A window into the living brain has been lifted at UNLV. Faculty, who are already doing incredible research in the world of neuroscience, are eager to peek right in.
They’d been missing a much-needed tool that’s finally in place: the ability to do magnetic resonance scanning on campus.
Last fall, UNLV unboxed a high-resolution, 3-Tesla fMRI scanner from Siemens Healthineers and used a construction crane to move the 13-ton piece of equipment into the Science and Engineering Building (SEB). It was a big undertaking, with even bigger implications for research in Nevada.
The giant, state-of-the-art body-scanning machine is part of the new UNLV MR Imaging Core (UMIC) — the state’s first and only MRI facility dedicated to university research.
It took a $4.5 million grant from the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) — secured with support from Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, and Rep. Susie Lee — along with $2 million from UNLV’s Division of Research to cover the installation and start-up operations for the brand new facility.
“There’s two really big pieces to the arrival of the fMRI,” said Jefferson Kinney, a professor and founding chair of the Department of Brain Health at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. “The first is it can be used to recruit faculty and grow their research. For the research projects we haven’t thought of yet and the collaborations that aren’t established yet, the biggest barrier has been the absence of a scanner for researchers to do their work.”
Before the development of the UMIC, researchers had to travel to use facilities at other institutions, which increased the time, cost, and logistical complexity of their projects. With UMIC, those barriers are gone, and Kinney expects to see a huge leap in UNLV’s interdisciplinary research over the next five to 10 years as a result.
The second thing the UMIC does is help UNLV better train the healthcare workforce to serve the community. Steen Madsen, director of the UNLV MR Imaging Core and professor and chair in the Department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences, said the facility will foster relationships with local healthcare providers, the future employers of UNLV’s graduates.
“The facility will provide valuable educational opportunities and hands-on resources for students enrolled in UNLV’s imaging and medical programs. They’ll be exposed to technology and research techniques which will enhance their workforce readiness.”
What Can an fMRI Scan Show?
Think of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) like taking a snapshot, but instead of a camera you’re using a machine with advanced computer technology, radio waves, and a powerful magnet at its core. What you get are highly detailed 3D pictures inside the body that capture a moment in time.
The f in fMRI stands for functional, which detects brain activity indirectly by measuring changes in blood oxygenation. The fMRI scanner at UMIC operates with a magnet that is twice as powerful as a traditional MRI, resulting in much higher resolution images. It can do some other advanced tricks — like revealing the white matter connections between brain areas and measuring concentrations of certain neurotransmitters in specific brain areas.
The comprehensive UMIC facility includes the scanner and two clinical rooms, one of which can be used for phlebotomy. Minerva Massis, senior fMRI technologist and lab manager, joined UNLV in March to provide the expertise needed to run the lab safely and efficiently.
In hospitals and medical facilities, fMRI scanners are used to plan brain surgeries or related treatments. At UNLV, the UMIC scanner will let researchers literally record the brain in action.
That’s one reason why the first group of researchers gaining access are in brain health and neuroscience.
Picking the Brain
Kinney, for example, focuses on Alzheimer’s and the development of biomarkers for early detection of the disease. Having an easily accessible fMRI scanner equipped for blood sampling offers tremendous opportunities to associate imaging data with the fluid biomarker work he leads through the Pam Quirk Brain Health and Biomarker Laboratory.
“My lab is combining the imaging with the fluid biomarkers work so we can demonstrate how efficacious these biomarkers are, how accurate they are, and how well they can be used to see if a treatment is working,” he said. “It’s an invaluable resource.”
He has plans for several other projects too. One is in repetitive head injury research, another is in Parkinson’s disease, and still another will look at differences in neurodegenerative disease between men and women.
“I think a lot of conversations [among UNLV researchers] are going on at the moment,” said Kinney. “Now that it’s clear to everybody that this is here and ready to use, that’s when the collaborations really start to get up and running — that’s the benefit of an imaging core that serves the entire institution.”
Seeing the Brain in New Ways
Ayan Sengupta, assistant professor in the Department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences and associate director of the UNLV MR Imaging Core, will incorporate the fMRI scanner into both his teaching and research. He’s developed a lab course on it this fall.
Sengupta comes from a medical imaging, engineering, and physics background and is known for his work with astronauts to study space travel’s impact on brain function.
“Where the fMRI is different from MRI is that the we can actually record signals from the brain when a subject or participant is performing a task inside the machine,” said Sengupta, “so we are not only looking at the images, but we are actually looking at the brain signals when the person is doing a task, and we can pinpoint where the function is happening in the brain.”
Part of his research involves neuroimaging, resting state fMRI, and the different patterns the brain signals to indicate health and abnormality in a control population. He plans to use computational AI methods with his students to analyze the data.
“We will look at how different parts of the hand or an upper and lower limb get processed in different parts of the brain,” said Sengupta.
This is called “somatotopic mapping” — finding the relationship between specific regions of the brain and areas of the body. He wants to know what part of the brain is active as you move a finger, and where that touch is being organized.
“We might be able to figure out how we can use that for amputees, which is a great help with rehab,” said Sengupta. “I am collaborating with faculty in physical therapy to be able to do something like that.”
Making Sense of Sound
When psychology professor Joel Snyder was hired in 2007, he and Kinney were part of UNLV’s inaugural neuroscience faculty cohort. The university’s degree offerings have grown steadily in this area since then, but attracting faculty in human neuroscience has been difficult because of the lack of an fMRI scanner, he said.
His research focuses on how people perceive music and non-musical sounds, like those generated by humans, animals, and inanimate objects. Snyder is interested in how we organize sound into mental representations called “auditory objects” and streams — from someone talking to melodies to background noises. Difficulty hearing in loud environments is a common part of aging, and he’s interested in exploring if this is related to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
For the past five years, Snyder has also been exploring whether three emotional responses to sound — the sensitivity of misophonia, where everyday noises trigger substantial distress; the pleasant, tingling sensation of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR); and the chills some people get from music — are linked and whether the same brain network may be responsible for them. In addition to providing clues to treating misophonia, he hopes to shed light on various affective disorders like depression and anxiety.
“Using fMRI, we hope to test whether the salience network mediates this reduction in auditory activity, which might explain why people with misophonia have difficulty ignoring sounds, like people chewing food,” said Snyder.
He said fMRI is one of the most important tools for understanding the human brain and, when combined with other tools like electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral data, can provide a more complete description of how the brain works.
“I have been doing EEG research for over 20 years but have only had occasional opportunities to do fMRI, so I’m very excited to have more consistent access to such an important way of gathering data from various parts of the human brain,” said Snyder.
Unlocking the Mysteries of Memory
Assistant professor Yvonne Chen, also in psychology, plans to leverage UMIC to investigate the neural mechanisms of episodic memory.
“One of the primary methods my lab uses to measure brain activity is EEG, which offers excellent temporal precision but relatively poor spatial resolution,” said Chen. The UMIC is measuring neural activity with millimeter-level spatial resolution. “Functional MRI provides the complementary strength of precisely localizing brain activity. Combining these methods allows us to study both when and where memory processes unfold.”
With that capability, she said, “I hope this research will deepen our understanding of how the healthy brain forms and retrieves memories and eventually reveal how these processes may change with aging and neurological disease.”
In the long term, this knowledge could contribute to earlier detection of memory disorders, improved monitoring of disease progression, and the development of more targeted interventions.
“Having access to an on-campus fMRI facility makes studies more efficient, facilitates collaborations across disciplines, and enables us to pursue research questions that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to address,” said Chen. “I am most excited about the opportunity for researchers from different disciplines to come together to answer complex questions about the brain that no single laboratory could address alone.”
A Hub for Discoveries Across Disciplines
The launch of the UMIC is a great interdisciplinary effort. Brain research may be the entry point, but it’s also a springboard for research that will reach far beyond neuroscience.
“The UNLV MR Imaging Core is a strategic investment in the future of Nevada and the health of our communities,” said David Hatchett, vice president for research. “By providing world-class imaging capabilities on campus, we are building an environment where faculty, students, clinicians, and industry partners can collaborate across disciplines to accelerate discovery, translate research into real-world solutions, and address society’s most pressing challenges. The greatest impact of this investment will come from the discoveries and innovations we have yet to imagine.”
Researchers interested in using the facility can learn more about capabilities, equipment, and collaboration opportunities on the UMIC homepage.
