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History

The Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping (CFMM) at Western’s Robarts Research Institute is Canada’s National Ultra-High Field MRI Platform.  The CFMM is an internationally renowned neuroimaging research centre that houses some of the most sophisticated MRI instrumentation in the world including Canada’s only collection of high-field (3T human) and ultra-high field (7T human and 9.4T animal) MR systems, including a world class team of experts in MRI technical development and application. The Centre’s primary focus is to establish the anatomical, metabolic and functional characteristics of normal brain development and healthy aging across the lifespan in both human and animal populations; as well as establishing the brain basis of developmental, neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative deficits in clinical populations. The CFMM also supports and partners in several other research clinical collaborations with focus on MSK, cardiac and liver disease, as well as actively participating in over 20 industry sponsored clinical trials in the past 5 years.

Established in 1996, at a cost of $6M in a partnership between Robarts and University Hospital, the CFMM, now operating as an institutional core research facility, houses and maintains state-of-the-art research infrastructure exceeding $25M. An annual operating budget of $2.5M supports the operation of the core – this includes a staff of 14 highly qualified personnel (incl Research Scientists, RF and Software Engineers, MRI Technologists, Animal Care Specialists and a dedicated Research Coordinator) who aid with all aspects of the research process. The operating budget also helps support development and maintenance of equipment as well as upgrades.

Since inception, the CFMM has collaborated and supported research projects to well over 100 peer-reviewed grant funded principal investigators. Over the past 10 years, CFMM projects have received funding by over 110 NSERC Discovery and CIHR Foundation and Project grants in addition to support from dozens of other granting agencies. The CFMM is the only research core at Western and indeed, in Canada, that has continuously been supported by multi-user equipment and maintenance grants from NSERC, CIHR and Brain Canada, has been praised for its’ operations in two international reviews and has consistently been ranked highly as best core facility in Canada,

1999 – NSERC Major Facilities Access competition #1

1999 – MRC Multi-User Maintenance & Equipment Grant Competition #1

2002 – CIHR Multi-User Maintenance & Equipment Grant Competition #2

2007 – CIHR Research Resource Competition #2

2016, 2020 – Brain Canada Platform Support #1 (Funding 1:1 match with Western)

It is also the only successful Western application in the Brain Canada Platform Support Grant program, ranked #1 (2016 and 2020), receiving $5.8M in funding to further enhance and support research infrastructure. The facility is also heavily supported by the BrainsCAN CFREF grant as neuroimaging is an essential tool in modern cognitive neuroscience.

As one of the primary CFREF BrainsCAN elite cores the CFMM provides a unique funding model giving BrainsCAN-aligned researchers increased access to state-of-the-art facilities, facilitating high-quality experimental outputs. Direct impact from this funding over the past 3 years has enabled and supported more than 80 principal investigators and 400 trainees, across 7 Western faculties and 4 London hospitals, resulting in >240 publications (https://cfmm.uwo.ca/research/CFMM_Publications.html).

The CFMM plays an international role in the development and application of many MRI techniques for neuroscience in large part because the research programs of the imaging physics faculty (who themselves are leaders in major neuroscience initiatives such the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) and the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI)) are heavily integrated with the interests of the basic and clinical neuroscientists. These neuroscientists are in turn leaders in the application and analysis of sophisticated MRI techniques. Partnership in these large-scale initiatives as well as the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform (CONP) help the development of databases and sharing protocols that allow researchers from all over Canada to access state-of-the-art data. Similar initiatives are now occurring for non-human primates and rodents and the CFMM will play a part in establishing such resources with Brain Canada support.