UC Berkeley has received $13.4 million to build a next-generation MRI brain scanner, which will allow researchers to view minute details of the brain with more clarity than before.
This scanner’s new technology will increase the resolution of images by a factor of 20, according to a campus press release. Funding for the project comes from the National Institute of Health through the BRAIN Initiative grant, which was introduced by former president Barack Obama in 2013 to support innovative and high-impact work in neuroscience.
Currently, there is some limitation in brain imaging at a neuronal level because of the low resolution of existing scanners, said Chunlei Liu, campus associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, who specializes in brain imaging. Most of the existing scientific knowledge of neurons is from research involving animals, which uses invasive imaging techniques to view individual neurons.
“There are microscopic structures that are fundamental to how the brain’s organized,” said Michael Silver, a campus associate professor of vision science, optometry and neuroscience. “Until now, it’s been very difficult to have an instrument that is able to record spaces of tissue that are too small for us to study.”