Purdue MRI Facility
OVERVIEW
RESEARCH
RESOURCES
RESOURCES
The Purdue MRI Facility represents a unique partnership among the
Purdue University Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (BME),
General Electric Healthcare’s Global Magnetic Resonance (GEHC-MR)
Business, and InnerVision Advanced Medical Imaging, a division of Unity
Healthcare in Lafayette, IN. It is believed that the partnership with local
and national healthcare entities may serve as a model for development of
high-impact, high-capital-expense facilities that would otherwise be
difficult for a non-medical school to afford. This three-member
partnership is having a substantial impact on discovery, education and
local health care delivery.
Imaging and visualization research is a central focus for faculty across
departments and campuses in Indiana. The low per usage hour costs of
the facility have been designed to enable researchers who have not
previously conducted MRI research to initiate such a program without the
necessity of already having funding for this particular area. Access to lowcost imaging time on state-of-the-art clinical equipment should enable
researchers to greatly increase the percentage of federal dollars (e.g.,
NIH) awarded to medical imaging research within the state of Indiana.
It is anticipated that the Purdue MRI Facility will also greatly increase
engagement, with a primary focus being interaction with the local
healthcare communities. The 3 Tesla system located at InnerVision West
in the Purdue Research Park is the first system at this field strength
clinically available in Indiana, outside of Indianapolis. The presence of
this “high-field” imager will improve local healthcare delivery, by
providing faster, higher-resolution imaging of such structures such as
knees, shoulders, wrists and the brain, without increasing the cost to the
patient. It is hoped that successful interaction with InnerVision, Unity
Healthcare, and St. Elizabeth Regional Health in the Lafayette area will
augment opportunities already extant through collaboration with the
Indiana University School of Medicine for outstanding researchers to
affect healthcare and healthcare delivery.
The Purdue MRI Facility provides a tremendous opportunity to enhance
learning. At Purdue University, the Weldon School of Biomedical
Engineering, the School of Health Sciences (HSCI), the Department of
Psychological Sciences (PSYCH) and the Department of Speech, Language
and Hearing Sciences (SLHS) all have needs for students (undergraduate
or graduate) to learn, first-hand, about the applications of Magnetic
Resonance Imaging. BME and HSCI have a primary interest in training
students to operate or work on (as a research platform) MRI equipment.
With the development in the 1990s of functional neuroimaging as a
primary mechanism of study in the neurosciences, researchers in PSYCH
and SLHS are now expected to have experience with conducting
functional MRI (fMRI) studies, including operation of the system. Given
these new academic pressures, two graduate level courses in MRI and
fMRI have been initiated, a theoretical lecture course (Fall 2008) and a
Research Experience Training module (Spring 2009). These courses will
provide a focal point around which faculty in the various departments
may initiate projects, both undergraduate and graduate-driven, to take
advantage of the presence and access to this state-of-the-art MRI facility.
The theoretical lecture course was broadcast to IUPUI this past Fall, and
will continue to be made available to remote campuses in the future.
OPERATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Site of clinical/research partnership
between the Weldon School of
Biomedical Engineering’s Purdue
MRI Facility and InnerVision West.
The joint Facility is located in the
Purdue Research Park at 3482
McClure Ave, West Lafayette, IN.
The Purdue MRI Facility is researchavailable 46 hours/week (evenings
and weekends), at $400/hour.
YOU ARE THE CUSTOMER!
• This is your facility
• We are here to meet your needs
• We’ll help you get started
• We want to make it work for you
EVERYDAY LOW PRICES!
• We want to reduce your costs
• We want to enhance your funding capacity
• Everyone pays the same LOW price: $400 per hour, with a 2nd hour
allocated (for set-up/tear-down) for each hour purchased
ACCESS, TRAINING, and QUALITY
General Electric 3.0T Signa HDx MRI sited at
the Purdue MRI Faciliity. First operational
October 2007. Offers high-speed, highresolution anatomical and functional imaging
plus proton spectroscopy.
46 schedulable research hours per week:
• Weekdays: 5 PM – 2 AM
• Weekends: 24 hours
Simple authorization process:
• Valid Purdue IRB (human subjects) or PACUC (animal subjects) approval
• Identify a Primary Operator to run the system
• Provide an account to which expenses may be charged
NordicNeuroLab electrostatic audio system
NordicNeuroLab LCD goggle visual system
(800x600 resolution)
Current Designs bimanual button pads
Nova Medical, Inc., 16-channel head array
Qualified Primary Operators are available to assist/advise in your
experimental design, data collection and data analysis:
• Spectroscopy: Ulrike Dydak, Lauren Johnson, Jonathan Nixon
• Anatomical Imaging: Tom Talavage, Greg Tamer
• Functional MRI: Javier Gonzalez Castillo, Shuowen Hu, Minseok Kwon, Evgenia
Malaia, Olumide Olulade, Ruwan Ranaweera, Tom Talavage, Greg Tamer
We want to help you do impactful
research!
Figure from: D Kemmerer et al.
“Neuroanatomical distribution of five semantic
components of verbs: evidence from fMRI,”
Brain and Language 107:16-43, 2008.
Training is available for you or your research staff (post-docs,
students) to become qualified Primary Operators who can run the
MRI.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Check out our webpage (http://mri.ecn.purdue.edu) to learn
more about the Purdue MRI Facility and the people involved!
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Charlie Bouman (co-Director)
TomTalavage (co-Director)
Greg Tamer (Manager of Operations)
Contact Tom (tmt@purdue.edu) , Charlie (bouman@purdue.edu)
or Greg (gtamer@purdue.edu) for assistance in piloting a study
or for training.