Dr Michael Thrippleton (PhD)
Senior Research Fellow, HCPC-registered Clinical Scientist
- Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
- Edinburgh Imaging
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)1314 659529
- Email: m.j.thrippleton@ed.ac.uk
- Web: github page
Address
- Street
-
Chancellor's Building
49 Little France Crescent - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH16 4SB
Background
Michael Thrippleton is a Senior Research Fellow and registered Clinical Scientist. He trained at Cambridge and MIT, and joined the Brain Research Imaging Centre as its Medical Physicist in 2012. Having helped to establish the Edinburgh Imaging Facility RIE, he now leads and supports magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a large number of clinical research studies.
Techniques: DCE-MRI, quantitative MRI, cerebrovascular reactivity, blood flow, MR spectroscopy
Disease areas: small vessel disease, neonatal, multiple sclerosis, reproductive, psychiatric, healthy physiology
Citizenship
International groups
Taskforce lead and Contributor, Open Source Initiative for Perfusion Imaging (OSIPI)
Contributor to STRIVE2 consensus initiative for imaging in small vessel disease
Lead, HARNESS blood-brain barrier permeability harmonisation group (consensus paper)
Task force lead, HARNESS initiative to disseminate and standardise neuroimaging protocols for measuring the contributions of vascular disease to dementia and neurodegeneration.
Open-source software
Python software for DCE-MRI and other quantitative MRI analysis
Matlab software for relaxometry, DCE-MRI and magnetisation transfer MRI
OSIPI DSC/DCE-MRI code collection
Research grants
2023 - 2025 Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (Co-I): Relevance of the innate immunity, inflammation and microbiota-gut-brain axis in the microvascular injury burden and progression in patients with lacunar stroke, €160,452
2024 - 2025 Tenovus Scotland (Co-I): Quantitative spinal cord magnetic resonance imaging in early multiple sclerosis and healthy controls, £17,548
2024 - 2024 Strategic Allocation Capital Equipment Budget (PI): Coil to enable non-invasive phosphorus imaging, £52,500
2023 - 2024 Patrick Wild Centre Pilot Fund (Co-I): Edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy for neurometabolite quantification in neurological disorders: feasibility and repeatability, £4,509
2021 - 2022 Wellcome Trust-UoE ISSF (Co-I): Investigating mechanisms of brain and cognitive development in children born preterm, £30,000
2021 - 2021 Siemens Healthcare (Co-I): Imaging meningeal lymphatic channels in the human brain, £66,700
2019 - 2021 Leducq Foundation pilot fund scheme (Co-I): Comparison of DW-ASL and DCE-MRI BBB permeability metrics in clinical and pre-clinical cerebral small vessel disease, $10,000
2019 - 2020 Wellcome Trust-UoE ISSF (PI): Precision engineering of reference objects for quantitative in-vivo imaging: validation of blood-brain barrier integrity measurement, £25,000
2018 - 2019 MRC-NIH Partnering Award (Co-I): Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain vascular changes and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in humans, £9,442
2015 - 2017 Alzheimer's Society Project Grant (Co-I): Preventing cognitive decline and dementia from cerebral microvascular disease, £255,385
2014 - 2015 Wellcome Trust-UoE ISSF (Co-I): A magnetic resonance imaging method to detect cerebrovascular inflammation in patients with cerebral small vessel disease, £51,999
2014 - 2015 Chief Scientist Office (Co-I): Non-invasive measurement of cerebrovascular reactivity and compliance in cerebral small vessel disease: feasibility and estimation of sample size for translational research and clinical trials, £137,420
2011 - 2012 Imaging and Genetics Pilot Study Fund (Co-I): Establishing a protocol for post mortem MR-pathological correlation for studies of ageing, neurodegeneration and cerebrovascular disease, £20,700
Selected publications
Association of Cerebrovascular Reactivity With 1-Year Imaging and Clinical Outcomes in Small Vessel Disease. Neurology, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000210008
A community-endorsed open-source lexicon for contrast agent–based perfusion MRI: A consensus guidelines report from the ISMRM Open Science Initiative for Perfusion Imaging (OSIPI). Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.29840
Cerebrovascular Reactivity in Patients With Small Vessel Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study. Stroke, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.123.042656
Neuroimaging standards for research into small vessel disease-advances since 2013. Lancet Neurology, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(23)00131-X
Contrast-agent-based perfusion MRI code repository and testing framework: ISMRM Open Science Initiative for Perfusion Imaging (OSIPI). Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.29826
Cerebrovascular reactivity measurements using 3T BOLD MRI and a fixed inhaled CO2 gas challenge: Repeatability and impact of processing strategy. Frontiers in Physiology, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1070233
Cerebrovascular Reactivity Measurement Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Systematic Review. Front Physiol, 2021
Sources of systematic error in DCE-MRI estimation of low-level blood-brain barrier leakage, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2021
A four-dimensional computational model of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging measurement of subtle blood-brain barrier leakage. Neuroimage, 2021.
Quantifying blood-brain barrier leakage in small vessel disease: Review and consensus recommendations. Alzheimers & Dementia, 2019
Blood-brain barrier failure as a core mechanism in cerebral small vessel disease and dementia: evidence from a cohort study. Alzheimers & Dementia, 2017
Tracer kinetic modelling for DCE-MRI quantification of subtle blood-brain barrier permeability. Neuroimage, 2016
Reliability of MRSI brain temperature mapping at 1.5 and 3 T. NMR in Biomedicine, 2014
Ex Vivo Water Diffusion Tensor Properties of the Fibroid Uterus at 7 T and Their Relation to Tissue Morphology. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 2011
Satellite transitions acquired in real time by magic angle spinning (STARTMAS): "Ultrafast" high-resolution MAS NMR spectroscopy of spin I=3/2 nuclei. Journal of Chemical Physics, 2008
Thrippleton, M.J. and J. Keeler, Elimination of zero-quantum interference in two-dimensional NMR spectra. Angewandte Chemie, 2003
Studies supported (selected)
(work in progress)
- Investigate-SVDs (EU-funded multi-centre imaging study of cerebral small vessel disesase)
- TREAT-SVDs (EU-funded clinical trial in cerebral small vessel disease)
- Brain Changes in Sleep Apnoea (Fondation Leducq funded imaging study of sleep apnoea)
- Mild Stroke Study 3 (MRC/Fondation Leducq funded study of cerebral small vessel disease)
- FutureMS (Scotland-wide study of relapsing-onset multiple sclerosis)
- Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort
Qualifications
2017 HCPC-registered Clinical Scientist
2004 PhD Natural Science, University of Cambridge
2000 M.Sci Natural Sciences (First Class), University of Cambridge
Responsibilities & affiliations
Senior Research Fellow (Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Dementia Research Institute)
Medical Physicist, Edinburgh Imaging (RIE Facility)
Undergraduate teaching
Medical Physics module, Department of Physics
Postgraduate teaching
Neuroimaging for Research MSc, Imaging MSc
- creation of online teaching material
- tutoring, marking
Current PhD students supervised
Keelin Ridge
Sulaiman Sarwar
Past PhD students supervised
Emilie Sleight
Cameron Manning
Alasdair Morgan
Yulu Shi
Anna Heye
Jehill Parikh