The Siemens Magnetom 3T Prisma MRI scanner is lowered into place by a crane March 21 at the USC Health Sciences Campus. (Courtesy)

The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI) received its new research-dedicated Siemens Magnetom 3T Prisma MRI scanner March 21, bringing industry-leading brain imaging technology to USC’s Health Sciences Campus.

The Prisma’s capabilities, along with advanced analysis techniques pioneered and advanced by the USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), a part of the INI, will facilitate advanced translational research of the structure, function, and connectivity of the human brain in Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, and neural prostheses, among others.

The Siemens Magnetom 3T Prisma brings state-of-the-art, research-dedicated scanning technology to the Health Sciences Campus and will allow unprecedented resolution and sensitivity in neuroscience research with industry-leading technology, and expands capabilities for translational research with clinical applications.

The combination of the scanner technology (the latest software packages and pulse sequences, higher gradients that allow for higher signal-to-noise ratio, and better capabilities for Diffusion Spectrum Imaging) with imaging analysis techniques developed and refined at LONI allows unparalleled investigation of the function and connectivity of the human brain.