Award Abstract #0521432
Acquisition of a 3T MRI System

NSF Org:	BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
Initial Amendment Date:	September 5, 2005
Latest Amendment Date:	September 5, 2005
Award Number:	0521432
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	John E. Yellen BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
Start Date:	September 1, 2005
Expires:	August 31, 2006 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$2000000
Investigator(s):	Jerome Sanes Jerome_Sanes@Brown.edu (Principal Investigator) Sheila Blumstein (Co-Principal Investigator) Michael Tarr (Co-Principal Investigator) David Laidlaw (Co-Principal Investigator) David Ress (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	Brown University BOX 1929 Providence, RI 02912 401/863-2777
NSF Program(s):	MAJOR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION
Field Application(s):
Program Reference Code(s):	OTHR, 9150, 0000
Program Element Code(s):	1189

ABSTRACT

With support from a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Award, Brown University will acquire a 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. The MRI system will become housed in a research-dedicated MRI suite within the newly constructed Life Sciences Building at Brown, and it will form the core infrastructure for MRI-related research conducted by more than 100 faculty, research staff, and students in the Brown University community, including its College of Arts and Sciences and Medical School. Researchers at Brown will use the NSF-fund MRI system primarily to investigate fundamentals of brain structure and function. In addition to Brown users, researchers from other nearby institutions, such as the University of Rhode Island, Regina Saliva University, and University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth can have access to the 3 Tesla MRI system.

Non-invasive imaging of the human brain has become a key research tool for life scientists interested in understanding brain mechanisms of sensation, perception, cognition, and voluntary movement. MRI has becoming a cornerstone of such activities since it can provide structure and functional information at previously unobtainable brain locations without the need for invasive measures. Structural MRI can provide sub-millimeter resolution of the cellular and fiber tract regions of the brain. These capabilities now allow precise measurement of local brain volumes and visualization of the source and destination of major axon pathways. Functional MRI can rapidly measure local changes in blood dynamics in volumes as small as 1 cubic mm. Blood dynamics reflect changes in local neural activity, and its exploitation has become a key tool in exploring brain mechanisms of a variety of functions that constitute everyday experience. The NSF funded resource will allow Brown researchers and those from nearby institutions to develop new strategies and knowledge about how the human brain mediates complex behavior.

Projects currently planned for the 3 Tesla MRI system include research in systems and cognitive neuroscience and biomechanics. A major effort will be to enhance spatial and temporal resolution of structural and functional MR imaging, using special equipment of the new 3 Tesla MRI system. In particular, the infrastructure will facilitate investigating specialization of the myriad brain areas that process visual stimuli, not only across the brain, but also within each area. The new MRI system will allow non-invasive imaging of the input and output processing zones of cortical areas. Several investigators will interrogate the functional MRI signals obtained during single instances of perceptual experience or voluntary movement to predict the conscious experience of the observer or to predict the performed movement(s). While these 'mind-reading' efforts currently occur off-line, the team plans to implement them in real-time, and ultimately at high spatial resolution. The addition of the 3 Tesla MRI resource at Brown will boost ongoing educational and research activities and will stimulate novel interactions between students, faculty and researchers working across life, social, physical and applied science disciplines. The instrumentation will also be used in out-reach programs for under-represented minority high-school students participating in summer programs at Brown.

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