This research program is multidisciplinary including but not limited to collaborations between psychologists, neurologists, physicists, exercise physiologists, physical therapists, and nurses. Ongoing research studies use both structural and functional MRI to study brain responses associated reward processing, decision-making, emotion, motor control, and memory in both children and adults. These studies take advantage of the sophisticated imaging capabilities and data analysis facilities available at Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center to examine a wide variety of topic areas and populations including obesity, addiction, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and autism.

Our 3T Siemens Skyra MRI Scanner is a whole body Human MRI scanner, which provides a full array of standard and additional magnetic resonance imaging techniques to assess brain structure and function, and physiology and metabolism of brain and other organs with task-based fMRI, resting state fMRI, volumetrics, diffusion tensor imaging, perfusion imaging, advanced MRI and MRS protocols. We have available a 32-channel head coil, 20-channel head coil and specialized coils available to examine other body parts. Core MR Technologists perform all MR safety screening and scanning procedures. The MR compatible Biopac system provides data acquisition and analysis tools to assess psychophysiological measurements including but not limited to heart rate, respiration, and skin conductance.

The HBIC whole-body 3T MRI scanner provides a full array of standard and additional features including a variety of clinical MRI and MRS protocols, various head and body receive coils. The scanner is networked to our XNAT server to provide seamless transfer of MRI data to research staff who can download the data for analysis on HBIC data analysis computers or to their individual laboratories on the KUMC campus or further afield. Core manager Rebecca Lepping inspects a weekly quality control scan to confirm adequate scanner performance.

Specialized Equipment:

• Patient monitoring devices: MRI compatible pulse oximetry, blood pressure monitoring, and EKG recording are provided by an InVivoMetrics system and EMG is available (BrainVision). In addition, an MRI compatible system for recording and analyzing physiological signals including respiration, pulse, and electrodermal activity is provided by the BIOPAC MP150 Data Acquisition and AcqKnowledge software.
• Biometric screening devices: A PS-6600 ST 500-lb scale, accurate to ±0.1lb (Befour, Inc.), PE-WM-60-84 standard calibrated stadiometer, range 27 5/8 - 84 in. (Perspective Inc.), and Invivo Magnitude 3150 MRI blood-pressure monitoring device are available.
• Peripheral presentation and response collection devices: MRI compatible response pads, trackball, joystick, high definition MR-compatible video projector (Avotec, Inc.), and earbuds are available for response collection and presentation of visual and auditory stimuli during scanning.
• Presentation/data collection computers: Stimulus presentation and data collection computers are available in the MRI control room and neuropsychological testing room. These computers have E-Prime, Presentation, and LabView software installed, and are connected to University network drives for secure storage of research data. Additional software can be installed by core staff if needed.
• Data Storage and Management systems: 3T Core Manager Lepping is responsible for managing imaging data and informatics through XNAT, an open source imaging informatics platform designed to facilitate management and exploration of imaging and related data.
• Analysis Computers: Computing facilities at HBIC include Unix, PC/Linux, Sun SunBlade 1000, and Mac workstations for data analysis and interpretation. Our network-based analysis server (HBIC-SYNAPSE) has a large number of neuroimaging software packages installed. This resource is accessible by all Center users, and well-documented on our Structure and Function Unit SharePoint site. Lepping, Keselman, Karcher, and IR jointly manage this resource. Software within the laboratory includes E-Prime, Presentation, LabView, AFNI, BrainVoyager (Maastricht, The Netherlands), SPM, FSL, LCModel, SPSS, SAS, Statistica, Matlab (Mathworks, Inc., Natick MA), IDL (Research Systems, Inc., Boulder, CO), Neurolucida (MicroBrightField, Inc., Williston, VT), GraphPad, Deltagraph, EndNote, Excel, Powerpoint, and Word.

Unit Contacts:

3T Core

William Brooks, Ph.D., Professor and Director, 3T MRI Core
913-588-9075, wbrooks@kumc.edu 

Rebecca Lepping, Ph.D., Manager, 3T Core
913-588-0287, rlepping@kumc.edu 

Vlad Papa B.A., 3T Project Manager
913-945-6003, vpapa@kumc.edu

Functional MRI

Laura Martin, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor and Director, Structure and Function Unit
913-588-7279, lmartin2@kumc.edu

Structural MRI/MRS

Phil Lee, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Unit / Research and Development Unit
913-588-0454, plee2@kumc.edu 

In-Young Choi, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Metabolic Imaging Unit/ Research and Development Unit
913-588-0174, ichoi@kumc.edu