17 Sep 21. TEBC pilot study begins

The Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort research team has scanned its first five-year-old participant for its pilot study at the Edinburgh Imaging facilities, which was designed to create infrastructure for paediatric MR research at Edinburgh University.

The pilot study involves the acquisition of structural & functional MR data in healthy children at age 5, as a pilot study for implementing paediatric MR with the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort (TEBC) research study. 

The aim of the pilot study is to test MR sequences & procedures with hopes of carrying out follow-up scans on the Theirworld participants. The pilot study was supported by a Wellcome Trust-University of Edinburgh Institutional Strategic Support Fund awarded to Dr Hilary Richardson.

The team has now scanned its first participant on the Edinburgh Imaging Facility RIE MR scanner. The scan went amazingly well, with the participant lying in the MR scanner for over 50 minutes whilst our research radiographers acquired the scan.

Next steps include fine-tuning the MR sequences & procedures based on the pilot study data & determining the efficacy of the fMR experiments for studying functionally specialized brain regions. The research team hopes to roll the protocol out to the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort & also plans to develop new fMR studies of children’s social cognitive development.

We asked Dr Hilary Richardson, principle investigator for the study, her thoughts on the study beginning.

"This study is very much a first step for conducting pediatric MR research here at Edinburgh & I couldn’t be more pleased to have it up & running.

Edinburgh Imaging has been incredibly supportive in taking on this new direction of research & it has been lovely to talk to families in the local community about the study. I am grateful to them & excited for the future studies that this will spur!"