Research Areas

We use imaging to better understand common and important brain diseases and conditions.

These include brain ageing, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, autism spectrum disorders, stroke and cerebrovascular disease and disorders of consiousness

By understanding the causes, mechanisms and consequences of these conditions, we will better prevent, diagnose and treat them and improve health and wellbeing in patients and the wider community.

We use cardiac imaging to investigate ischaemic heart disease, with an interest in developing new techniques, including blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) imaging of perfusion, and new algorithms for cardiac image analysis.

We collaborate closely with the Cardiovascular Medicine Research Programme to combine imaging methods with clinical and biochemical techniques to improve vascular risk assement and management in patients and the general population.

There are a number of on-going studies using different imaging modalities, such as MRI, PET and Computer Aided Detection to aid better diagnosis and understand tumour response to therapy. These projects are carried out in close collaboration with NHS Grampian clinical researchers, and ongoing studies include those into breast cancer, oesaphageal cancer and lymphoma.

The main focus of our tracer development team is to develop and synthesise novel PET tracers for both clinical and pre-clinical studies. PET tracers are radioactively labelled compounds that can provide crucial information about the metabolism of tissues within the body.

We work closely with the Musculoskeletal programme to seek a better understanding of bone, cartilage and muscle biology and hysiology in health and disease. By combining imaging with basic molecular and cell biological research and patient studies we seek to develop new or better ways of diagnosing and treating musculoskeletal disorders.

We continue to develop and refine novel imaging techniques to carry out our research on PEDRI free radical imaging, field-cycled MRI (FC-MRI) and continuous-wave MRI (CW-MRI) of solid materials. Many of these MR systems are unique in the world, and offer unprecedented facilities for research in these areas, an for their use in applications. These MR technologies have the potential to radically improve imaging options available in research and clinical imaging

The ophthalmology imaging group is actively involved in two different areas. The development of novel optical instrumentation for clinical and biological applications and image processing and quantitative image analysis.