MR Research Facility

Facility hourly rate: $625 effective July 1st, 2022. Minimum charge is 30 minutes.

Data analysis: $75 per hour.

The MR research facility at the University of Louisville is equipped with a Siemens 3T Skyra system dedicated for research. The facility, which is located at the basement of the Instructional B Building (Room LL17) on the Health Sciences campus, includes a waiting room and a subject preparation room in addition to a data analysis room where a Siemens workstation unit is available for data processing.

The Skyra 3T scanner is using the software version of E11_C and Tim 4G’s integrated coil technology. For more information about the technical details of scanner please click here.

For more information about MR research facility see this .

All users should read and follow "Policy and Guidlines" at MRI Research Facility. link

Different groups are using the scanner for various research projects:

A) NILCAMP group

under supervision of Dr. Brendan Depue (Ph.D.)

The purpose of NILCAMP (Neuro Imaging Laboratory of Cognitive Affective and Motoric Processes) researches is to better understand how humans modify their behavior. Dr. Depue has a broad background in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, with specific training and expertise in neuroimaging. NILCAMP strives to understand how functional aspects of the brain, seemingly unlimited thoughts (cognition), arise from finite anatomical circuitry. To understand the relationship between these aspects of the mind and brain, we employ several structural techniques examining characteristics of white matter tracts and grey matter morphometry. The latter of which can be examined through individual differences in volume, surface area and gyrification complexity. By understanding how these aspects relate to functional activity and ultimately behavior, enables a more global cognitive neuroscience perspective. At NILCAMP lab we use a human neuroimaging methodological approach (in addition to neuroendocrinology, neuroimmunology and genetics through our collaborations) to examine the underlying complex dynamic neural circuitries that enable these kinds of uniquely human traits. That being said, these “human” traits are usually evolutionarily adapted from existing neural circuitry enabling the comparison to animal work and comparative anatomy.

Performed experiment at MR Research center:

1) Does immediate versus diffuse threat evoke dissociable high-resolution functional imaging activation profiles from amygdala and bed-nucleus of the stria terminalis

2) Detecting neural correlates of autobiographical memory for recent and remote memories through high-resolution fMRI

3) Common Neural Substrates of Down-Regulating Negative Emotion and Social Threat

B) Porcine Spinal Cord Injury
under supervision of Dr. Maxwell Boakye


The project is conducted by Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Center to study porcine SCI model. The MR imaging section has been done at MR center and includes following experiments:

    • Cine flow
    • DTI
    • Myelography
    • Evaluation of injury severity, prognostication

    This project involves pre and post operation scan of porcine with quantitative spinal cord injury at thoracic level.