[BIC-announce] Upgrade of 3T MRI to Prisma beginning January 17, 2017

[Rick Hoge]

To all MRI users:

Please note that the upgrade of the 3T MRI has been confirmed with a start date of January 17, 2017.  We expect this will take approximately six weeks, including maintenance of RF shielding and other peripheral work.

The MRI staff is doing their best to maximize availability for researchers who need to complete studies on the current platform, and we also realize that some groups are delaying the start of new studies until after the upgrade.  The January date remains the best reasonable compromise.

We are working with the CIMA-Q group and UNF to collect human reference datasets with popular sequences, at multiple time points before and after the upgrade.  The intent is that this data can be made available to assess potential biases under different analysis scenarios (these are likely to be small, but it will be important to characterize).  In the new year, we will run presentations detailing the impact on data and capabilities of the new scanner.

For groups absolutely needing access to a Siemens Trio system after January, the Douglas Hospital is likely to have theirs until at least summer 2017.  The UNF is upgrading their 3T this month (it is already ramped down).

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me or any members of the MRI team.

Rick

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Rick Hoge, Ph.D.
Program Director for MRI
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