[BIC-announce] Scheduling of upgrades to BIC 3T MRI

[Rick Hoge]

Dear all,

As announced earlier this year, we are planning a number of upgrades at the BIC MRI unit.  While there was some discussion of seeking a second 3T MRI and preserving the 3T Trio scanner indefinitely, it has been decided that we will not pursue this option at the present time.

The plan is thus to upgrade the Siemens Trio 3T system to the Prisma configuration as soon as funding permits, while providing some time for researchers to plan for this transition.  Upgrading the scanner would also necessitate upgrades to the room to comply with current standards.  As this work may entail several weeks of downtime, we are considering a tentative start date of early August 2016 as this has generally been a quiet period for 3T usage.

To help us plan effectively, I would ask that each PI using the 3T MRI provide a list of all their studies that are currently active or planned over the next eight months (i.e. those that could be affected by an August upgrade).  For each study, please email the following information to Mike Ferreira (michael.ferreira at mcgill.ca) with me (Rick) in cc.

Title of study and IRB number if available
Name of PI
Name of study coordinator
Total number of MRI sessions planned in the study:
number of sessions already performed
number of sessions remaining
MRI sequences used
Any WIPs or C2P sequences used on the current system
In the case of studies waiting for the Prisma upgrade, indicate any specific Prisma functionalities required
Please indicate which of the following best describes the study timeline:
study is already well under way, and could be finished by August 1, 2016 (can be completed on Trio)
study is under way, but unlikely to be completed prior to August 1, 2016 (would contain a mixture of Trio and Prisma data)
study is planned, and could be started after September 1, 2016 (will be conducted entirely on Prisma)

Over the coming months, we would like to prioritize studies that have a reasonable chance of finishing prior to the upgrade.  We also understand that this may not be possible for some projects, and in this case we would also prioritize scanning required by researchers to help ‘counterbalance’ cross-sectional studies against the change in scanner configuration (i.e. equalizing the numbers of patients and controls scanned under each configuration).  For longitudinal studies, we will do our best to retain RF coils from the current system and secure functionally identical software for acquisition and reconstruction.  We may also image a number of control subjects before and after the upgrade with a representative sampling of pulse sequences.  This data would be made available to researchers to run through their own pipelines to help control for potential bias.  Finally, it is hoped that an August upgrade date would not unduly delay studies that are waiting for the Prisma before commencing.

Thank you for your collaboration and support,

Rick


---
Rick Hoge, Ph.D.
Director, MRI Program
McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute
Associate Professor, Dept. of Neurology & Neurosurgery
Associate Member, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering
McGill University
rick.hoge at mcgill.ca
514-398-1929



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/pipermail/bic-announce/attachments/20160502/31f8b32a/attachment.html>