The Centre for Brain Research (CBM) in Kraków is formed by a team of neurologists, biomedical engineers, psychiatrists, cognitive scientists, computer scientists and philosophers from the Jagiellonian University (UJ) and the University Hospital, who combine clinical potential with the potential of experimental research.
According to Prof Michal Wierzchoń, director of the CBM, the unit is designed to integrate research conducted at the Jagiellonian University. “We wanted it not to be a project of a narrow group of people from one department. We wanted to build a synergy between the activities carried out in different units of the university and give them the opportunity to develop this research in one place”, he added.
The Centre is an interdepartmental organisational unit of three faculties Medicine, Philosophy and Management and Social Communication at the Jagiellonian University and the UJ Collegium Medicum.
The Krakow university emphasises that it is one of its flagship projects, which propose innovative forms of scientific activity that combine research with education and cooperation with the socio-economic environment. The CBM aims to lower the barriers between science and medical practice and to explore the secrets of human brain function.
At the heart of the CBM there is a magnetic resonance imaging station with a state-of-the-art scanner designed for scientific studies of the central nervous system including a Siemens 3-Tesla Prisma instrument used in the world’s top science centres. The instrument is equipped with a comprehensive coil and sequence system for head diagnostics, which enables advanced structural studies under different contrasts.
The centre is also equipped with an electroencephalograph, which will allow us to study the brain in MRI with a much better temporal resolution.
“This equipment allows us to image brain function very accurately. With the modern software installed, we are able to do this much more precisely than with the equipment we had before”, emphasises the CBM director.
Adrian Andrzejewski