Co-operative study by functional magnetic resonance imaging

Collaborative studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been undertaken for noninvasive three-dimensional structural and functional (hemodynamic and metabolic) changes of living organism, including brain activation studies, so called functional MRI. NIPS installed new 3 Tesla machine in 2000. The 3 Tesla machine is twice as sensitive as 1.5 Tesla standard one regarding the blood oxygen level dependent contrast, advantageous for functional MRI. The machine is equipped with the device that allows non-human primate studies both for anatomical and functional investigations. Particularly for functional MRI, whole procedures from experimental design, data collection, to statistical imaging analysis are systematically tailored to provide high quality service to the collaborators in the neuro-physiology / neuroscience community. In 2010, dual fMRI will be set at NIPS, which provide the analysis of brain function related to social communication.