UEA opens £3m Brain Imaging Centre
It’ll be used to understand how the brain develops in childhood, responds to trauma, how it can rehabilitate and more about disease risks.
Last updated 1st Aug 2021
The University of East Anglia (UEA) has opened the doors of its new £3m state-of-the-art neuroimaging research centre.
£1.3m of the funding came from two charitable foundations: Wellcome and the Wolfson Foundation.
The UEA Wellcome-Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre is housed in the School of Psychology at UEA and features a cutting edge Siemens 3 Tesla MRI scanner, as well as clinical testing rooms, changing facilities and a waiting room. The centre also has future provision for a mock scanner room that will improve the quality of the University’s data by preparing participants, particularly children, ahead of the scanning itself.
Will Penny is a Psychology Professor at the university:
“It will help get a big picture of the whole development across the lifespan and to really define what is healthy ageing. Then against that, we can try use the database to detect problems that might occur in development and help to flag that up early so that people can get them into the appropriate interventions to help them on the way “
The research-dedicated facilities will support many experts from across UEA who will collaborate to understand how the brain develops in childhood, responds to traumas like strokes, or changes during healthy ageing and dementia. This unique blend of research across the lifespan could improve people’s lives through the development of new diagnostic tools, methods of early identification of disease risks, and rehabilitative techniques for neurological conditions such as an acquired brain injury or stroke.
The MRI scanner is the first in Norfolk to be used solely for research purposes and is being made available, along with all of the equipment at the UEA Wellcome-Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, to other researchers across the region, including the University of Essex, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Kent, to enable collaboration across the region and expansion into new scientific fields.
Professor Will Penny tells us they’re looking for more volunteers to have their brain scanned:
“If you’re interested in helping us and becoming part of a scientific endeavour, please get in touch.”