Dr Adam Berrington, University of Nottingham

Dr Berrington is working to develop new imaging tools using magnetic resonance (MR) to measure the substances produced during metabolism, metabolites, in the living brain. The ability to probe metabolism noninvasively can offer new insights on human brain activity and could potentially contribute to the management of diseases such as brain tumours. Using ultra-high magnetic field strength scanners, we have an ability to detect key metabolites that are not easily measured on conventional systems. However, problems with the field uniformity and noise make measurements of metabolism with MR spectroscopy challenging and often slow.

Dr Berrington is developing new tools to improve the robustness and speed of metabolic imaging by incorporating models of signal generation into data reconstruction. Additionally, he will be pushing the capabilities of advanced hardware such as parallel RF transmit coils. With this work, he hopes to enable high-quality, accelerated metabolic imaging for both clinical and research studies.