ATTENTION: ASSIGNMENT DESKS

11.16.00
Contact: Media Relations
(510) 642-3734

A press briefing to unveil the University of California, Berkeley's new $5 million Brain Imaging Center and its powerful 4 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, the largest MRI in the United States to be devoted solely to basic research in neuroscience. The event will include a live demonstration of the research machine in action.

Following the briefing, reporters will be escorted to observe the magnet firsthand and see the director of the Brain Imaging Center moved into position for a brain scan. A previously prepared video of this activity, including computerized images resulting from such a scan, will be available for use by broadcast media.

BACKGROUND: The Henry H. Wheeler, Jr. Brain Imaging Center will launch a new era of advanced neuroscience research at UC Berkeley using dynamic imaging of the functioning human brain with an MRI scanner that has roughly three times greater resolution than most hospital clinical scanners. The 14-ton, 4 Tesla MRI can visualize anatomical detail in the brain less than a millimeter in size and detect brain events that last only a few milliseconds.

The machine will be used in studies of both normal and neurologically-impaired individuals, as researchers seek to understand the impact of aging on memory and attention, as well as how these functions are disturbed in people with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and attention deficit disorder. In bringing together scientists from many disciplines - physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and computer science - the Brain Imaging Center moves forward UC Berkeley's Health Sciences Initiative, a commitment to deploy the campus's intellectual resources across disciplines to solve problems of human disease and unlock the mysteries of the mind.