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3-Tesla-Magnetresonanztomograph

Subject Area Neurosciences
Term Funded in 2017
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 324324095
 
Final Report Year 2024

Final Report Abstract

In the last four decades, cognitive neuroscience has developed as an important research field that has greatly influenced psychological theory building, including the understanding of clinical phenomena. However, in Munich we encountered a severe bottleneck in that there was no dedicated scanner available for contemporary human neuroscience research, while on the other hand there was excellent expertise in the area of "alternative imaging methods" (such as EEG, TMS, or clinical neuropsycholo-gy), including expert knowledge in multivariate, neuroimaging-based analysis methods as well as optimally-structured and supervised training for future neuroscientists (offered, e.g., by GSN-LMU or IMPRS). With the new MRI scanner, we were able to fill this infrastructural gap by setting up a new, integrative, interdisciplinary, and multi-modal Neuroimaging Core Unit Munich (NICUM; (https://www.en.nicum.uni-muenchen.de/), which besides f/MRI provides opportunities for behavioral, eye track-ing and EEG recordings. Worth mentioning is that the new MRI scanner did not only quantitatively extend the existing neuroscientific techniques, but also led to qualitative-ly new technical and analytical platforms for simultaneous MRI and EEG and simulta-neous MRI and TMS/tES recordings. This was paralleled by attempts to establish research-oriented teaching (e.g., in the M.Sc. In "Neuro-Cognitive Psychology"; https://www.psy.lmu.de/ncp/) to provide students with lectures and courses that are targeted to neuroimaging research. Further, successful attempts have been made to the buildup of cooperative research activities, such as "Precision in Mental Health" that is supported by the newly established German Center for Mental Health (https://www.dzpg.org). In addition to the establishment of multimodal imaging, the strengthening of inter-/national collaborations, and research-oriented teaching, the focus of the work carried out within psychology was on the establishment of functional MRI: implementing central paradigms of experimental psychology in the scanner, such as visual search, conflict tasks, reproduction tasks, or recognition tasks, in order to generate new knowledge on the neural mechanisms of attention or social/emotional cognition, while also using new representation-based approaches to address psycho-therapy success. In psychiatry, approaches have been made as regards measuring structural MRI (success-)measures in sports-based therapy in schizophrenia; estab-lishing combined MRI and TMS and MRI and tES; the investigation of inflammatory processes and associated structural brain changes in neurodegenerative (Alzheimer's) diseases; the detection (and thus confirmation of the severity/ importance) of structur-al brain changes in so-called "soft neurological abnormalities" in adolescent partici-pants/ patients. Progress has also been made in the identification of cross-diagnosis and diagnosis-specific biomarker-informed subgroups of patients.

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