Functional MRI Core Facility

Bandettini, Peter

Abstract

Protocol number 93-M-0170, NCT00001360 Space Utilization: The Functional MRI Facility (FMRIF) currently occupies approximately 4800 sq. ft of space, divided between the scanner bays, control rooms and electronics/machine rooms for 3TA, 3TB, 3TC, 3TD, and 7T MRI scanners located within the NMR center and office space on the second floor above the NMR center in the FMRIF/SFIM suite (approximately 1400 sq ft total, including shared conference space). The FMRIF staff (currently 14 full- time positions) consists of: the facility director, three staff scientists to keep the scanners running, six MRI technologists, an information technology specialist, a programmer, a technical laboratory manager, and an administrative laboratory manger. 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. Since its inception in 2000 until August 2016, a total of 1069 peer-reviewed publications from intramural investigators have used data acquired in the FMRIF core facility. The total is distributed among 716 papers from NIMH, 257 papers from NINDS, and 96 from the other institutes. These papers have been cited a total of 95,390 times for a combined h-index of 152. In other words, 152 papers using the FMRIF have been cited at least 152 times. Projects: We completed installation of the high-density (128 channel) EGI MRI compatible system on 3TD and trained MRI technologists. The system is currently being used in pilot studies of ketamine on 3TD as well as a assisting with a study with Leo Cohens group that combines resting MEG and resting EEG/FMRI in stroke rehabilitation. Jan Varada has assembled an MRI quality control processing pipeline that will likely be used for making sure that the data quality remain of a constant high quality as the neuroimaging database becomes assembled. A standard workflow for the 7T pTX project has been established and submission is in preparation to allow human use of the 8Tx/32Rx system (in collaboration with the Jeff Duyn group). A new high-performance image reconstruction system was installed on the 7T that now permits routine use of multi-band, multi-echo (prohibitive before). We have demonstrated routine 2s TR, 1.1mm iso GE-EPI (100 slices). We have tested and installed multi-band sequences from CMRR, MGH and Maastricht. We installed and tested the Center for Magnetic Resonance Resaerch (University of Minnessota) Multi-band sequences on all Siemens scanners. These sequences are now being used routinely on 3TD for LBC protocol. We have gained access to a Stanford multi-band EPI sequence for GE MR750 platform. We are in the process of porting it to Epic 22.x for use on 3TC. Thanks mostly to the work of Vinai Roopchansingh, we have published the base GE (Orchestra) Raw Data to ISMRM-RD converter. We have ported NIH-EPI (supports multi-echo) to Prisma. The sequence is in wide use with researchers at NIH, and is being distributed (as a Siemens C2P sequence) to other sites. We also ported NIH-3D-EPI (i.e. segmented 3D EPI) to Siemens Prisma plaform. This is now in use with the Reich group (Pascal Sati), and is being distributed (as a Siemens C2P sequence) to other sites.