Wright Center’s Collaborative Advanced Research Imaging facility featured on VCU homepage
The Wright Center’s Collaborative Advanced Research Imaging facility was featured in a Virginia Commonwealth University homepage feature story about technology and innovation at the university. The section on the CARI MRI is below. For the full story, click here.
Cognitive imaging
When Meera Doshi, a psychology major, learned about the principles of magnetic resonance imaging technology in the classroom, she was left with a lot of questions.
However, Doshi honed a deeper understanding of how the technology can be applied as a research tool while working under James Bjork, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry in the VCU School of Medicine who oversees the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. The longitudinal, nationwide study is aimed at increasing the understanding of how environmental, social, genetic and other biological factors affect brain and cognitive development and can disrupt a person’s life trajectory.
Doshi was able to observe a research-dedicated MRI being used to measure adolescent brain development at the VCU Collaborative Advanced Research Imaging Center, part of the university’s C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research.
“I’ve learned a lot about imaging and when I learn about studies involving imaging in class I have more real-world understanding outside of scientific articles,” Doshi said. “MRI technology wasn’t something I fully understood before. So, actually seeing it in person was extremely helpful to my understanding of the medical technique.”
Currently, students and researchers overseeing studies in the fields of neurology, hepatology, cardiology and substance abuse use the CARI program. In addition to an MRI scanner specifically dedicated to and calibrated for research, the facility offers interview and physical examination rooms, a medication dispensary, staff to operate the MRI scanner and interpret scans, and other resources dedicated to research.
Currently, 47 studies are being conducted at the facility, most of which are focused on substance abuse, said Joel Steinberg, M.D., a research professor in the Wright Center and director of the CARI program.
Steinberg and his team are currently testing the effectiveness of Lorcaserin, a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for weight loss, in reducing drug cravings in people with cocaine use disorder and opioid use disorder. The CARI MRI scanner would help researchers observe changes in brain physiology that may be related to improvements in patients who are in recovery for substance use disorder.
Steinberg said the CARI MRI scanner is a great tool for understanding how substance abuse disorder is related to abnormal brain physiology.
“No one knows the exact cause of substance use disorder but we’re trying to find that out,” he said. “If we can figure out the mechanisms of how the brain is disordered then perhaps researchers can create treatments targeted to the disordered brain physiology.”
Robert Cadrain, MRI manager of the CARI program, said the students, researchers and medical technologists who use the CARI MRI have a chance to participate in groundbreaking research that affects public health on a large scale. Cadrain operates the CARI MRI scanner to produce images within parameters given by researchers.
“In the clinical setting, someone may come in with an injury and you are helping that one person, but at the CARI facility you are looking at the bigger picture,” Cadrain said. “You are investigating far-reaching problems such as drug addiction and traumatic brain injury and figuring out the mechanisms behind these conditions and how to fix them.”
Categories Clinical Research, Clinical Trials, Data Science, Education, Facilities, Research