3T MRI scanner for Advanced Brain Imaging

Abstract This proposal request funds to purchase a research-dedicated, state-of-the-art 3T MRI scanner for neuroimaging to be used by a core group of NIH-supported investigators at the University of Arizona (UA). The new scanner will support many active research programs that are developing and/or using state-of-the-art MRI in their study of the brain. The proposed Siemens

3T Magnetom Prisma (Prisma) will significantly improve the capabilities for brain imaging at UA, and provide enhanced data and image quality for advanced techniques in diffusion, functional, and structural MRI. With the identification of neuroscience as a UA Health Sciences focus area, represented by multiple centers and institutes, the UA has made strong institutional

commitments towards neuroimaging research with many new faculty being hired and new buildings and facilities being constructed. The Prisma will be located in the Translational Bioimaging Resource (TBIR), a new 20,000 GSF facility in the newly constructed Biosciences Research Laboratory building. The TBIR houses multiple imaging modalities under one roof

and has the necessary infrastructure for human and animal imaging. The users of the new instrument span a range of disciplines from biomedical engineering to psychology and psychiatry to medical imaging to speech, language and hearing sciences. Neuroimaging cuts across all of these disciplines and a powerful neuro-optimized 3T MRI scanner will further

advance the understanding of healthy and aging human brains as well as enable UA researchers to deepen our understanding of, and develop treatments for, neurological disorders including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury, and stroke.