Imaging Facilities
Since 2001 almost every resource available to approved protocols has been upgraded. Our space, scanning equipment, computational resources and other ancillary equipment have been replaced with the latest and most sophisticated instrumentation available. The following provides an overview of our imaging facilities.
MRI Laboratory
Siemens Allegra 3T MRI Device:
In 2003 we installed a 3.0 Tesla Siemens Allegra Unit as well as a 1.5 Tesla Siemens Sonata Whole Body Scanning Unit. Compared to the other commercially available instruments, this unit most closely replicates and extends the functionality of the scanner sited historically at the UCLA Brain Mapping Center. In particular, the scanner is optimized for high performance imaging of the head and brain. It has also the special advantage that its software base and electronics platform are essentially identical to the clinical “syngo” systems, including the popular 1.5 Tesla Sonata configuration.
The Allegra 3T MRI unit is equipped with a stimulation and response recording environment consisting of a Macintosh computer system with its video output directed to an LCD projection system used inside the instrument. The display unit itself was developed jointly with Resonance Technology, Incorporated, a project presently funded through a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) award. We have a magnet-compatible electrostatic pointing device, based upon an ALPS (Alps Electronics, San Jose, CA) "Glide Point" with multiple response buttons that is connected to our remote stimulus display and response computers via a twisted pair differential line driver that passes through the MR scanner filter panel and then to the Macintosh ADB port. Visual and auditory stimulation are provided with a magnet-compatible Resonance Technology 3D Visual Stimulation device.
Siemens 1.5T Sonata 3T MRI Device
The Brain Mapping Siemens Sonata system is a FDA-cleared magnetic resonance imaging system that has been optimized for brain studies. The system is capable of a variety of different forms of structural and angiographic imaging in addition to functional echo planar imaging, diffusion imaging, perfusion imaging, and proton MR spectroscopy. It acquires fMRI using a gradient system that produces 40 mT/m per axis at a slew rate of 200 T/m/s per axis. Single shot echo planar imaging can be performed with T2- or T2*-weighting.
Cyclotron Laboratory
Residing in the Brain Mapping Center, we have a cyclotron manufactured by Siemens-CTI. This device (RDS-111) is an advanced technology instrument capable of producing a full spectrum of positron-emitting radioisotopes including: 15O, 13N, 18F and 11C. We operate this instrument to produce sufficient quantities of oxygen-15 labeled water to perform cerebral PET activation studies on a 10-15 minute interval basis throughout the day.
PET Laboratory
The PET scanner is a Siemens-CTI HR+ EXACT device. The system represents the highest resolution instrument currently manufactured for PET imaging. It provides whole body high resolution images for both dynamic and static imaging of the brain and body. Three-dimensional image acquisition and reconstruction are available with this device. These data can be collected as stationary scans
or in dynamic mode. This system has a set of retractable septa as well as germanium-gallium-68 ring sources for attenuation measurement. The detector system consists of specially designed BGO detectors that provide optical coupling to four photomultiplier tubes. The detector interactions are determined by analog logic similar to that of gamma cameras. The image resolution is nominally four millimeters in all planes.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
The TMS lab at the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center is equipped with a Cadwell high-speed magnetic stimulator that generates 2.2 Tesla of maximal stimulation. Stimulation is delivered through three coils of different shapes. We have a standard circular coil, an eight-shaped coil that allows a more precise stimulation of specific sites of the cerebral cortex, and an angled coil that allows a deeper stimulation than the previous two coils. The lab is also equipped with two Magstim Model 220 units, a Blocking module and a Bistim module, allowing paired-pulse TMS at short (1 ms) and long intervals, two double 70 mm coils and one water-cooled coil. The lab also is equipped for frameless stereotaxy composed of an infrared-based tracking system and associated software. The tracking system is a Polaris Passive Tracking System, composed of a camera and tracking tools. The software BrainSight allows registration and online monitoring of the subject's head position with his/her structural brain image and tracking the position of the coil with respect to the underlying brain structures.
