State-of-the-Art Ultra-High-Field MRI for Crossing Scales in Basic Neuroscience

磁共振成像（MRI）是一种众所周知的医学成像技术，可以对人体进行安全扫描。因此，它被医院很好地用于帮助诊断疾病。它也是研究健康人的一项有价值的技术，可以更好地了解人体器官的正常解剖和功能。为了获得最佳的图像分辨率和质量，使用尽可能高的磁场强度是有帮助的。近年来，已经生产出比医院使用的扫描仪强两到五倍的研究MRI扫描仪。牛津大学在2011年安装了一台这样的“高场”扫描仪，并用它来研究健康的人类大脑。可以获得精细的空间细节和功能信息，但由于图像获取方式的扭曲，大脑的某些部分无法很好地成像。在这项拨款中，我们希望在我们的高场扫描仪中加入新开发的技术，以大幅消除这些扭曲，从而获得大脑所有部位的信息。特别是，通过拟议的升级，我们将能够从大脑的颞叶获得良好的成像数据（涉及记忆、视觉和声音处理以及语言等功能），脑干（涉及呼吸、心率和疼痛感知等基本功能）和小脑（涉及运动、姿势和平衡）。我们还可以使用磁共振光谱学来检查大脑的化学成分，这使得我们可以测量参与大脑过程和内部交流的主要化学物质。

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a well-known medical imaging technology that allows safe scanning of the human body. For this reason it is well used by hospitals to help diagnose disease. It is also a valuable technology for studying the healthy human, to better understand normal anatomy and function of the body's organs. For the best image resolution and quality it is helpful to use a magnetic field strength that is as high as possible. Over recent years, research MRI scanners have been produced that are between two and five times stronger than the scanners used in hospitals. The University of Oxford installed one of these 'high-field' scanners in 2011 and has used it to study the healthy human brain. Exquisite spatial detail and functional information can be obtained, but there are parts of the brain that cannot be imaged well, due to distortions in the way the images are acquired. In this grant we seek to add newly developed technologies to our high-field scanner that substantially resolve these distortions so that information from all parts of the brain can be obtained.In particular, with the proposed upgrade, we will be able to obtain good imaging data from the temporal lobes of the brain (involved in functions like memory, visual and sound processing, and language), the brain stem (involved in basic functions such as breathing, heart rate and the perception of pain), and the cerebellum (involved in movement, posture and balance). We can also examine the chemistry of the brain using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, that allow measurements to be made of the principal chemicals involved in brain processes and internal communication.