SALT LAKE CITY — A 20,000-pound magnetic resonance imaging machine was hoisted into a newly constructed wing of the University Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of Utah on Wednesday.
It becomes the first of its kind that is located within a psychiatric facility in Utah.
The new MRI will soon be available for brain-imaging research, allowing clinicians to see the brain's anatomy, chemistry and activity in living human beings without the use of ionizing radiation, said U. professor of psychiatry Perry Renshaw.
"Our goal, over time … is to have our research lead to methods we can use on a clinical basis," he said. "We want to do things (with this) that are clinically relevant."
Renshaw said one of the first things researchers intend to do is examine brains of individuals with mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar depression, to "find out chemically what is really going on."
"This will really expand our abilities to learn more about what is going on in the brains of people who have a range of psychiatric disorders," he said.
Late last year, U. physicians learned that an MRI can be an effective tool in the diagnosis of autism, helping health care providers identify the problem much earlier in children, leading to improved treatment and better outcomes for those with the disorder.
“We still don’t know precisely what’s going on in the brain in autism,” Dr. Janet Lainhart, an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, and researcher at the U. said in October. “This work adds an important piece of information to the autism puzzle. It adds evidence of functional impairment in brain connectivity in autism and brings us a step closer to a better understanding of this disorder.
"When you understand it at a biological level, you can envision how the disorder develops, what are the factors that cause it, and how can we change it.”
Researchers have also recently found that MRI brain studies can help them better understand suicide and the teenage brain.
The MRI, which is part of a more than $46 million expansion project at UNI, will be used strictly for research and not for patient care. Construction also includes an addition of up to 72 new patient beds in private rooms, kitchen and dining facilities, a clinical assessment center, office space and parking, as well as other space, at a sum of 115,000 square feet.
Crews are currently working on the interior of the facility. It is expected to be complete sometime this fall.
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