MRI milestone

The NeuRA FRONTIER team is quite partial to cakes. This week, we were fortunate to eat a special cake (pIMG_9616ictured) to celebrate a special milestone: completing 1000 MRI brain scans!

Who are we scanning?

In the last 7 years, we have scanned patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and related disorders as well as healthy volunteers from the community.

Why are we scanning?

FRONTIER is committed to better understanding the brain changes associated with these progressive brain conditions and their impact on thinking abilities, functional skills and emotional well-being. We are also studying how these changes might differ across neurodegenerative brain disorders, and from healthy ageing.

What is so special about our scans?

The collection of brain scans obtained on the same scanner over time is rare. We have been able to achieve this using NeuRA’s Phillips 3T MRI scanner. As part of our research projects, we have scanned our study participants on a yearly basis over several years, allowing us to map brain changes in individuals with dementia, and compare these changes in different types of dementia.

How have we been able to achieve this feat?

FRONTIER has been able to carry its brain imaging research through funding from research grants, for example from the NHMRC and ARC, and donations from the public. We are extremely grateful for the funding that we have received over the many years.

What do we hope to achieve with our scans in the future?

It is a very exciting time to be part of dementia research. We are continuing our research to link brain imaging with other information such as clinical symptoms, genetics and pathology (known as meta-data), through collaborations with other research groups around the world. We are hopeful that our MRI scan library will help us understand how the brain is affected in dementia and will lead to better methods of diagnosis.

 

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