a new on-line refresher course to help meet the requirement that all NMR Center users re-certify their safety training at least every two years. We have also, in response user demand during the COVID-19/max-telework situation, adapted the course to provide virtual Safety Classes which are now being regularly scheduled. Beyond teaching the safety class sessions, the NMR Safety Class team is actively involved in developing the polices within the NMR Center to meet the changes and new standards being introduced for Human MRI scanning. In June 2020, Dr. Derbyshire assisted with the planning and running of the Gadgetron 2020 online summer course, including teaching a small session.