An application-oriented research project at Radboud University on biophysical modeling will receive a grant from NWO. The project will make it possible to create faster, more specific maps of the brain.
The grant falls under NWO’s Open Technology Program. This provides funding for application-oriented technical-scientific research that is free and unfettered and unhampered by disciplinary boundaries. The program offers companies and other organizations a low-threshold way to join scientific research that should lead to societal and/or scientific impact.
A total of six research projects will start in this round, including one at Radboud University. The projects will collectively receive over 4 million euros from NWO, supplemented by 350,000 euros from industry and other organizations.
Faster, more specific maps of the brain
The project, titled "Quantitative Imaging that (white) Matters: Taking Biophysical Modeling to Clinical Application," is led by José Marques, a researcher at Radboud University’s Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging. Co-applicant is David Norris.
’Quantitative Imaging’ combines several recent developments in MRI image acquisition and modeling of tissue properties to obtain faster and more specific quantitative maps of the brain. Marques and team will demonstrate this by characterizing tissue properties in various neurovascular, neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. To achieve this, the researchers are collaborating with clinical and industrial partners in the field of MRI image acquisition and MRI analysis. This results in open science software to extract quantitative markers that can be used directly in clinical imaging.
