The Brain Research Imaging Centre is located in the Division of Clinical Neurosciences (DCN), University of Edinburgh at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. It was opened in January 1998 to provide a centre for collaborative research to be used by universities and clinicians in Scotland and the North of England. It was established with funding from the then Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC, now Scottish Funding Council (SFC)), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the University of Edinburgh and industrial collaborators (General Electric, Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis and Schering Health Care), supported by Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust and substantial donations from the public.

The Centre was officially opened by Ms Susan Deacon MSP, the first Scottish Minister for Health and Community Care on 12th May 2000. Since then the Centre has received help and funding from many other areas, for which we are extremely grateful.

The BRIC success in collaborative working lead to the formation of the research focused University of Edinburgh Brain Imaging Interdisciplinary Research Group. This lead to the formation of the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences.

The Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences (CCBS) was established in 2004. Its mission is "to promote excellence in research and training of an internationally competitive standing in brain disorders". The main areas of clinical research focus on stroke, major affective disorders, and multiple sclerosis. Imaging research underpins a great deal of this work. One of the main constitutent elements of the CCBS is housed within the Brain Research Imaging Centre.

In 2004 the Brain Research Imaging Centre project administration mechanisms merged with the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, Edinburgh, project administration. This collaboration helps reduce duplication in project administration, standardization, Clinical Research Governance, across clinical research in Edinburgh and much more.  

 

 

During 2007 - 2008 the Centre went through a major scanner upgrade, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and the Multiple Sclerosis Society, for which we are extremely grateful.

 

In 2008 we lead the formation of SINAPSE (Scottish Imaging Network - A Platform for Scientific Excellence) a major innovative new collaboration of imaging centres throughout Scotland, that aims to build capacity in imaging research at Senior and Junior level, facilitate multi-centre imaging research and advance imaging science. SINAPSE is funded by the Scottish Funding Council and Chief Scientists Office (7.5 million pounds) plus 35 million pounds investment by the six collaborating Universities.

 

BRIC has grown significantly with substantial increase in image analylsis, image processing and statistics research while continuing to provide very high quality MRI image data. We run several courses including an MSc in Neuroimaging for Research, CPD modules, mush of it available online, provide downloadable advice on research methods and image analysis tools. BRIC currently supports 42 staff and students in house, plus students, post docs and senior research programmers in many other divisions across Edinburgh, including Psychiatry, Stroke Medicine, Genetics, Psychology, Informatics, Diabetes to name a few. We have scanned well over 15,000 subjects in research projects, attracted over 10 million pounds in grant funding and has been instrumental in attracting major new infrastructure initiatives such as CRIC, CCACE and new University of Edinburgh Centre for In Vivo Imaging Sciences.