News
MR spectrum of the mouse prefrontal cortex
Thanks to our clinical MRS expert Dr David Lythgoe, with help of our own Dr Camilla Simmons, we now have a working protocol for magnetic resonance spectroscopy - yey! This is an example spectrum from a (tiny) 11.6um voxel of a mouse prefrontal cortex (see inset...
BRAIN Centre opening event, 6th Dec ’17 – How it went
Last month we saw the official opening of BRAIN centre at Denmark Hill’s KCL campus. Although the centre itself has been successfully running for almost a year, the centre manager Dr Diana Cash invited distinguished guests to attend an afternoon symposium of talks...
BRAIN Centre opening event: 6th Dec 2017
To celebrate the successful set up of the new BRAIN Centre at KCL Denmark Hill campus, we will be hosting an Opening event, with a buffet lunch, an afternoon of talks from preclinical neuroimaging scientists, followed by a drinks reception and an opportunity to...
High res T2-weighted MRI of the rat brain (ex vivo)
High resolution (0.08mm voxels) of a fixed rat head that was pre-soaked in Gadolinium-contaning buffer for 1 week to increase signal to noise. Acquired using standard Bruker 3D T2W-RARE (Rapid Imaging with Refocused Echoes, aka Fast Spin Echo, FSE) in just over 2h. In...
T1W (MP-RAGE) MRI of the mouse brain
The three-dimension magnetization-prepared rapid gradient echo (MP-RAGE) sequence is one of the most popular sequences for high-resolution whole brain T1-weighted imaging in the clinic. Thanks to Eugene and Toby, we now have it working nicely in mouse brain as part of...
A cancer MR physicist’s experience of Mouse (neuro) Imaging Summer School
I joined the BRAIN Centre this July as an MR physicist, but all of my experience in imaging was in the realm of cancer research. I had a lot to learn about the brain and how to image it. I still have a lot to learn, but I was lucky to get an introduction to...
Cognitive Decline and Ageing at the Neuroscience School of Advanced Studies
I am a student on the doctoral training partnership funded by KCL and the MRC, and my project is based at the BRAIN centre. I will be utilising the many MRI modalities available at the preclinical centre to image the brains of healthy rats across their lifespan. I...
TSPO PET & autoradiography
At BRAIN centre we don't just do MRI. With Nisha Singh and Marta Vicente-Rodriguez we recently optimised the methodology for in vivo preclinical PET imaging of PK11195 binding to mitochondrial translocator protein, TSPO (a putative neuroinflammation marker) and...
Welcome
Wellcome to the BRAIN news/blog. Every week or thereabouts, we hope to provide some useful commentary on a topic related to preclinical neuroimaging. Guest posts are most welcome – to volunteer please email us.