by Tim Green, Public Affairs for the Office of the Vice President for Research
Photos by Christina Murrey
Dr. Michael Domjan, director of the Imaging Research Center; Bruce Gordon, director of the Central Texas Veterans Health System; and Dr. Juan Sanchez, vice president for research, show off the mock MRI scanner at the Imaging Research Center. The mock scanner will be used to get test subjects prepared for the real thing.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are preparing to see things they couldn’t see before.
That’s how Dr. Michael Domjan characterized the opportunities afforded by the university’s new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which is housed at the Imaging Research Center.
“Major advances in science often occur from sophisticated equipment and our ability to see things we couldn’t see before,” Domjan, the director of the center and professor of psychology, said. “The Imaging Research Center will also allow us to see things we couldn’t see before. In this case, it will involve neural structures and neural functions.”
Domjan and other officials formally opened the center with open house and speeches on Jan. 25.
UT-Austin is a partner in the center with the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System (CTVHCS), a Temple-based unit of the Veterans Administration. The CTVHCS serves about 800,000 veterans a year, including a growing number who have served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy provided more than half of the $8 million cost of the center through its Counter Drug for Technology Assessment Center. ONDCP is funding this and other brain research across the country in an effort to effectively bring cutting-edge science and technology to bear on the disease of addiction.
The Office of the Vice President for Research and the Institute for Advanced Technology, one of its research units, worked for several years to bring the IRC to the university.
University researchers from neuroscience, clinical psychology, cellular and molecular biology, pharmacy, kinesiology, biomedical engineering, communications and computer sciences are primed to use the scanner in their studies.
“It’s non-invasive and totally safe and does not involve putting electrons on someone’s head,” Domjan said. “One can see differences in various biological materials and observe changes in blood flow that provide information about neural activity.”
Dr. Deborah Stote, research associate and lecturer in the Department of Psychology, discusses the Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner at the opening of the Imaging Research Center.
Bruce Gordon, director of the CTVHCS, said the center will help take care of veterans, the system’s central mission.
He said the MRI scanner enables Veterans Administration researchers to learn more about the array of issues the CTVHCS treats, especially among returning combat veterans. He listed post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, domestic violence and anger management.
Dr. Juan Sanchez, vice president for research at the university, said the opening was the culmination of several years of collaboration by the university, the CTVHCS, federal officials and members of the Central Texas medical community as well as members of the Texas congressional delegation.
Sanchez and Domjan highlighted the work that Dr. Robert Fossum, a senior research fellow at the university’s Institute for Advanced Technology, did on the project.
Fossum and Dr. Adron Harris, director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research, spearheaded the effort to engage the ONDCP on the project.
“I’ve been deeply impressed by Bob’s dedication to the imaging center, to his loyalty to the university of Texas despite the fact that he spent most of his professional career at other institutions,” Domjan said of Fossum, who has served in the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and Southern Methodist University before coming to Texas.
For more about the center, go to http://www.iat.utexas.edu/IRC/. Contact Domjan (Domjan@psy.utexas.edu)about research at the center.
