Our group and collaborators coordinate a center responsible for the definitions and requirements of an MRI/MRS animal system, its operation and the hardware and software necessary to perform animal model studies on brain plasticity, with focus on epilepsy. This is a facility in a Physics Institute in São Carlos (IFSC-USP) to serve the demands of the CInAPCe network – a Research Program in Neurosciences held by FAPESP, the Brazilian research funding agency for the state of São Paulo.
The three phases – definition and identification of requirements, development of MRI/MRS protocols and methodologies and operation of such system – will be executed in close interaction with members of the CInAPCe network from this and other Main Research Centers (MRCs) of this program. Following are some of the responsibilities attributed to the candidate for this position:
• Research on Adiabatic Pulses (RF pulse design and methodologies) with application on decoupling, spectral edition, saturation, selective inversion (ASL), refocusing and excitation;
• Development, or at least validation, of MRI/MRS resonators (probes) for different nuclei and specific anatomies of small primates (marmosets) that could allow the use of Adiabatic Pulses;
• Development of the MRI/MRS subsystems necessary for the proposed new experiments;
• Preliminary evaluation and proposals for the development as long as adaptation of the current spectrometer modules with the perspective of the development of dedicated systems;
• Research on contrast enhancing mechanisms for fMRI;
• Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI, DTI) and Multiple quantum filtered MRS;
The real definition and detailed proposals will depend on the specific needs of the researchers from this and other MRCs on this program. Other experiments could be proposed during the period of this activity, requiring the use of other atomic species. Due to distinct properties of relaxation times, chemical shift etc., every experiment will present specific constraints for their experimental setup. At this point the candidate will be assisted by the components of the group that will supply the necessary expertise on NMR Instrumentation for animal subsystems and in some cases for humans, for the MRCs dedicated to such studies.
Candidates can send a résumé and a brief description of their research abilities and proposals, as long as additional questions to Prof. Alberto Tannús at
goiano@if.sc.usp.br