IHE Summit Series with Derek Jones

Connectivity at 64 mT: New Frontiers in Low‑Field MRI and the Road to Democratized Neuroimaging Research

For decades, cutting‑edge neuroimaging has been tethered to high‑resource environments, where advanced MRI capabilities depend on scanners that are costly to purchase, maintain, and operate. Although low‑field (<100 mT) MRI has recently undergone a remarkable resurgence, commercially available systems have largely focused on point‑of‑care clinical diagnostics rather than the demands of modern neuroimaging research.

In this talk, Derek will chart our team’s journey—complete with its challenges, missteps, and breakthroughs—to push 64 mT MRI far beyond qualitative imaging and toward the rich quantitative insights traditionally reserved for high‑field systems.

He will showcase our progress in recovering complex fibre configurations, performing sophisticated tractography, and even quantifying microstructural properties along white‑matter pathways, in an approach we term tractometry. Yet as commercial system prices continue to rise, true democratization remains out of reach for many.

Derek will conclude by outlining our future roadmap, supported by a Wellcome Discovery Award, to build an accessible low‑field platform that opens advanced neuroimaging research to labs everywhere.

We will conclude the event with an hour networking with refreshments.