Our Brain Research MRI scanner - hits its 25,000 scan milestone!

Professor Joanna Wardlaw joins our BRIC team of radiographers, doctors, scientists and support staff to celebrate our 25,000th scan at the Brain Research Imaging Centre.

Our team of staff at the Brain Research Imaging Centre (BRIC) were delighted to welcome Ms Sulamita Freitas Baeta (pictured in the middle) to the Centre today.

Not only because she has kindly volunteered to be scanned in our 1.5T MRI scanner for one of our QA studies, but also because Sulamita will be the 25,000th scan to be completed on our existing scanner - quite a milestone!

Our 1.5T HDX, GE Signal Horizon MRI scanner, equipped for echo-planar imaging using 8 channel coils, is optimised for brain imaging. Our team pictured in the photo, are very aware of the importance of quality assurance (QA) in MRI,  to ensure that accurate and reproducible image acquisition is well documented.  BRIC has established robust QA procedures to ensure consistent and accurate scanner function. Due to the dedication of team, our Quality Assurance techniques include routine (clinical) QA performed each day, as well as carrying out numerous monthly tests, which include signal to noise ratio (SNR), uniformity, single- and multi- voxel spectroscopy (MRS), and functional MRI (fMRI).

Our volunteers like Sulamita, who are taking part in our 1.5 v 3T scan QA study, have kindly agreed to be scanned in our 1.5T MR scanner at the Western General Hospital, and also in our proposed 3T MR scanner, which will be installed at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in October 2016.