MR Physics/fMRI

Staff

Yiping Du, Ph.D. (Director fMRI Program, ONDCP, Dept of Psychiatry & Radiology); Jody Tanabe, M.D; Jason Tregellas; Jack H. Simon, M.D., Ph.D. Collaborative efforts include those with the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder (Marie Banich Ph.D.), the University of Denver (Cathy Reed Ph.D.), and Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder (Francois Meyer, Ph.D.).

3 Tesla Research Program

A 3 Tesla wholebody MRI scanner manufactured by General Electric Medical Systems is scheduled to arrive in January, 2003. The instrument was funded by a research grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

This MRI scanner will be equipped with:

• High performance gradient coils (maximum gradient amplitude of 50 mT/m and maximum slew rate of 150 T/m/s)
• Head volume RF coil
• A wholebody RF coil

The system will include an additional console for real-time functional MRI exams using a gradient-echo echo-planar imaging (EPI) pulse sequence. Two-dimensional chemical shift imaging (CSI) and single voxel proton MR spectroscopy will also be supported.

The 3T instrument will reside in a 2,060-sqft suite located on the Fitzsimmons Campus of the University of Colorado Denver. Building #400. The construction of the MRI suite was initiated September 17, 2002.

The computer facility in the fMRI Center includes two workstations running on the Linux operating system, a SGI O2 workstation, and several PC computers. A terabyte storage will be purchased for temporarily data archive. The office area of the fMRI Center will include 11 offices and 2 interview rooms, located adjacent to the MRI suite.

Additional Information

Information about Diffusion Tensor MRI