7T International Seminar Series 2016-2017

Photo of a female presenter at a seminar

An International seminar series has been launched to foster multidisciplinary relationships between scientists and clinicians, further facilitate translational clinical research, and promote the development of 7T both in Glasgow and on the international stage.

This programme is open to staff and students alike, as well as our NHS and industry partners and members of the public.

For further details, please contact MVLS-7T-seminars@glasgow.ac.uk


Forthcoming seminars

Wednesday 31 May 2017, 4pm
***CANCELLED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED AT A LATER DATE***

Speaker: Professor Nikos K Logothetis, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen
Hosts: Dr Jozien Goense & Professor Lars Muckli
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: Concurrent Physiological Multisite-Recordings & Brain Imaging: Study of Dynamic Connectivity Related to System and Synaptic Memory Consolidation
Abstract: Experimental work in animals and humans suggests that various short-lasting patterns of neural activity, including single- or multiple-cycle oscillatory episodes, may reflect state changes of self-organizing large-scale networks. Such state-marking events, including K complexes, spindles, hippocampal sharp wave ripples (SPW-R), and ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) waves, are in fact thought to regulate cognitive capacities, such as learning, memory encoding and consolidation, as well as memory-guided decision making.

Although the neural events themselves have long been studied in great detail with neurophysiological methods, the actual brain-states related to them remain elusive, primarily due to a dearth of methodologies permitting concurrent recordings in various structures and mapping of whole-brain activity. The use of multishank-multichannel (MS-MC) electrical recordings of activity in different structures per se permits both the detection and the contextual identification of structure-specific neural events, for that matter also of their interrelationships. Combining in real-time the MS-MC recordings with spatiotemporally resolved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidently offers a unique opportunity to study the cooperative patterns of a large number of brain structures either leading or responding to recorded events. In an effort to map and study such patterns, we have recently developed so-called neural event triggered fMRI (NET-fMRI) and used it to understand the dynamics of the networks related to SPW-R and PGO events, both considered to be critical for the sequential states of system and synaptic memory consolidation during sleep.

The observed neurophysiological interactions of hippocampus, thalamus, cortex and pontine nuclei, together with the maps of robust up/down modulation of the brainwide metabolic activity revealed both synergistic and strong antagonistic interactions between memory systems, as well as between the activities of sensory thalamic and neuromodulatory nuclei and the hippocampal formation during epochs potentially related to memory consolidation. On-going work is currently examining the event-triggered neurophysiological responses in a number of structures, mapped with imaging, as well as the extent to which fMRI-measured multistructure activity patterns at any given time may themselves predict the occurrence of various neural events.

Previous seminars

Thursday 29 June 2017, 10am

Speaker: Professor Tim Leiner, University Medical Center Utrecht
Hosts: Dr Aleksandra Radjenovic & Dr Giles Roditi
Venue: Lecture Room L0-007, Teaching & Learning Centre, QEUH
Title: Cardiovascular and body imaging at 7T: Promises, Challenges and Opportunities for Translation
Abstract: Ultra-high field MR imaging is a potentially attractive imaging modality for cardiovascular and body applications. In my lecture, I will discuss the areas where application of 7T may potentially benefit diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and diseases affecting body organs. I will also discuss how insights obtained at 7T can be translated to lower field strengths to enable broad clinical translation.

Wednesday 5 April 2017, 4pm

Speaker: Dr Stuart Clare, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford
Host: Prof Keith Muir
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: The UK7T Network - Building a Platform for Clinical Collaboration
Abstract: In 2015, the five installed, or soon to be installed 7 Tesla MRI sites in the UK, formed the UK7T network.  Researchers from the five sites in Nottingham, Oxford, Cardiff, Cambridge and Glasgow, have been working together to accelerate the development of ultra-high-field imaging and demonstrate the potential of the platform in a clinical research setting.  Work is already very advanced in producing harmonised protocols, that are matched across the various MRI vendors and hardware versions.  This talk will introduce the network, give an overview of its achievements to date and highlight where we hope to be in the coming years.

Wednesday 22 February 2017, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Penny Gowland, University of Nottingham
Host: Dr Kristin Flegal
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: 7T MRI - towards the clinic
Abstract: Over the last 10 years 7T MRI has developed from an exploratory physics based technology into a technique capable of answering new biomedical questions for experimental medicine. This talk will outline how the benefits of 7T MRI have been applied in neuroscience and neurology in terms of anatomical and functional imaging. In particular it will focus on susceptibility mapping and CEST imaging and its application to Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

Wednesday 25 January 2017, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Kamil Uludag, Maastricht University
Host: Professor Lars Muckli
Venue: Gannochy Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: Foundations of functional MRI & Human brain imaging at 7 Tesla
Abstract: Ultra high-field MRI has, in the last years, rapidly grown from a niche technology primarily used by MRI physicist and engineers, to a widely used imaging approach to study brain structure and cognitive function. In the first part of my talk, I will describe experiments and theoretical models to investigate the hemodynamic response underlying the fMRI signal and to derive brain functional connectivity. In the second part of my talk, I will focus on MRI method developments for anatomical and functional MRI at 7T, in particular on: a) MRI sequences for high-resolution functional MRI; b) accelerated imaging for whole brain functional & anatomical MRI; c) arterial spin labeling measuring cerebral blood flow, not yet standard at 7 Tesla; and d) quantitative anatomical imaging (T1 and T2*), allowing for accurate longitudinal studies and inter-subject comparison beyond the limits of standard qualitative approaches. In addition, I will present advanced clinical and basic neuroscience applications (e.g. MELAS, type-II Diabetes, motor symptoms & DBS, Alzheimer’s Disease).

Wednesday 30 November 2016, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Thoralf Niendorf, Berlin Ultrahigh Field Facility (B.U.F.F.)
Host: Dr John Foster
Venue: L0-006, Teaching & Learning Centre, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital
Title: Explorations into Ultrahigh Field Magnetic Resonance
Discover - Devise - Develop - Deploy
Abstract: The development of ultrahigh field magnetic resonance (UHF-MR) is moving forward at an amazing speed that is breaking through technical barriers almost as fast as they appear. UHF-MR has a staggering number of potential uses in neuroscience, neurology, radiology, cardiology, internal medicine, physiology, oncology, nephrology, ophthalmology and other related clinical fields. With almost 40,000 MR examinations already performed at 7.0 Tesla, the reasons for moving UHF-MR into clinical applications are more compelling than ever. The value UHF-MR has already proven itself many times over at lower field strengths; now 7.0 T has opened a window on tissues, organs, and (patho) physiological processes that have been largely inaccessible in the past. Images from these instruments have revealed new aspects of the anatomy, functions and physio-metabolic characteristics of the brain, heart, joints, kidneys, liver, eye, and other organs/tissues, at an unparalleled quality. 40,000 sounds like a large number, but in fact we have barely cracked open the door and have yet to truly assess what lies on the other side. To this end this presentation documents advances and progress of UHF-MR with the goal to engage the interest of clinical adopters, basic scientists, engineers, and translational researchers from many areas. To meet this goal the traits, challenges and opportunities for discovery of human UHF-MRI will be surveyed. The considerations run from technical advances to early clinical applications. Examples of UHF-MR strategies are demonstrated. Their added value over the kindred counterparts at lower fields is explored along with an outline of research promises. Encouraging developments into enabling multiple channel radiofrequency (RF) antennae concepts (Figure 1) are reviewed. Frontier applications of MR at 7T are surveyed including cardiac imaging (Figure 1), ophthalmic MRI and high spatial resolution MRI of the brain. Heteronuclear UHF-MR applications are explored with a focus on sodium MRI (Figure 1). Practical obstacles of UHF MR are outlined including MR safety. Insights into RF heating induced by conductive stents and implants are provided. Current trends in UHF-MR are considered together with their clinical implications. A concluding section ventures a glance beyond the horizon including explorations into Extreme Field MR (EF-MR) which envisions human MR at 20 Tesla, which is an important leap of the imagination because it aims to fill a crucial "resolution gap" in our understanding of human biology (39, 40). It is the speakers hope that this presentation will convey the seeds of this vision and inspire the audience to become pioneers in these amazingly promising new areas of biomedical research: ultrahigh field and extreme field MR.

Wednesday 26 October 2016, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Andrew Webb, Leiden University Medical Center
Hosts: Professor Faisal Ahmed & Dr Jozien Goense
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: Applying new magnetic resonance concepts and techniques to human scanning
Abstract: This talk will describe recent developments in several areas of magnetic resonance hardware and sequences which have been applied to clinical research and patient scanning at field strengths between 1.5 and 7 Tesla. Topics will include the design of very high permittivity materials/metamaterials for improved magnetic field homogeneity and lower power deposition, new ceramic-based resonators for multi-element transmit arrays, methods for the rapid non-invasive estimation of tissue conductivity, high resolution motion-free imaging of the eye, and whole-body optical-based measurement of temperature changes. Clinical applications include studies of patients with eye tumours, muscular and neuromuscular dystrophies, and systematic lupus erythematodes.

Wednesday 28 September 2016, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Chris Hess, University of California San Francisco
Host: Dr Jozien Goense
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: Harnessing 7T’s Strengths for Clinical Neuroradiology
Abstract: Before 7T MRI, field strength increases for human MR scanners saw rapid adoption within a few short years of their introduction. But over a decade has now passed since the installation of the first 7T instruments in the United States. Compelling applications and new enabling technologies (especially superconducting magnets for 1.5T and parallel imaging techniques for 3T) served as motivating forces that ultimately led to more widespread clinical use of higher field strengths. To date, however, a strong clinical impetus for 7T is lacking and the technical advantages of 7T have yet to be fully realized. This lecture will summarize the experience with 7T MRI at UCSF since 2005, in an effort to highlight the some of the strongest use cases for 7T brain imaging, and suggest several emerging technical innovations poised to move 7T into a position to advance research and clinical neuroimaging.

Wednesday 14 September 2016, 4pm

Speaker: Professor Emrah Düzel, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Host: Professor Lars Muckli
Venue: Yudowitz Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical School Building
Title: Functional anatomy and plasticity of hippocampal memory circuits in young and old age
Abstract: Data on the functional organization of hippocampal memory circuits in humans and their domain-specific specialization as revealed by fMRI studies at 3 and 7 Tesla will be presented.  How these circuits are affected in aging will be shown. Furthermore, data will be presented on how physical exercise affects these memory circuits.