PROJECT ABSTRACT
This grant will support the purchase of a new Siemens 3 Tesla whole-body human MRI scanner to be used for
basic, clinical and translational research at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, serving
investigators at Mass General Brigham and other Boston area hospitals and academic institutions. The next-
generation 3T whole-body system will serve as an upgrade of our existing, 16-year-old obsolete 3 Tesla MRI
scanner that is reaching imminent end-of-support status by the vendor and has seen diminishing usage over the
last 5 years. The proposed next-generation 3T system with high performance gradients will enable very high
gradient strengths and slew rates (up to 200 mT/m and 200 T/m/s on each axis) for whole-body imaging. It will
offer a substantial increase of performance for the wide range of research performed at Mass General Brigham
and the greater Boston area, justified on a shared-use basis by over 25 investigators and 30 projects, the vast
majority of which are NIH-funded. The breadth of supported research spans clinical and translational
neuroimaging, cardiovascular, body, and oncologic imaging; fetal and pediatric brain imaging; cognitive,
psychiatric, and basic neuroscience and brain mapping studies; and novel instrumentation development. While
the 3 Tesla MRI research program at the Martinos Center has been very successful, the system to be replaced
uses outdated hardware and software, placing substantial pressure on our other 3 Tesla systems, which cannot
accommodate the advanced technological needs of our expanding user community. Because of the unique
capabilities of the new state-of-the-art 3T whole-body MRI, the proposed Next Generation 3 Tesla Human MRI
upgrade will offer new features for improved performance and data quality that will benefit existing projects and
complement the other scanners at the Martinos Center. This upgrade features: higher performance gradients for
high spatial resolution tractography and delineation of tissue microstructure in the brain, heart and prostate;
enhanced RF system architecture with 128 receive channels and higher density specialized coils; streamlined
workflows for greater ease of use; standardized hardware and software for compatibility with other sites; a faster
image reconstruction computer enabling modern imaging techniques; integrated physiological monitoring; new
sequence and application packages for accelerated, multi-contrast exams; and an up-to-date testbed for the
unique instrumentation and technology development performed at the Martinos Center, including the latest
software platform for pulse sequence programming and custom on-scanner image reconstruction. By serving a
highly productive interdisciplinary group of NIH-funded investigators, the proposed upgrade will offer a cutting-
edge research resource that will push the frontiers of investigating structure-function relationships at finer scales
and higher sensitivity, thereby enhancing existing research programs and fostering opportunities for new projects
and collaborations. This instrumentation upgrade will provide our investigators with the technological edge
required for innovative clinical, translational, and basic research.