3T imaging system

Steve Williams, Professor of Imaging Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) and Founder as well as Co-director of the Centre for Neuroimaging, was awarded over £1 million by Maudsley Charity towards a new 3T imaging system that collects psychiatric neuroimaging data and uses this to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of mental illness.

The introduction of the 3T imaging system, based in the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences at the Maudsley Hospital, has assisted Professor Williams in continuing the Centre's pioneering work in designing and delivering new diagnosic and prognostic markers for mental illness.

For example, the new imaging based biomarkers have a greater than 90% accuracy for the diagnosis of autism, 85% specificity for the diagnosis of major depression and 80% sensitivity in the prediction of response to conventional antidepressant medication.

Professor Williams says: "It is our aspiration that psychiatry patients and subjects at risk of mental illness will be benchmarked against this organic database.

We expect our data to become an important, international resource for reference at the magnetic field strength that we believe will become the new gold standard in psychiatric neuroimaging."

The Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences is a joint venture of the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) and the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLAM). The centre provides, under one roof, an interdisciplinary research environment that combines the development of contemporary, high resolution structural, functional and metabolic mapping techniques, with expertise in the definition, diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders.