# NexGen 7T MRI scanner for mesoscale brain imaging: Integration and Dissemination

> **NIH NIH U24** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2024 · $1,603,998

## Abstract

SUMMARY
The "NexGen" 7 Tesla MRI scanner at UC Berkeley is a unique resource that we wish to make available for
neuroscience collaborations across the globe. It was specifically designed for extremely high resolution
structural and functional neuroimaging at the scale of cortical laminae and columnar neurocircuit organization
("meso-scale"). To achieve this, the NexGen scanner builds upon existing standard 7T scanners and
integrates a number of technological advances, creating synergistic improvements and gains in speed,
resolution and signal. Such advances include: currently the highest performance one-of-a-kind head-only
magnetic gradient coil designed to safely create more signal at faster time scales (higher gradient amplitudes
and slew rates without peripheral nerve stimulation; PNS), high-density receiver array coils (e.g. up to 128
channel receive array integrated into a 7T) that enable unprecedented spatial resolution and image-forming
accelerations. As part of this collaborative endeavor, we will be creating novel advances in pulse sequences
for novel neuroscientific applications imaging to take advantage of the scanner hardware’s higher
performance. The scanner has been validated in reproducible mesoscale fMRI studies using GE-EPI and
VASO fMRI at isotropic resolutions between 0.39 mm and 0.6 mm, that is a 4.6 to 23-fold higher volumetric
resolution over typical 1 mm isotropic resolution in fMRI on conventional 7T scanners. The stronger gradients
offer considerable improvements in diffusion imaging reaching higher b-values with shortened TEs. These
hardware advances also enable larger areas of brain coverage, higher temporal resolutions and reduced
distortions at mesoscale resolutions. Thus, with the NexGen 7T, meso-scale neuroscience experiments can
be greatly expanded from traditional zoomed, small volume imaging approaches. Such a one-of-a-kind
instrument has great potential to continue to advance the field and will be optimally used by a diverse group
of neuroscientists and clinician scientists. Funding of the current U24 proposal would facilitate engineering
and scientific personnel to support and maintain the use of the scanner; enables efficient data transfer and
analysis, as well as the subject recruitment, user training and guidance of scientific collaborations nationally
and internationally. While the main goal of this project is to provide an innovative resource for higher
granularity in functional and structural human brain research, the research resource also holds potential for
better understanding neurological diseases, such as Epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and mental disorders.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10901911
- **Project number:** 5U24NS129949-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Alexander Beckett
- **Activity code:** U24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $1,603,998
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-15 → 2027-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10901911

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10901911, NexGen 7T MRI scanner for mesoscale brain imaging: Integration and Dissemination (5U24NS129949-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10901911. Licensed CC0.

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